Xerox Marketing Situation Analysis and SWOT Analysis

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Formatting and Other Submission Details:

Please submit a .docx or a .doc file.

Letter-sized documents (8.5″ x 11″) with one-inch margins.

Double-spaced Arial 11 pt. font.

Maximum 2 pages (excluding Appendices and References).

Submission on Canvas (please don’t leave it till the last minute).

Please also see syllabus section entitled “Submission Guidelines” on pages 5 and 6 for other guidelines that are common to all submissions.

Note: This is an individual assignment. While you are welcome to discuss course concepts, frameworks, and tools with each other in preparation for the assignment, please do not discuss them in the context of the case and please do not discuss case facts, numbers, and answers/solutions.

1) Perform a Situation Analysis and a SWOT Analysis for Xerox to analyze how various relevant factors affected its performance over the entire case. (1.75 points)

2) If you were Ursula Burns in 2001, rather than focusing on business services, what feasible alternative strategy might you have considered to address declining revenues and profits from 1999 to 2001? Explain the pros and cons of this alternative strategy? (1 point)

3) If you were Ursula Burns at the end of the case, what would your strategy be: continue with the current business portfolio, or diversify even more? Explain why or why not using an appropriate framework. (1 point)

4) IMPORTANT: Without checking any outside sources:

(a) How old do you think Ursula Burns was in 2001?

(b) What do you think her race is?

(c) Explain your responses in (a) and (b).

(d) After answering (a) to (c), search the Internet to check how accurate your responses were. Explain the benefits and challenges that you think Ursula Burns’s gender, age, and race might have provided her as she set about cleaning house in 2001? (1 point)

5) Adherence to formatting and other submission guidelines: (.25 point)

Grading Guidelines:

As mentioned in the syllabus, “Doing well on written submissions requires answering all questions, being specific in your responses, providing in-depth analyses and reasoning, evaluating alternatives (where applicable), avoiding logical/factual inconsistencies, being grammatically accurate, and adhering to the submission guidelines.”

Superior submissions generally meet all of the following standards, good submissions meet almost all, adequate submissions meet most, poor submissions meet some, and failing submissions meet few or none:

Content: Answering all specific questions and requirements outlined (requires careful reading of the assignment); in-depth analyses and explanation, especially when considering alternatives or options.

Clarity: Consistency of terminology and no ambiguity.

Professionalism: Adherence to grammatical and submission guidelines.

Additionally, a case analysis does not require repeating case facts. Cite case facts to support your analyses as needed, but your responses should focus on your analyses and interpretation of the case facts in the context of the questions. Your analyses should also be original rather than based on someone else’s analyses that are posted on the Internet or elsewhere. Finally, please limit yourself to the case facts in the Xerox case. In other words, do not use additional information from outside the case, unless it is explicitly mentioned in the assignment questions.