Love Letters To Xerox and More

 
Transmitted from Detroit, Michigan

Dear Friends:

You can image that many folks had thoughts on the Xerox s service, The
Document Source (sm.). Well, in the Detroit Free Press of May 9, 1996 
(page 6C), apparently a duplicate of the ad ran which started this 
conversation. It says:



Sometimes, a simpler way to do good work means having somebody else 
do it. Outsource the Document. Whether they re on paper or your network, 
we manage the documents so you can manage your business. Introducing 
The Document Source (sm.).

The Document Source is the Xerox outsourcing solution. Now, Xerox 
manages more than your copy center. We offer an expanded portfolio 
of services to manage all your document needs, on and off the network. 
No equipment to purchase. No people to train. To see how The Document 
Source can help you do good work, just call.

For more information about The Document Source, contact Xerox at: 448 
Park Street, Troy, MI 48083. 1-800-TELL-XBS, ext. 263 or drop in our 
Web site at http://www.xerox.com:80/XBS.

The Document Company. Xerox


Well, let s get to some of your letters. We ll start with Gary Atwood 
in Richmond, Virginia.

Subj:	re: Mad as Hell in Boston
From:	KwiKopy678
To:	TomCrouser

Dear Tom. . . . . . .Here s my 2c worth on Xerox s latest foray into 
our market.  I remember the XRC s that we all kicked up such a stir 
over.  Xerox ultimately 

caved in

 and starting closing them.  I d 
like to think otherwise but I ll bet it was not due to pressure from 
the Print for Pay sector of their market.  I think they just made a 
decision they weren t getting the return they needed to meet their 
business plan targets.  Even before the recent emergence of the 
Document Technology Centers Mona refers to Xerox has been very active 
in Facilities Management.  That s just one of the reasons I told our 
Xerox rep I would not consider a DocuTech.  Why should I beat my brains 
out trying to fill up an expensive machine like that at a national 
average price of .035/copy when they are out there trying to talk 
hospitals,universities, big law firms, and major manufacturers into 


letting Xerox take over all your copying needs?

 

Illegal?  No way.  Immoral?  Seems that way to me.  Does it make me mad?
 Damn right!  I m sure we could all come up with ways to make more money 
if we don t care what effect it has on a major portion of our customer 
base.  But. . . most of us don t want to do business that way.  In 
addition, we quick printers don t have the advantage of being almost 
sole source like Xerox does.  

My Xerox sales rep is a very understanding person who is proactive in 
trying to help us identify our strategies and really gets into the game 
helping us promote our products.  But she has no control over the Grand 
Plans emanating from Rochester.  I don t hold that against her, but I 
am making it clear that we are actively seeking other solutions for 
our high volume needs.  

There are other trends in the vendor arena that I don t like.  Notable 
among them I see Alco-Standard as a threat to our business.  Why?  
Because they operate print for pay operations in Richmond in direct 
competition with me.  Fortunately, I don t have to buy from them.  The 
only weapon we have is our ability to refuse to do business with our 
competitors.  To that end, I hope someone in NAQP will take on a 
project of compiling a list of all Alco-Standard operations so at 
least we ll know who we re dealing with.  Xerox is another story.  
They have some very good products not available from other sources.  
The only alternative I ve come up with is to look into the 
re-conditioned machines available from used equipment brokers. 
Best personal regards, Gary Atwood, Kwik Kopy #678, Richmond, VA

Thanks, Gary. Now let s hear from Dr. Ronald E. Jones.

Subj:	Re: Letters: Mad As Hell And Not Gonna Take It In Boston!
From:	rjones@jove.acs.unt.edu (Ronald E Jones EDD)
To:	TomCrouser@aol.com

If the writer was talking about Xerox Business Services (XBS) (they now 
have a new name but it escapes me), this 

arm

 of Xerox goes into a 
business and contracts to totally take over (equipment, labor, supplies) 
an internal copy center. Yes, Xerox staffs it, pays the labor, manages 
it, equips it, services it, and, I assume, profits from it. I have no 
idea of a per page charge for this sort of service but it must be high.

