Xerox Corporation
Xerox Corporation, established in 1906 and headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut, is a global leader in business technology and outsourcing services, particularly known for its document management solutions. Initially founded as the Haloid Photographic Company, Xerox made a significant impact in the business world with the introduction of the first automatic plain-paper photocopier in 1959. This innovation revolutionized document reproduction, leading to an explosive growth in the demand for its products. Over the decades, Xerox has evolved from primarily manufacturing copiers to providing a diverse range of outsourcing services, especially after acquiring Affiliated Computer Services in 2009.
The company has faced challenges, including financial struggles in the late 1990s and market share losses due to increased competition. However, it has consistently sought to innovate and adapt, evidenced by its introduction of digital photocopiers and multifunction machines. Xerox is notable for its contributions to workplace diversity and has implemented initiatives like the "Wilson Rule," promoting equal opportunity in management hiring. The term "Xerox" has become synonymous with copying, highlighting its cultural impact. As of 2023, under the leadership of CEO Steve Bandrowczak, Xerox continues to navigate the evolving landscape of technology and business services.
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Xerox Corporation
- Date Founded: 1906
- Industry: Business Technology and Outsourcing Services
- Corporate Headquarters: Norwalk, Connecticut
- Type: Public
Overview
Xerox Corporation, headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut, is a multinational leader in business process and information technology outsourcing document management services. The company has offices in over 160 countries, more than 24,700 employees, and 11,713 active patents.
The company was founded in Rochester, New York, in 1906 as the Haloid Photographic Company to manufacture photographic paper. But it took more than half a century before Xerox became a significant presence in the business world. After introducing the first automatic plain-paper photocopier in 1959, the company grew dramatically through the 1960s and early 1970s as demand for its products exploded and a whole new industry was born. Through the 1960s and early 1970s, the company innovated constantly, developing faster and better copiers with new features.
Xerox struggled for periods during the 1980s and 1990s. The acquisition of a large outsourcing services company in 2009 changed the nature of the company.
History
The Haloid Photographic Company was founded in 1906 by George C. Seager. The company originally manufactured photographic paper, carving out a niche in the shadow of its giant neighbor, Eastman Kodak.
Chester Carlson, a patent attorney, invented xerography in 1938. The term was coined to mean an easier way to duplicate information on paper. It combines two Greek words and means "dry writing." Carlson had tired of filling out multiple identical copies of documents by hand or with carbon paper and was looking for a way to simplify this process. Carlson failed to persuade dozens of companies, including IBM, RCA, and GE, of the potential for a new duplicating technology. After pounding the pavement for years, he ultimately met Joseph C. Wilson of the Haloid Company in 1944. Wilson saw the potential of Carlson’s invention, and they collaborated to create the first xerographic machine, which was brought to market in 1948. The ultimate vision of Carlson was "to make office work a little simpler, a little less tedious and a little more productive," and his invention launched Xerox.
The company subsequently changed its name to Haloid Xerox in 1958, which was shortened in 1961 to Xerox Corporation. The company (then known as Haloid) had its first public offering of stock in 1936, and Xerox’s stock was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1961.
The Xerox 914 photocopier, which the company started selling in 1959, was the culmination of more than two decades of experimentation following Carlson’s invention of xerography in 1938. It was called the 914 because it could make copies of sheets up to 9-by-14 inches in size. It was the first automatic plain-paper copier, and hundreds of thousands of units were sold over time. Previously, twenty million copies were printed in the United States annually. The 914 resulted in this number increasing to fourteen billion copies by 1966. Some have suggested that the 914 is the most successful commercial product in history.
The company introduced the first desktop plain-paper copier, the Xerox 813, in 1963. Updated and improved versions of the 914 and 813 followed in subsequent years, and a basic color copier was introduced in 1973.
Xerox’s growth during that period was spectacular. The company’s sales were $33 million in 1959; just two years later, sales had doubled to $66 million. By 1963, sales had jumped to $176 million, and in 1966, they exceeded half a billion dollars.
