Xerox

Introduced over thirteen years ago, Xerox’s exclusive solid ink technology is not only a viable, affordable option for those companies looking to add color to their business documents, but it has also become a competitive force in the industry. Other companies have tried to compete with Xerox’s long history of color expertise, but none have come close to matching the convenience and quality offered by solid ink technology. Solid ink adds value to businesses. It is the only printing technology that can create brilliant, vibrant prints on a wide range of media. It is the easiest technology on the market to use. It is the only technology that produces minimal waste. And, with a low entry price and cost per page, solid ink printers truly give customers the most value for their money. This white paper takes a closer look at the technology that continues to make Xerox stand apart from the rest.

Today’s Business Office
Office color printers need to address a broad range of applications and serve diverse teams. While one group may demand flawless rendering of complex PostScript® files and detailed photographs, another team may want fast printing of text documents or quick business presentations. The need for color and versatility is everywhere.

Considerations include:
• How can I get black & white and color at the same time?
• What does the typical user need to know to successfully use the printer day in and day out?
• How quickly can consumables be replenished?
• How many users can share the printer before print times become unacceptably long?
• How well does the driver software integrate the printer into the user’s workflow?
• If the printer is shared among groups, can it account for usage? continue reading...

Background Information
Technology advances sometimes come in unexpected places. To most of us, the black powder we have been adding to copiers and printers for the last sixty years doesn’t seem to have changed very much. It certainly looks the same. But looks can be deceiving. As a result of sixty years of research and thousands of patents, today’s toners flow better, store better, fuse better, and develop more efficiently, resulting in cleaner, better looking prints. But under the surface, other technological advances in toner design have also enabled better, less expensive, and safer photoreceptor and fuser materials not to mention faster and cleaner operating machines. The newest advancement in toner technology is EA toner.

What is EA Toner?
EA Toner is chemical toner prepared by Emulsion Aggregation, or a chemical process used to “grow” very small, uniform particle sizes from even smaller (sub-micron) size toner components. The EA process can deliver the desired size and narrow particle size distribution required for excellent color image quality. This small size and the relative uniformity of all the articles in a particular “batch” of EA toner is more predictable than the conventional mechanical process of pulverizing extruded plastic for toner. It is also less energy intensive. Emulsion refers to the synthetic chemical process to form latex toner resin and aggregation means to bring the toner ingredient’s particles together to form the desired particle size and spherical shape.

How is it different from other toners?
The conventional toner manufacturing process, consists of starting with just the right plastic, melt mixing in pigment and special ingredients, and pulverizing the resulting block of composite plastic to a fine powder. Finally, the powder still has to be processed to remove oversized chunks and ultra fine particles. This multi-step process results in non-uniform angular particles with a somewhat wide size and shape distribution. As amazing as the resulting toners were, to step up to the challenges that each new generation of xerography required, the manufacturing process still limited engineers in creating toner with all the capabilities they wanted. continue reading...

Solution Payback Assessment
Accounts payable (AP) processes have traditionally been characterized by heavyvolumes of paper documentation coming from disparate locations, requiring manually intensive data entry and matching tasks. Working with Xerox Global Services, companies can significantly reduce processing costs, recover early payment discounts, prevent late payment penalties, reduce errors, and streamline audit compliance processes by incorporating automation and indexed metadata to streamline processes. The result can save companies millions annually, generating a return on investment of over 90% in three years and payback in less than 12 months.

Top ROI Value Drivers
Document capture, retrieval, and information management technologies can generate bottom line economic impact through:

•Lowered transaction processing costs
• Improved payment accuracy
• Improved capture of payment discounts
• Streamlined audit and compliance processes
• Reduced IT infrastructure costs
• Eliminated or reduced storage costs continue reading...

Over the past several years small organizations have compiled dozens, medium-sized organizations hundreds, and large organizations thousands of printers, copiers, multifunctional devices, faxes and scanners to produce documents. These same organizations have contracted with courier services to distribute documents and invested in software applications to help manage them. Many also outsource document production and even destruction. As of 2006, Hewlett Packard has placed over 100 million laser printers in North America. Copier manufactures have installed over eight million copiers and multifunctional devices. Even with the surge of attaching documents to e-mail for distribution, faxing documents is still very popular. Two years ago FedEx bought Kinko’s. What does this marriage tell us about the connection between document production and distribution? They are a perfect match. At the time of this writing FedEx® stock is $116 per share reflecting a bullish outlook on corporate America’s appetite for outsourcing document production and distribution.

Even with the massive investments and dependence on document technology and related services, the print space in most organizations can be likened to corporate America’s junk drawer. Just like the junk drawers in our homes, print spaces are rarely managed effectively and even less rarely cleaned out and reorganized. continue reading...

Challenge Question # 1
To maintain network security, Acme corporation tightly controls software on devices connecting to their network. continue reading...

Europe’s top 25 Financial Services companies spend an estimated1 €9.2bn on sending information to their customers every year. Research commissioned by Xerox shows that customers tell us that they receive too much information and most if it is irrelevant; banks tell us that they believe better targeted communication would improve cross-selling and grow their revenue.

As part of our research, we wanted to understand how the money devoted to customer communications could achieve maximum impact from their customer communications by banks.

Our Research

We commissioned Coleman Parkes to carry out a wide-ranging European Research Study canvassing the views of 259 retail banks in France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK.

We had in-depth discussions with Heads of Customer Communications, Heads of Operations and Heads of Distribution. We also conducted1,729 detailed consumer interviews online in the same countries.

Finally, we interviewed 35 major retailers (five in each country). Involving the retail industry in our research was vital: this industry has a proven track record tailoring its communication to their customers needs – it was the voice of experience that our research needed. continue reading...

Chances are your organization already outsources some aspect of its operations. In the past, companies would only outsource non-vital aspects, such as the food service and vending, office cleaning, etc., where opportunities for innovation are of little consequence and low-cost is an acceptable criteria.

Today, outsourcing is a strategic initiative in many organizations and includes vital aspects of the business such as IT, Human
Resources, Call Center, Manufacturing and Accounts Payable.

This paper focuses on outsourcing another critical area – customer communications. These are the multi-channel communications that help companies acquire new customers, welcome and on-board those customers, service them and cultivate their loyalty.

While most outsourcing strategies have a primary goal of saving money, if done right, the benefits can go far beyond lower costs. Outsourcing customer communications can be an effective way to bring world-class capabilities to your organization that can impact both sides of the profit equation – cost savings and revenue growth. The key is to combine competitive pricing with innovation to gain a competitive advantage. Here are some lessons learned, based on 12 years of assessing and implementing customer communications outsourcing solutions. continue reading...