Xerox 'Burns' a new path
Ursula Burns wants to change the company’s image in India.
The first thing that Ursula Burns wants you to know is that Xerox is not just a copier company. “We are the document company that helps people manage complex contents and documents,” says the 49-year-old Burns, who was moved up as Xerox’s global president in April this year as part of a succession plan that puts her in the corner room when CEO Anne Mulcahy retires.
It’s a role she has earned the hard way. As Mulcahy fought hard to turn around the formerly troubled company over the last six years, Burns helped pull weight in equal measure, overseeing launch of revolutionary products like the solid-ink printer Phaser 8860, which prints colour copies for the cost of black and white.
Burns, who’ll become the first African-American woman to lead a Fortune 500 company, wants to spiff up Xerox’s image in India as well. “India has emerged as a global market, and we see it as a place which would now be needing a lot of advanced solution in the field of complex document management,” says Burns, who was on her first official visit to India recently. Global multinationals in India and large Indian players like the telecom companies are on Xerox India’s radar, adds Burns, who joined Xerox as an intern.
While Xerox plans to continue attacking the Indian market with its multifunctional devices, high-end colour systems and services, it is also looking at acquisitions and inorganic expansions. “We are looking to acquire document-intensive vertical industries especially in the fields of litigation support mortgage,” says Burns.