The company continued to grow and innovate, earning record profits each year from 1973 to 1975. However, following the 1975 settlement of an anti-trust suit by the US government, the company was forced to license its patents to competitors, many of which were Japanese companies. As a result, Xerox’s share of the copier market declined rapidly in the following years.
During the 1980s, Xerox prospered by improving and updating its product line and by introducing electric memory typewriters. The acquisition of the insurance company Crum & Forster in 1983 provided the foundation for Xerox Financial Services. In the 1990s, Xerox developed digital photocopiers and later introduced multifunction machines, which were high-quality photocopies that also functioned as fax machines and printers. But the company struggled financially in the late 1990s as new technologies were rapidly being introduced, and increased foreign competition drove down profit margins.
In 2001, Anne Mulcahy was promoted to CEO of Xerox. She worked to aggressively cut costs, reduce debt, and return the company to profitability. But the company only shifted its strategy significantly following the appointment in 2009 of Ursula M. Burns as Mulcahy’s successor.
Xerox acquired Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), a company specializing in business process outsourcing (BPO), for $6.4 billion in early 2009, shortly after Burns became CEO. BPO is the back-office, paper-intensive work required at most companies and government agencies, including payroll processing; benefits administration; medical insurance claims; automatic toll transactions; customer care centers; and mortgage loan servicing. In buying ACS, Xerox’s ambition was to make a major push into the outsourcing services market.
By the early 2010s, outsourcing services had become an increasingly important part of Xerox’s business, and sales of business technology products had declined to less than thirty percent of the company’s sales. In 2016, the company split its outsourcing services into a new publicly traded company, Conduent Incorporated, which also provided other business services. Meanwhile, Xerox remained publicly traded during this time, but in 2021, after sixty years of trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), it began trading on NASDAQ instead.
The company made other moves to grow and compete in the 2010s and into the 2020s. In 2018, Japanese conglomerate Fujifilm almost purchased a majority stake in Xerox, but the deal later fell through amid resistance from some investors. The following year, Xerox attempted a hostile takeover of computer and printer manufacturer HP, Inc., though the company suspended this effort in 2020 following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Also in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, Xerox was concerned about how a new hybrid workplace model would affect their business and profits, though, in 2023, the company announced the modified workplace conditions had not affected their financial outlook.
In 2024, Xerox decreased its workforce by 15 percent, restructured the organization, and implemented a new operating model. Several changes were also made to the leadership team. These restructuring activities cost Xerox $51 million in the first six months of the year. As part of the operating model changes, the company implemented new solutions to support hybrid workers and improve efficiency.
Impact
The word Xerox became synonymous with copying and is now in the dictionary, used as both a noun and a verb. Following the introduction of the Xerox 914 in 1959, the number of copies printed in the United States multiplied 700-fold in just seven years.
The Xerox story is also one of missed opportunities. Xerox’s fabled Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), which was opened in 1970 to conduct scientific research, invented many products and concepts that were ignored by Xerox and ultimately used by other companies. The computer mouse, the desktop computer, the graphical user interface (GUI), the Ethernet, and laser printing were some of PARC’s notable creations. Steve Jobs of Apple visited the laboratory in 1979 and immediately saw the potential of some of these innovations. Apple’s initial success was attributed in part to PARC inventions that Xerox failed to exploit. In 2023, Xerox CEO Steve Bandrowczak announced the company was donating PARC to a non-profit research institute, SRI International.
The company has a long history of encouraging diversity among its employees. In August 2015, Xerox introduced the "Wilson Rule," named after Joseph C. Wilson, who ran the company from 1946 to 1967, and who was a strong proponent of equal opportunity in the workplace. The Wilson rule requires that women and people of color be among the qualified pool of candidates for every open management position in the United States. In 2009, Ursula Burns became CEO of Xerox, making her the first African American woman to head a large US company. At a meeting at the White House in 2015, President Barack Obama lauded Xerox’s diversity efforts. In addition, Xerox offers Technical Minority Scholarships to students of color enrolled in a technical degree program. Xerox has earned the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Equality 100 award more than twenty times for its continued workplace diversity and inclusion excellence. Additionally, the company supports the nonprofit sector with significant donations and over 40,000 volunteer hours each year.
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