Summary
Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Centre is located in the core of Silicon Valley. It has been well-known over the last 50 years within the technology related departments for its many technological breakthroughs. However Xerox hasn't always been able to provide back many far-reaching ideas. During this time Steven Job's left Xerox to co-found Apple Computer Inc, many others also built multi-billion dollar corporations with the foundations first developed by Xerox. Xerox had numerous other dilemmas that didn't only occur within labs. During the 1980s, Xerox lost its marketing leadership position in photocopiers to Canon. It failed to revive the brand and introduce new products which resulted in many of its sales reps quitting to join other firms. They left with valuable product knowledge that took years to acquire which was a disadvantage for Xerox. It's stock price was now practically the same in late 2003 as it was in 1961. Xerox was struggling to unite its human resources in bringing new technologies to the market. People were taught to behave in a different manner at Xerox. In 1999, Rick Thoman was made chief executive officer, successor to Paul Allaire wo was named chairman. Thoman had a goal to fix the problems within Xerox. Barry Romeril, the chief financial officer did a poor job looking after corporate finances. The company was facing a downgrade of its bonds to junk status and numerous shareholder lawsuits. Xerox then exposed its 13 percent loss in net worth in 1999. While Thoman wanted Romeril fired, Allarie wouldn't allow it because they were old friends. Thoman wanted to restructure Xerox's global sales division to better compete with the Japanese firms. He also had a vision of having a sales force that was limited geographically but had a wide spread of product knowledge. The sales force eventually began to get affected by the negative relationships within the company and the lack of direction. With Xerox's stock tumbling, Thoman was fired and Mulcahy was promoted to president and chief operating officer.
Response
Xerox was facing possible bankruptcy for a while and has experienced problems that outweighed its talent and technologies into successful products and services. It is clear to see that Xerox was struggling with efficient operation as well as communication within the company. I think the main reason was that, people who had a higher status were doing poorly with making decisions and cooperating with others. Thoman had his way of thinking which affected Romeril and Allaire. To me it seem more like a problem with personal relationships between these officers and lack of dedication and commitment to benefit and support for the company. Due to these struggles, the company was impact greatly.
