Xerox Case Questions // Due September 7th

Problem: Xerox Corporation realized that it was losing money and time when its service technicians discovered product maintenance issues which they had never seen in documentation before. With more than 1 million service calls per month, Xerox recognized that these problems could create lengthy downtime for customers as well as cost the company money as service representatives worked to solve these challenging issues. While the maintenance problems were fixed through local information sharing in local work groups, there was still no way for this knowledge to be spread to the entire Xerox work-force. Xerox's problem was that it had an inefficient process for knowledge sharing within its company.

Solution: To protect and use the "intellectual capitol" developed by its employees, Xerox developed the Eureka website. Eureka is essentially a knowledge base which allows Xerox's service organization to create and reuse vital information about its products and services among its 25,000 representatives worldwide. The site allows service reps to contribute their solutions online which allows other reps to reference the postings for help. By using an online solution, Xerox allows its service reps to become part of a global community with the main goal to share information.

Benefits: The Eureka website provides a cheap way for Xerox service reps to communicate knowledge and understanding with each other. Overall it makes the company's employees more efficient, which in turn saves Xerox money.

Difficulties: Even with this great new program that allows employees to share information with each other, the program depends entirely on users for input. It turns out that Xerox staff was reluctant to use the new system because participation would be an added duty to an already controlled workday.  Employees would have to contribute in their off-time. It turns out the incentive that attracted users to contribute was the "professional credit" addition. Users now have the ability to author their solutions that they post to Eurkea, thus giving them credit viewable to everyone at the company.

Lessons Learned: The articles outline a few key points that Xerox learned throughout the process of creating the knowledge database of Eureka. First, its important to inform employees the difference between knowledge management and the way they used to work. Second, try and approach a goal from several different perspectives in order to ensure everyone understands what is trying to be accomplished. Third, it is vital that in a change initiative support come from the top. Last, people must be shown the correct way to be involved in knowledge management. Xerox was able to accomplish this through a knowledge newsletter and a better website.