Micro-factores ambientales que influyen en el rendimiento de Xerox

The numerous threats from the market environment forced Xerox to reassess the needs of its prospects and its own competitive strengths and weaknesses. Xerox decided to change various aspects of its competitive strategy. A fundamental strategic change was to reposition the company in a position of technological leader in the industry of office automation. The management decided to expand the solid foundations of Xerox in the photocopier industry by developing a complete line of integrated information processing equipment. With that purpose in mind, the company increased its research and development program, and emphasized the development of new products.

Some of the micro-environmental factors that affected Xerox's performance since the late nineties include customers, competitors, and the company. The first factor affecting the performance of Xerox was the customers. With the start of new technologies, customers rely on tools that streamline their job, communicate in seconds, and allow them to store information in very small spaces. Consumers prefer these technologies because it offers great benefits such as sustainability and conservation of information, reliability, security, and information protection. The email, digital documents, digital signature and electronic media, have led to changes in the working methods and procedures. The emergence of these technologies has been a shift from paper to the use of electronic pulses and integrated circuits. Besides costumers, competitors are another micro-environmental factor that affected the performance of the company. With new competitors, new benefits were offered to customers; Xerox found itself in disadvantage and had to find a way to upgrade its services. Other companies had better technologies than the offered by Xerox, so other companies have services that were more sophisticated to customers. The third micro-environmental factor that influenced the performance of Xerox in conjunction with customers and competitors was the company. Employees who were in charge of research and development were also a factor affecting the performance of the company. Research and development is an essential part of the expansion of new products. It was necessary to hire and train skilled employees to implement new technologies.

Several macro-environmental factors affected Xerox's performance since the late nineties. The first was the economical factor. Xerox faced a financial scandal in 2005 when the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) discovered through audits that managers distorted and manipulated financial information from the financial statements (Morgenson par. 1). This brought consequences as the fall in the stock price. Xerox´s stocks that traded at $70 in 1999 fell sharply to $5 affecting its financial situation. Another fundamental macro-environmental factor is the technological change. The nineties were a decade of rapid technological advances; we could find computers everywhere, and it became a powerful tool. The Internet was greeted with open arms as a media platform for customer contact, and a conduit to the business transactions. These elements affected the way Xerox did its business.

In order to solve the issues in the late nineties, Xerox re-thinks how to develop their activities. Xerox launched a series of initiatives focused on innovation and development of new technologies that covered what customers were demanding at that time. In addition, its strategy of focusing on the business services industry has been the best strategy it may use because companies required services such as copying, printing, and software, so it is a safe market for the company. Xerox has ceased to be just a hardware provider and has evolved into a business of services. Moreover, Xerox offers its clients increase their productivity and ensure complete security of their sensitive information.

Several alternatives could be considered for Xerox to address

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