Xerox people have told me recently that this concept is the fastest 
growing part of Xerox. In this scenario, Xerox definitely competes 
with companies that could contract for these jobs via outsourcing.

Thanks, Ron. Here David Scott from Hudson, New York.

Subj:	Serpant Xerox
From:	proprinters@taconic.net (David Scott)
To:	tomcrouser@aol.com

I have never appreciated the way Xerox 

does business

. If it s not 
one thing, it s  another with them. Who else would sell you a machine 
and then compete with you for your customers making it all the harder 
to make the payments for their machine?! I have steadfastly refused 
to buy any equipment from them until recently when I bought a fax 
machine.  Now I will go back to my boycott and will even find toner 
replacements!  The best thing that we could do is to make them hurt 
where it counts...replace Xerox equipment with Kodak or equivalent 
and give them some competition that they can t match with service, 
friendliness and quality!

David L. Scott, Pro Printers, Hudson, New York. 

Thank you, David. Now, let s hear the latest from Mona in Boston. She 
reports on her follow up with Xerox.


Subj:	xerox
From:	MSQP1
To:	TomCrouser

Dear Tom . . . .Well, I called three of the document technology 
centers and this is what happened. The first place I called I got a 
real friendly person on the phone then I asked a couple of what I 
thought were very simple questions but she could not answer my 
questions,  She said the person I needed to speak with was at lunch 
and that he would call me when he returned. That was a week ago and 
so far no phone call.

The second place, this young man answers  xerox  with about as much
enthusiasm as a door knob.  I asked if he could tell  me about their
services. He said he was not qualified to answer any of my questions, 
so he puts me on dead air. I waited for six minutes then hung up 
because I had to take a phone call.  I got pretty  much the same thing 
at the third and fourth places I called.  I guess you can have a big 
marketing budget, a big name and a great product and still not know much 
about customer service.  I am reading once again 

The Art Of War for 
Executives

  I think I can compete, I have to define my game from their 
game. Mona


Well, Mona. Here s Barry who says we shouldn t be surprised.

Subj:	Re: Mona Long Is Mad As Hell And Not Gonna Take It In Boston!
From:	barry@abcdprint.com (Barry Reischling)
To:	TomCrouser@aol.com

Hi, Tom and all you Crouser Subscribers: With all due respect to her 
anger, where s Mona Long been??? Since as far back as 1975, Xerox has 
burned the candle at both ends. With their right hand, they ve sold 
copiers, supplies and services to the printing industry. With their 
left, they ve simultaneously competed against these very same printers 
using their retail copy centers.

When confronted with this outrageous 

in your face

 approach to 
business by angry printers claiming that these retail centers not 
only represent competition, but unfair competition because they re 
also getting supply cost advantages, Xerox printer sales reps have 
wrung their hands in 

ain t it awful

 anguish and lamented that 
they have no control over corporate policy, are extremely agitated, 
yet have no recourse, blah blah blah. They claim these competing Xerox 
copy centers are operating independently as separate branches from 
the parent Xerox, and while they may be in competition with the 
printing industry, do not enjoy any price breaks. These claims, of 
course, are irrelevant garbage.

So now, with the advent of production printing from file transfers, 
why is Xerox s policy of again competing with similarly equipped 
printers by offering similar file transfer services, any different? 
It s the same old Xerox animal, only now wearing InterDoc file 
transfer stripes. Xerox remains a big slow moving conglomerate, with 
many diverse operations. A large measure of Xerox success comes 
from the positive results of leveraging many different corporate 
products and policies in direct competition with each other. Xerox 
has already been hit once with a restraint of trade settlement, and 
could be vulnerable again. But the fact remains, Xerox s mirrored 
competition keeps most printers on their toes. If you can t compete 
with Xerox (duh) retail centers by outsmarting and outselling them, 
you don t belong in this business. (As a matter of fact, try offering 
your services to these retail centers as a support arm. It works.)

The solution to the problem is simple, Mona. If you don t like the way 
Xerox does business, don t whine about it. Instead, take action. Do 
what really works. Stop featuring Xerox equipment. Barry R.

