Summarize the answer for all 5 questions between 1000 to 1300 words only in total.

1. What microenvironmental factors have affected Xerox's performance since the late 1990s? Microenvironmental factors of the organization consists of those elements which are controllable by the management which are competitors, customers, suppliers, public, marketing intermediaries or workers and their union! Until the late 1990's Xerox corporation was the sole main company, kind of a monopoly which used to manufacture photocopy machines. This led to soaring stock prices until some microenvironmental factors affected the performance of the corporation. The most important factor was the failure to adapt to it's rapidly changing marketing environment. Xerox corporation was almost the sole company to produce copiers at that time. It never imposed any market barriers but the company was kind of a price setter as there was no other competition in the market. All this ultimately resulted in the organization not paying much attention to better quality products, low manufacturing costs and customer satisfaction and retention. When consumers started having better substitutes which were much more advanced in technology, Xerox lost it's entire market power in no time. It seems that the theory of the survival of the fittest holds good in this non-biological world known as market. Where the world was going entirely digital, Xerox corporation was failing to develop and commercialize new technologies for their customers. Rather than pumping out and distributing stacks of black-and-white copies, their competitors were creating digital documents and were sharing them electronically. Meanwhile Xerox was still busy in perfecting copy machines, customers were looking for more sophisticated document management solutions." Competitors like IBM, Apple, Microsoft, etc. provided more sophisticated document management solutions. Also companies like Sharp, Cannon, HP, Ricoh, etc were gradually increasing their shares. Finally the inability of the company to cope up with the turbulent market strategies led to the financial crisis and minimal scope. All this led to a huge step by the CEO, to sustain the organisation, by laying off people from the manufacturing department which was although a moral decline, but in almost 4 years, after downsizing was done by 50% , it finally made the company return to profits in just few years span. Also the concept of marketing through intermediaries helped, where Xerox marketed its products via Office Depot, Office Max, and Staples and provided them with attractive profit margins. The other traumatic factor was "NOT ABLE TO SATISFY IT'S OWN CUSTOMERS". Customers are god for any organisation. It is highly important the retain them by fulfilling their wants and needs. Unfortunately Xerox corporation was unsuccessful in doing so. Customs are the main actors in any market environment. The aim of this entire value delivery network is to serve target customers wisely and create strong relationships with them. The organization was already weak in their customer relationship management as they were delivering poor customer value and satisfaction. Xerox customers no longer relied on the company flagship products- standalone copiers. Customers rejected Xerox technology because they were looking for more sophisticated document management solutions" rather than print black and white copies. They were looking for a lot more flexible solutions which can scan the documents in one country and weave them into colorful and customizable showpieces in another location and which can finally get printed on demand from anywhere. All these requirements, Xerox Corporation was not able to fulfill their own customer's desires due to no money and very few prospects which led to tremendous and steep decrease in their profits and stock price. 2. What macroenvironmental factors have affected Xerox's performance during that same period? Macro environment factors refers to all external uncontrollable forces that affect the decision-making, strategies and performance of any organization. These factors include the economic factors, demographics, legal, political, and social conditions, technological changes and natural forces. The company was doing good through the late 1990's when the three major macro environmental factors hit the corporation affecting the performance of the organization, which were technological advancements, demographic changes and expectations and cultural shift. Technological advancement is extremely necessary to keep the market in balance. Innovation helps in creating new technologies, creating new products and generating better market opportunities. Innovative technologies allowed the company's competitors to provide a variety of product which Xerox was not offering before. When Burns ad the Xerox crew understood the importance of innovation, they started developing new products and endless customer focus groups which focused on knowing the customers and technology together. The company understood that ultimately innovation is about delighting the customer and understanding customers is just as important as understanding technology. With the introduction of more than 110 new innovative new products in teh past , Xerox isn't just focused on trying to make better copiers. Rather, it is focused on improving any process that a business or government needs to perform and perform it much more efficiently. Xerox is thinking everywhere. The company has no limits now. With already thousands of innovation in progress, they still abide by maintaining a sustainable environment. This $17 billion company, provides the document industry's broadest portfolio of offerings. Digital systems include color and black-and-white printing and publishing systems, digital presses and "book factories(which are custom made build to order books)," multifunction devices, laser and solid ink network printers, copiers