Case Answers

Name
Affiliation

Organizational problems that Anne Mulcahy faced in trying to increase Xeroxs efficiency
and effectiveness
Mulcay was faced by with high level of aggressive competitions. In the early 2000s, there
were many well-known copier companies that had dictated the market. The competitors sold
their products at low price and this made them to be dominant competitors. Xerox did not have
digital copying machines which made it impossible to expand due to low produce and high cost
of production. Xerox was operating at very high operating cost which lead to wastages of billions
of dollars (Schulze, 2011). She was faced with a challenge of deciding on which area of
production to start to innovate the remaining dollars, and develop new digital copiers that could
help to win back customers and maintain their loyalty. Mulcay did not have skilled workforce.
The company had failed to recruit worker with acceptable skills. The employees in place lacked
the performance indicators which could help the company to maintain efficient and effective uses
of the available raw materials. Mulcay being a woman was another challenge because the male
counterpart take them as inferior being. Xerox had an increasing number of female workforce
and for these reason the male had a feeling of intimation. Mulcay has a challenge to ensure that
assertive actions were created and redefining the company culture to ensure that discrimination
will not be acceptable (McGrath, 2010).
Changes that Anne Mulcahy made to structure Xeroxs organizational
Mulcahys decided to come with a strategy that ensured most of R&D budget to
develop two different kinds of digital copiers. These were to transform the company products to
gain a high quality brands. These machines was to be used by both middle and large business
line to ensure that the products offered were of high quality, produced faster and price friendly to
be able to stand the competitive advantages I the market. She secondly decided to set more

resources to develop new network that enabled high sales and services offering to improve their
customers services. Anne Mulcahy later made a decision of remove certain Xeroxs level
management hierarchy where he maintain a reduction 26% of total corporate overhead. She
come with retrenching strategies those employees who were proactive. The number of employees
was reduced from 95,000 to 55,000 to reduce the total operation cost of the company. Mulcahy
decided to work hand in hand with her manager where they decided to come up with plans and
strategy to save the company (Schulze, 2011). They decided to collaborate and working together
with the other employees to help improving level of production and service delivery. This
motivated the employees to work extra hard because they filed recognized. This steps helps the
company to grow in terms of revenues and profits.
Ways in which Mulcahys attempted to redesign and change Xerox have worked to date.
Mulcahy developed strategies that attempted to work closely with the final consumers
of the products and services. Customers are the boss to any business and therefore any farm that
is aiming to grow and develop it should put into account all the customers needs and desire.
Mulcahy changed the managements hierarchy are removed those parts that were related and less
effectives. A well described legitimate power should be put into consideration and try to avoid
placing unnecessary level of command. She introduced new digital hardware and software
copying machines which promoted productions and increased sales (Chesbrough, 2010). Any
business that want to achieve development should adopt to new technologies and innovation. She
helped replicate Xeroxs customer base and sales which that were contributed by increased
customized services.

References
Chesbrough, H. (2010). Business model innovation: opportunities and barriers. Long range
planning, 43(2), 354-363.
McGrath, R. G. (2010). Business models: a discovery driven approach. Long range planning,
43(2), 247-261.
Schulze, B. M. (2011). U.S. Patent No. 6,167,369. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office.