Well, I m not sure whining is exactly what is being done, but I can
appreciate the fact that past performance is the best predictor of 
future actions. Here s Edie from Connecticut.

Subj:	Re: Letters: Mad As Hell And Not Gonna Take It In Boston!
From:	EdieSG
To:	TomCrouser

I agree with MAD AS HELL. I too am furious at Xerox, but what do we do 
about all this promotion of outsourcing services to a vendor?  All 
the vendors who sell us equipment for big bucks are selling FM services 
to our own customers. Kodak, Xerox, ACopy all promote their own in house 
or OUT HOUSE copying capabilities.  NAQP made a somewhat 

weak

 statement 
about suppliers who compete with us and when one lone Quick Printer 
attacked the NAQP board for this weak statement, he was shot down for 
being out in left field.  So if our NAQP board can t or won t take a 
strong stand against our supplier friends, what are we to do as 
individuals.  There is no one else to buy from except the BIG 3.

P........d in Connecticut


Steve Ciesmier of Page Path Technologies fame, took note of both the 
Xerox question and my comments on change in our industry. He writes:

Subj:	Re: Letters: Mad As Hell And Not Gonna Take It In Boston!
From:	stevec@pagepath.com (Steve Ciesmier)
To:	TomCrouser@aol.com

Dear Tom, I enjoyed reading your last issue and would like to comment 
on a couple points. You quote a vendor and remark, 

My point is 50% 
of instant and small commercial printers today could be out of business 
within four to five years, but that would signal no reason for you to 
run out and buy something from someone. That s a state of nature which 
has always been with us and probably always will.

 While I agree that 
no one should ever run out and buy something for no reason, there 
are times when it makes good sense to buy, especially if it provides 
a strategic advantage.

The vendor you quote goes on to say in the article, 

To win customers 
and maintain their loyalty, service companies regularly use convenience 
and responsiveness as competitive advantages. The fast food industry 
shows us where this leads: easy access drive-up windows and 

have it 
your way

 meals that are individually mass produced. Convenience, 
efficient order processing, and personalized service with mass 
production pricing are rapidly emerging as business necessities for 
print shops as well.



Mona Long is understandably upset about competition from Xerox 
Business Centers and states that potential Xerox customers 

... do 
not need walk-up centers when documents can be sent electronically. 
They also said in their WWW web ad 

we have made it our mission to 
follow the document from creation to destination.....

 Not to ignore 
pricing, but part of what XBS is trying to do is lock-in customers 
with convenience. Xerox does not have a lock on remote job transfer. 
They have been successfully beaten back. Fight back. 
Connect your customers before someone else does.

Poor Dad, So Sad also keyed in with, 

Your comments ...  The Customer 
Service Rep, much like the person waiting on you at McDonald s...  
reverberated here at our shop... Specifically, your reference to 
fast food operations. It s an analogy I have been rather unsuccessfully 
promulgating with my son for literally years. The essence of the argument 
is,..whether systems can/should be developed and placed that deal with 
the commonality of jobs in order to take them in, process them, do 
them and deliver them in efficient, productive and profitable ways - 
as opposed to treating each as 

an art project

 - for which a new 
wheel must be invented each time. Obviously, since I m on 100% 
commission as the owner, you know which way I fall.

 

Tom, you quote a Harvard professor and end with, 

Basic thing I 
remember is that service is best approached systematically rather 
than by heroics. And that s the philosophy of operations management.



I fully agree. Efficient order processing can start with automating 
the workflow from the customer to the print shop and then order 
processing and invoicing. Print shops can start doing this now. In 
answer to your question,I submit that one possible answer is that 50% 
of instant and small commercial printers today could be out of business 
within four to five years to be replaced by a new breed willing to 
use the fast food industry as a guide to customer service, 
responsiveness, and efficient workflow automation.

