Xerox: Knowledge as a Product

by Anthony Williams | on May 25, 2013  

Xerox Knowledge Management Program

This blog entry is about a case study on Xerox, and its early days of implementing a knowledge management (KM) initiative by first creating a knowledge-sharing environment (Powers, 1999). According to Powers, “Xerox Corporation established its identity in the late 1990s as ‘The Document Company” (Powers, 1999, p. 1).

Xerox is involved in producing knowledge as a product, and sharing that knowledge. As well, the generated knowledge is use to drive innovation in the company. This is done by building and mining customer knowledge bases; and, by understanding and measuring the value of acquired knowledge. Xerox also leverages its intellectual assets. Thus, this indicates there is a demand and supply side to Xerox KM (Powers, 1999). Since second-generation KM uses the whole knowledge life cycle, and enhances learning (McElroy, 2002). This would mean the whole life cycle consist of the demand and supply side; so too, the whole life cycle is involve with knowledge creation (McElroy). This also would mean that Xerox had implemented second-generation KM.

Xerox Method of Implementation

After seeking to understand its customers, and market place interest relative to knowledge. Xerox started off by differentiating KM from information management, and defining what is the community of practice. The company then established an environment whereby knowledge is shared. A system referred to as Eureka was created so that intellectual capital can be created, and reused worldwide (Powers, 1999).   In this way, tacit knowledge can be captured as part of a knowledge asset (Collison & Parcell, 2010). Eureka has saved Xerox thousands of dollars. Xerox also had established a knowledge panel to help foster the KM process.

Note: There was no indication of the length of this case study.

Outcomes at Xerox

Overall I think the Xerox knowledge management program was a success. The company was smart in that it researched other companies, and how these companies were implementing KM. Xerox then realized that not all the companies it researched were using the whole life cycle. However, Xerox decided that for KM to work all aspects must be employed. Thus, as a result and on a positive note, Xerox has experienced high measures of success. Xerox has managed to save millions of dollars using its Eureka and later another web based tool referred to as DocuShare. On the negative side, by Xerox implementing and focusing on a KM program, the company failed to focus on some other priorities (Powers, 1999). Still, its KM program was saving the company money. Therefore, I would venture to say that overall Xerox at the time was well on its way to total integration of a successful KM program.

 Reference

Collison, C., & Parcell, G. (2010). Learning to fly: Practical knowledge management from
leading and learning organizations (Updated ed. with free CD-ROM). West Sussex, UK:
John Wiley & Sons Limited/Capstone Publishing Limited

McElroy, M. (2002). The new knowledge management—Complexity, learning, and sustainable
innovation. (Excerpt). Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2002.

Powers, V. J. (1999). Xerox Creates a Knowledge-Sharing Culture through Grassroots Efforts. Knowledge Management in Practice, (18), 1-4.