and fax machines. Xerox's services expertise is unmatched and includes helping businesses develop online document archives, analyzing how employees can most efficiently share documents and knowledge in the office, operating in-house print shops or mailrooms, and building Web-based processes for personalizing direct mail, invoices, brochures and more. Xerox also offers associated software, support and supplies such as toner, paper and ink. The company has even found a perfect balance between innovating in house and outsourcing certain services like enterprise content management, print services and certain communication solutions to reduce cost, drive efficiency, shorten time to revenue, and enhance the customers' experience. Demographic factors included the study of human population in terms of size, density, location, age, gender, race, occupation and other statistics. Our hum race is evolving at lightening speed. With better educated and skill based population, there has been a tremendous increase in the need of innovation and sophisticated solution. All these factors led to Xerox rethinking, redefining and reinventing itself. Also in future if the company wants to expand business, customers would be desiring much more reliable, trusted and a faster document management solutions. Economic factors also influenced such as the era of the Great Recession. The recession severely depressed Xerox's core printing and copying equipment and services business, and the company's sales and stock price tumbled again. Lastly, we can clearly see a cultural shift happening in our society. Where we used to write letters or document everything important. Fax machines were used to communicate from one system to another at different locations. All these outdated forms of sharing have been replaced by emails and latest tech cloud sharing methods. As business processes are getting faster, companies require solutions which are less time-consuming with minimal effort, so that they can concentrate on their real business. Xerox has started thinking out of the box since few years and have solutions in progress to some real world hassles. We look forward in few years to actual implementation of these solutions. For example, Xerox's new-era machines have been developed to read and understand the documents they scan, reducing complex tasks that once took weeks down to minutes or even seconds. Testing of the product is still in progress. 3. By focusing on the business services industry, has Xerox pursued the best strategy? Why or why not? Yes, Xerox did pursue the best strategy according to me, by focusing on the business services industry. The company which was bankrupt , had no money and literally no new prospects emerged out to be one of the fortune 500 companies today. Burns must have been a visionary. The kind of distress the company was in , I truly think she took a good decision to cut manufacturing staff and generate revenue for the company first. For Xerox corporation, to shed off that extra weight and become a lean organization was necessary. There were loads of salespeople employed at stores where there were no products to be sold. These people were just employed on company salary and were worsening the customer relationship with the Xerox Consumers. Laying off these people was a good call. Also she Burns never compromised on the quality of the product, she knew exactly how many workers needs to be laid off from the manufacturing department not affecting the quality of the product. So I truly believe the strategy of analyzing before taking action, which proved to be a good call for the organization and it was restored back to profits in less than four years. It was an extremely bold decision by Burns by changing it's course from a copier company to a document management company. The factors like technological advancement, management failure, customer dissatisfaction and changing market scenarios led to the disaster what Xerox faced in 1990's. It was extremely important for Xerox to realize that customers want something else which the company was not offering. The company focused on the business services industry and started their research and innovation which focused on the customer needs. Xerox learned that customers didn't want just copiers, they wanted easier, faster, and less costly ways to share documents and information. Xerox underwent a remarkable transformation. It stopped defining itself as a "copier company. In fact, it even stopped making standalone copiers. Instead, Xerox began billing itself as the world's leading document management technology and services enterprise. The company's newly minted mission was to help companies be smarter about their documents." By doing all this, Xerox strategy has led to fruition and it's profits and stock price began to show signs of recovery. Also Xerox acquiring Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) was a good strategy for the company as it resulted in a broader portfolio of customer-focused products, software, and services that helped the company's customers manage documents and information much more efficiently. 