Xerox 2019 Investor Day: A New ‘made to think’ Brand

An American Printer Commentary
By Andy & Julie Plata
Co-CEOs, the OutputLinks Communications Group

Two years ago, the USA chose a new president and almost one year ago, Xerox’s board chose a new CEO.

Change, especially changes of leadership, often drive the FUD– fear, uncertainty and doubt – Factor. To alleviate that FUD Factor, leaders often seek forums to present their thoughts and vision. And that is what we experienced in the two February 7 events.

Nancy Pelosi invited the country to the President’s State of the Union Address. And, Xerox invited the financial press and analyst community their 2019 Investor Day.

Many commentators felt President Trump’s State of the Union message was targeted directly to his traditional voter base. In a like manner we felt that, John Visentin and his leadership team’s Investor Day presentation was targeted at their stakeholder base – employees, clients, suppliers, stockholders and retirees.

A stark difference we noted was:

• President Trump spoke as if he was entirely responsible for all past accomplishments and coming initiatives;
• But Xerox’s CEO spoke of the team’s contributions to the planning and implementation of the company’s success roadmap.

Our analysis of Xerox’s financial presentations will take a bit longer to assess. But what we can assess today is the success potential of team-based leadership. And, team-based leadership is what was modeled by Xerox’s new CEO in Tuesday’s event.

We are sharing this slide deck as it provides a good overview of Xerox’s 3-year business development plan and financial roadmap. Here is a description of the deck’s four chapters:

We also share this 2+ hour video of the presentations and Q&A time. It requires your email for access, but it is well worth your viewing time investment if you are a Xerox stakeholder.

Some of the points in the presentations that we noted were:

• The expectation of no revenue growth in 2019 as the company builds towards positive revenue growth in 2021;
• The increased focus on the software and XMPie business which in the past was lost in the product business;
• A new “Powered by Xerox” trademark to leverage Xerox’s innovation and intellectual property across non-Xerox brands;
• The potential to leverage Xerox’s jetting technology in support of non-Xerox 3D print solutions;
• A heightened focus on the MPS space a market Xerox feels it created.

Production Print 

We were a bit disappointed the slide below is the only one (out of the 65 slides) that referenced production print. What can that mean???

In Closing

Thank you for reading. We hope our impressions Xerox’s 2019 Investor Day presentations and the assets we provided are of value to your business objectives.

We invite you to share your thoughts on this topic by clicking our names below to message us on LinkedIn.

Promoting print-tec for the digital age,
Andy & Julie Plata
Co-CEOs, American Printer and the OutputLinks Communications Group

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Stay tuned for our continuing Commentary on the evolving print community - its clients, employees, dealers, partners and financial partners.