"We aim to improve efficiency in document output mgmt"

BANGALORE: From literally being a household name in India, Xerox Modicorp has

transitioned three major movements in India since its inception. From that of

copying to printing, from black and white to colour and from stand-alone analog

to digital, networked products. Having moved into the solutions and services

space, with the launch of Xerox Global Services, the company is now looking at

new markets for its services. LV Sastry, Associate Director, Xerox Global

Services reveals the company's future plans in a discussion with Sigi Achappa

of CIOL.

Excerpts from the interview.

How has Xerox Corp evolved over the years?

The evolution has a lot to do with market place. More and more large

customers do not want to invest in technology, what I mean to say is that, they

are looking for service. Technologies keep evolving and getting obsolete, so

customers want services. According to market research firm IDC, companies spend

up to 10 percent of their revenue on document production, management and

distribution. So, companies would like these business processes to be taken care

of. Xerox Global Services is catering to that need, so it can help recapture

some of those costs by streamlining and digitizing document-intensive business

processes. The services arm contributes $4 billion to Xerox Worldwide, which is

a $16 billion company. And houses over 15,000 professionals globally.

What are your offerings for the Indian market?

We would like to change the mindset people have about Xerox as just a copier

to being known as a digital solutions and services company. As of now, we have

12 major offices in India, and we are aiming to grow at 25 percent annually for

the next three years and manpower would also be scaled up at the same rate. We

are focusing on two aspects — working with large customers for printing and

faxing, documentation on site, which is part of our customer on site

infrastructure services. The other area is storage and retrieval of data. We are

into the conversion of paper workflow to digital workflow. We are trying to help

offices to improve efficiency in document output management. In this regard, we

are offering an on site service called the Mailroom Service, which is about

managing mail loads. For eg. We sort out mails (letters) and each document would

get scanned and sent to the receiver via e-mail. Similarly, we process all

outgoing production mail with automated systems to guarantee least-cost service.

What is the market for your services in India and your investment in R&D?

Ninety percent of our market share belongs to telcos followed by BFSI and

education.

We will expand our offerings based on market research. As far the Indian

market is concerned, there has been no market research done in this area for me

to quote figures, but the all I can say is that the market is really vast. Just

considering the home segment itself, think about it, there are hundreds of

documents in the house. So, that itself is a big prospect.

We continue to spend $ one billion in research and development. We spend at

least 8-10 percent of our revenue for R&D.

What is your idea about a "paperless office"?

I have not seen a paperless office anywhere. People have been talking about a

paperless world for many years now. But, the consumption of paper has only been

increasing. According to Giga research, the consumption of paper worldwide is

increasing by 20 percent annually. E-mail is now seen as one of the biggest

contributors towards paper usage. With over 700 billion emails being generated

worldwide, half of them get printed.