4. What alternative strategy might Xerox have followed in responding to the first signs of declining revenues and profits? Xerox corporation, being the topmost and the only company to have their first paper copier must have felt all settled and secure in the market. The first stroke of risk started when IBM emerged as a competitor. It all started around in April, 1970 when IBM introduced an office copying machine, giving Xerox its first real competition. IBM's machine was not as fast or as sophisticated as the Xerox copiers, but it was well built and was backed by IBM's reputation. Instead of reacting to the scenarios of the market and acting accordingly by researching about the competitor's product, Xerox responded with a lawsuit charging IBM with patent infringement. The dispute was settled in 1978 when IBM paid Xerox $25 million. Meanwhile, Xerox itself became a defendant in several antitrust violation investigations, including a lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission. All this legal battles resulted in Xerox having major distractions from the market. Xerox lost its lead in the industry when Kodak came out with a more sophisticated copier. IBM and Kodak followed a strategy similar to that of Xerox, leasing their machines and attracting many large accounts on which Xerox depended. The major step which Xerox should have taken at that particular time was to carry out it's marketing strategies to do a thorough competitor analysis. By performing surveys among consumers would have helped to know the company regarding the products they like. Learning about the competitors in the industry is the most important strategy of doing business. It is highly important to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors and act accordingly. When the revenue and stock price of their competitors increased, they should have analyzed the root cause of their downfall and should have focused on customer needs at that time. The customer focus groups which were made at a much later stage within the company, should have been developed around 1970's, so that instead of focusing on law suits, they should have focused more on the growth of their organization. Xerox corporation became totally inefficient during this time, as its executives had concentrated too heavily on growth during the 1960s. Xerox had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on product development but introduced very few new products. Engineers and designers were divided into small groups that fought over details as they missed deadlines. While the company sought to perfect the copying machine, it failed to challenge the new products on the market, and Xerox's market share dropped. Hiring the right people in the industry was necessary. Instead of focusing more on growth and spending money on product development, it was much more important to understand the customers needs rather than understand the technology. If the company would have filled those potholes in the first signs of declining revenue, they might have avoided the organisation's bankruptcy. 5. Given Xerox's current situation, what recommendations would you make to Burns for the future of Xerox? It is the most crucial thing to not repeat it's mistakes again. I would definitely recommend Xerox corporation to continue doing it's research and development, probably in a more dedicated way. I understand they are coming up with lot many innovative ideas. But to make these ideas realistic and practical would be a tough job for the organization. Hiring the right people and allocating more resources in the R&D team would definitely help speed up the process. It is important to continuously perform researches and try to keep developing innovative products and services by applying new technologies. I understand they have the customer focus groups, but there should be much more dedicated teams in marketing which understands the trends and customer wants, needs and their demands. It is important to understand the supply and demand relationship in the market. If the product's demand is getting declined, there has to be definite reasons behind it. Understanding those reasons are important and constantly monitoring the demand graph is important. Hence the company needs a much more focused market specialists studying the market all round the clock. Also staying in touch with the consumers is important. Listening to their problems and needs would definitely help Xerox corporation to provide effective solutions. Company can even try to expand it's business by developing different products and solutions for different industries. For example the company needs to target those areas and industries which needs improvement in document management and then it can go into market segmentation. Hence it means that instead of focusing into the business services industry, it can even provide solutions for education industry, health care industry, BMV offices, parking sector and all those areas which involves administrative processes. Xerox corporations can expand it's business by focusing more on the enterprise customers, governments and small businesses. Xerox can help provide solutions to all these different domains , so that they can straighten up and focus on their real business. Xerox corporation has not been so good in making decisions involving where to put money in. When the company should have used their financial resources in development and growth, it was busy filing lawsuits. The company even used it's resources for a long duration of time improving it's copiers without realizing that consumers no longer need them any more. It is extremely important to make strategies before any implementation. So there is process called "Portfolio analysis" which has been devised to help associations bridge the gap between strategy formulation and strategy implementation. In other words, it helps company to make the hard choices of where to put their money. Portfolio analysis is a systematic way to analyze the products and services that make up an association's business portfolio. Each business consists of a portfolio of products and services. Portfolio analysis helps to decide which of these products and services should be emphasized and which should be phased out. They prepare a growth share matrix, which helps the company in deciding which products to build, hold, harvest or divest. They have already indulged in providing environmentally friendly solutions. They can make their consumers understand their social responsibility towards the environment and help conduct their business processes electronically, thus creating a paperless environment. That awareness to reduce the usage of papers for business processes can be promoted by the corporation