Steve Ciesmier at PagePath Technologies, Inc.
611 North Busse Road,  Bensenville, IL 60106-0131
E-mail: sciesmier@pagepath.com
Phone: 708-616-0131, Fax: 708-616-0440
Web: http://www.pagepath.com

Thanks for your letter, Steve. I agree that businesses are replaced 
by other businesses and one possible answer is that the new breed 
is willing to use different techniques and technologies. For instance, 
the ability to accept and process customer files via some sort of 
electronic transmission grows everyday.

My experience, however, also tells me another big factor is the reason 
the new business replaces the old is many older businesses pay little 
attention to financial strength. Rather, they attend most to the income 
needs of the owner. When the business cycle goes down, the owner 
continues to draw at the higher level resulting in a stripping of 
working capital. This leaves the older business with little or no 
capital to invest in any technology, let alone new. As one outcome, 
the owner gives up in the face of new investment requirements and 
the new business replaces the old. Another outcome is the old owner 
takes a gamble equal to the one when they started the business by
borrowing excessively for new stuff. And, like a new business, 
sometimes it works but often it does not. While this does not explain 
all the reasons new replaces old, it does give some rationale to 
why many companies will pass their fifth anniversary, but not their 
twentieth. Again, thanks for the letter.


Have a good weekend. . . .this is Tom and Pamela in MoTown. Happy Trails.

Crouser Conference on Production Management
June 5-8, 1996
Charleston, West Virginia

Highlights: Following, you will find highlights of our upcoming 
client conference on Production Management.  There are only a 
limited number of spaces for company participants who are not 
currently clients of Crouser & Associates. Cost for the conference 
is $1,200. (Subscribers to the Crouser Estimating Guide, computer 
program or members of the National Association of Quick Printers 
or a Printing Industries of America affiliated association:
$1,000). Contact Clark Workman at (304) 342-5100 or fax (304) 
342-5187 or email crouser@ibm.net for more information or request 
for registration.

Crouser Conference on Production Management. Purpose, Precepts and
Procedures. 

Production (Operations) Management: What is production management 
and where does it fit into the small press shop? Using the classical 
tri-deputy model. Morning Meeting. Schedule. Hang-ups I see in the 
field. Rules of engagement. Tools of the professional production 
manager.

Right On Time! The object of operations management is to get the 
product to the customer right and on time. Self Analysis. An 
organizational time analysis. Common difficulties you experience 
supervising others regarding time. What to do about it..

Quality Management Methods and the small press shop: Overview as 
well as its applicability to our shops. 

Is It A Problem? How do you know when you have a problem in the 
first place. Problem solving techniques in production management. 
Some statistical analysis.

Standards: Estimating Standards; Production Standards, Engineering 
Standards. Methods of Establishing Standards. Streaming Procedures - 
cycle time, bottlenecks. 

People Skills: Leading People. We look at our own profiles and 
their impact on our organizations. We then use these profiles to 
help us understand our other members of our team. 

Other people related issues: supervision and the
laws: how to discipline, discipline steps, counseling. Quality of 
People We Hire: Interviewing and testing. Setting Up Meaningful 
Training and Getting The Time To Do It - What do they need to know 
how to do? How to determine. - The four steps to training anyone 
anything. Training records.

Production Management Technical Issues: OSHA; EPA and Stuff; Hazardous
Material; Right to Know. Plant layout. Inventory control.

Plus Three Breakout Sessions where production managers will be discussing
their most common problems in a moderated session. Topics such as: Why 
can t you apply the tri-deputy model to your shop? What is not being 
done now that needs to be done to conform to the model? Care and 
Feeding Of Owners. And everything else we haven t talked about that 
we need to talk about.

Crouser & Associates - Helping Printers Prosper Since 1985


 
Crouser & Associates  Performance Group program includes 
two on-site evaluations by Tom Crouser each year along with two group 
meetings. Management training is held during the group meetings along 
with participation in a meeting with non-competing printers. Join others 
who have decided to run their business instead of the business running 
them. Reply to by Email to Tom 
Crouser for more detailed information or call Clark Workman 
at (304) 342-5100. Or fax (304) 342-5187 or contact crouser@ibm.net.



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