br />Xerox is one of the largest companies in the document processing products and
services industry. Xerox held a virtual monopoly in the plain-paper copier market until the
Federal Trade Commission intervened. In 1975 Xerox was forced to forfeit patent
protection and had to license to competitors. Xerox markets share dipped from 80% in
1976 to 13% in 1982. In order to become more competitive, Xerox began to use
benchmarking, Leadership through Quality and employee involvement initiatives. These
initiatives helped grow Xerox market share back to 18% in the low end copier business
and 35% in the mid-to-high end. Despite the improvements in market share the financial
performance of the company declined. Therefore in 1992 a major reorganization was
planned, Xerox would change from a geographic organization to a market segment
organization.
Xerox corporate information management (CIM) unit was established in the early 1970s.
In 1987, CIM was moved to the General Services Division and was given the task to
Provide the overall information technology leadership to the company. The leader of the
CIM group quickly realized the task was not possible without significant organizational
change. After bringing in consultants to review the Information Management at Xerox, the
director of CIM realized the Xerox IM infrastructure could not support the company
strategic direction. To address the IM problems, CIM started a new initiative, IM 2000.
The goal of IM 2000 was to move Xerox to a new information systems infrastructure.
The problems found with Information Management at Xerox
Aging application portfolio built on proprietary technologies
Large cost associated with keeping legacy system running
Duplicate work caused by corporate cultu