Looking for its own slice of the outsourcing pie, Xerox Corp. is launching the Canadian arm of its new global services division.
Originally announced in the U.S. last October, the company has re-focused its vision beyond the traditional printing, fax and copier market to now include an array of global service initiatives. While already involved in providing document management as a service, Xerox will now also offer content and knowledge management that the company said are all firmly interdependent ideologies that shouldn’t be viewed separately.
In a more traditional IT-centric view, they are offering infrastructure management to Sun Microsystems whereby Xerox acquires the hardware such as PCs or laptops, loads the software and provides help desk support.
“We manage the IT infrastructure for the office. We’re not managing the mainframe business. It’s IT managed services, we’ll go in and do the application services for you,” said Thomas Dolan, corporate senior vice-president and president for Xerox Global Systems in Rochester, N.Y. The company, he added, will now be devoted to organizations by industries such as finance, insurance, high-tech manufacturing and the public sector.
On the systems integration side, professional consultants are brought on by Xerox to handle issues such as legacy integration and tying in or bundling software applications. And while this appears to be a leap or stretch for the company into uncharted territory, the company insists that unlike past mistakes in coming in on a technology as it spirals downwards, they’ve done their homework.
“We have clients in Canada coast to coast. This isn’t a start-up; it’s an existing business. We’re set up with practices in Calgary, Toronto, Montreal as well as Ottawa,” said Mel Thompson, vice-president and general manager for Xerox global services Canada in Toronto.
A solid customer base has been established with private corporations such as Bell Canada for Web-based management and print services and CIBC for client financial statements page composition.
On the public sector side, Xerox maintains services relationships with Concordia University in Montreal for personnel records and course load management, and the Human Resources Development Canada for its Income Securities Program.
Thompson said the move will require Xerox to hire approximately half of its staff to fill positions in Canada and several hundred IT workers world-wide.
Xerox in Toronto can be reached at http://www.xerox.com