Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A)
A rewritten version of an earlier case, Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program. Does not provide an update and no new content is added. The new (A) and (B) case structure merely isolates the service guarantee issue.
Swot Analysis of "Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A)" written by Melvyn A.J. Menezes, Jon D. Serbin includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Xerox Satisfaction facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Customer service, Customers and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Xerox Satisfaction, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Xerox Satisfaction operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Xerox Satisfaction
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Sales & Marketing field.
4. Making a Sales & Marketing topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Xerox Satisfaction
Strengths Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Xerox Satisfaction in Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Xerox Satisfaction is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Xerox Satisfaction in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Xerox Satisfaction has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Xerox Satisfaction is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Xerox Satisfaction has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Xerox Satisfaction has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Diverse revenue streams
– Xerox Satisfaction is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Xerox Satisfaction in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Xerox Satisfaction has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Xerox Satisfaction is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Xerox Satisfaction is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Xerox Satisfaction digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Xerox Satisfaction has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Xerox Satisfaction in the sector have low bargaining power. Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Xerox Satisfaction to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Xerox Satisfaction to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Xerox Satisfaction to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Xerox Satisfaction
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Xerox Satisfaction does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Xerox Satisfaction needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Xerox Satisfaction has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Xerox Satisfaction 's lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A), in the dynamic environment Xerox Satisfaction has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Xerox Satisfaction has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Xerox Satisfaction products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Xerox Satisfaction needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Xerox Satisfaction has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Xerox Satisfaction has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Xerox Satisfaction even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A), is just above the industry average. Xerox Satisfaction needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Xerox Satisfaction has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A), it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Sales & Marketing strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Xerox Satisfaction has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Opportunities Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Xerox Satisfaction has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Xerox Satisfaction to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Xerox Satisfaction to increase its market reach. Xerox Satisfaction will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Loyalty marketing
– Xerox Satisfaction has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Sales & Marketing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Xerox Satisfaction can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Xerox Satisfaction can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Xerox Satisfaction can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Xerox Satisfaction has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Xerox Satisfaction to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) case study. Xerox Satisfaction can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Xerox Satisfaction can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Xerox Satisfaction to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Xerox Satisfaction can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Xerox Satisfaction operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Sales & Marketing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Xerox Satisfaction can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Xerox Satisfaction can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Xerox Satisfaction in the consumer business. Now Xerox Satisfaction can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Xerox Satisfaction to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Threats Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) are -
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Xerox Satisfaction will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Xerox Satisfaction needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Xerox Satisfaction high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Increasing wage structure of Xerox Satisfaction
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Xerox Satisfaction.
Environmental challenges
– Xerox Satisfaction needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Xerox Satisfaction can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Xerox Satisfaction in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Xerox Satisfaction can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Sales & Marketing field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Xerox Satisfaction can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Xerox Satisfaction demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Regulatory challenges
– Xerox Satisfaction needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Sales & Marketing industry regulations.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Xerox Satisfaction business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program (A) is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Xerox Satisfaction needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.