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Xerox Is Securing The Future Of Work

Xerox

Digital strategy is key to an organization’s success in order to be relevant and true to your employees and customers. Internally, from a productivity and employee well-being perspective, and externally, from a customer-engagement point of view, the transformation is shepherded by adoption of technologies like cloud, mobility, analytics and collaboration tools to stay relevant. In an exclusive interaction with CXOToday, Ritesh Gandotra, Director – Global Document Outsourcing, Xerox India, discusses how secured and scalable technology is driving workplace transformation and Xerox’s role in it.

CXOToday: How is technology driving workplace transformation in India?

Gandotra: Over the course of time, Indian organizations have evolved from siloed workforce to a globally connected workforce. Today, people want to work and contribute as part of the growing mobile workforce. In the coming years, workplaces will evolve with greater magnitude and more technologically driven. With the help of digital workplaces, an organisation will be able to utilize new tools that help deliver goals by implementing a stronger sense of culture and community. Our goal is to make sure we provide technology – both hardware and software and the way they both can work together to enable employees to work from anywhere, anytime.

CXOToday: What is the role of security or privacy with workforce getting connected and digitized?

Gandotra: No organization can afford to ignore information safety, especially when it involves documents.  With the huge amount of data available to businesses today, securing this data is becoming a challenge. This data is transmitted on both digital and physical mediums. This gets further complicated when the input/output channels like mobile and cloud applications are becoming dominant.

At Xerox, product security issues are front and centre. Customers have responded by looking to Xerox as a trusted provider of secure printing solutions with many standard and optional product security features and this has been proven time and again.

For example, Xerox and McAfee teamed up to design a security system to help companies protect against threats to this confidential data. Our Cisco TrustSec integration provides comprehensive visibility of all ConnectKey enabled multifunction printers’ endpoints to enforce IT-centric security policies and compliance. Again, Xerox ConnectKey MFPs are protected with an innovative whitelisting defence against viruses. ePolicy Orchestrator is integrated for an enterprise wide security point of view.

Also, Xerox system software is Digitally Signed – any attempts to install infected, non-signed versions results in the file being automatically rejected. Print files also get deleted if any part is not recognized as legitimate. Xerox document security solutions are also built to meet the document security needs of any business easily and simply

CXOToday: What are the current Challenges in Digitization and WorkFlow Automation?

Gandotra: In 2017, many businesses shifted their focus to adopting new digital technologies to not only to serve customers better but also to streamline internal processes. While most businesses recognise the need, few know how and what is required to get the initiative started and make it a reality. If a business wants to stay relevant and grow, it’s no longer enough to just deliver great products. People are looking for experiences from their personal lives to cross over into the workplace. For this reason, organisations must move beyond the digital transformation buzzword and explore ‘transformational experiences’, reimagining how companies and people connect and work. As with any new process, companies must follow certain steps to approach transformation in a logical way.

– Understanding: It is important for businesses to understand how and where to use paper and technology today, and identify what could change. It is also important to assess how the two connect and implement simple tweaks that could dramatically streamline business workflows.

– Education: It is crucial to set targets, build a case, and change user behaviour – gradually. People can be fearful of change, but reminding employees of the long-term benefits will help them stay motivated and work with company, not against it.

– Activate: Once problems have been identified, businesses need to make the transition and replace key functions and processes with digital equivalents which improve the experience overall.

– Assess and improve: Remember that this will be continuous journey as technology continues to evolve. Leverage the opportunity to use data and automation to take your transformation to the next level.

We see our customers navigating the intersection of physical and digital worlds, and they are looking to us for solutions that are simple, secure and mobile. We responded with our industry leading and innovative-Managed Document Services (MDS) and ConnectKey technology. Our solutions help customers save money, automates steps, boosts productivity, and improves document security and environmental sustainability.

CXOToday: How is Xerox helping businesses address these gaps?

Gandotra: Xerox is currently investing in new business solutions and applications that help improve productivity and simplify the work process for a number of sectors, focusing mainly on the banking, health, hospitality, telecommunications, and government sectors. Managed Document Services (MDS) continues to be one of our main offerings. With the help of next generation services, we aim to maximum effectiveness, security, mobility and overall cost reduction. 

We are focussing on using IOT to digitize imperative assets and processes which will not only help growing our business but also increase operational efficiency, and deliver exceptional experiences to customers. 

Xerox is also a clear market leader in MPS and has been on an innovation path when it comes to security, analytics and capabilities. We continue to maintain the leadership position in worldwide managed print services (MPS), according to the latest market landscape report by analyst research group Quocirca. The 2017 rankings also mark Xerox’s eighth year as the front-runner.

CXOToday: As far as future workplaces are concerned, what are the key technology trends you notice in 2018?

Gandotra: In almost every industry, technology will be disrupted in the ways one has never seen before- it will irrevocably change the world of work in future. Technologies such as blockchain, IOT, artificial intelligence, cloud etc will transpire to be the game changers for the year 2018. These disparate technologies will integrate in the year ahead to create extremely practical business solutions. 2017 undoubtedly was a banner year for AI and IOT; there was a massive boost in the number of connected devices which is likely to grow even more in the upcoming year. Also, various facets of AI such as Machine Learning, Robotic Process Automation are expected to evolve in 2018. AI will help organizations to achieve higher customer satisfaction levels – with chatbots likely to emerge as the key differentiating factor for enterprises to keep that crucial connect with their customers & remain engaged. With the innovations of today providing just a small glimpse into future advancements, the robotics industry will rise in 2018 – especially with increased adoption in military and healthcare space.

With all the above technologies taking centre-stage, Blockchain-enabled solutions have the potential to bridge the gaps of device data interoperability while ensuring security, privacy and reliability. This is majorly due to Blockchain’s ability to re-engineer transparency, trust and security in the wake of recent cyberattacks, an increased adoption of the technology has been noted in the Indian BFSI and many other sectors.

Adding to this, the rise of 3D printing is likely to lead to re-invention of many old products, as well as the  introduction of extraordinary new innovations. I believe 3D printing, is on track to move beyond a mere emerging technology into a truly transformative one.

Over the next twelve months, it is extremely important for an organisation to challenge traditional thinking and look in unexpected places for hidden opportunities to streamline and add momentum to their business. We are so much beyond the hype but there are still a large number of things that have to be realized.

CXOToday: Can you highlight Xerox’s business roadmap for the next 12-18 months.

Gandotra: Xerox is helping change the way the world works. By applying its expertise in imaging, business process, analytics, automation and user-centric insights, we are the leaders in engineering the flow of work to provide greater productivity, efficiency and personalization. Moreover, we create meaningful innovations and provide business process services, printing equipment, software and solutions that make a real difference for our clientele in 180 countries. In the coming year Xerox will accelerate and scale MPS revenue from the SMB segment by strengthening our MPS Solutions portfolio to support the expansion of our channels network.

We are planning to recruit channel partners by touting the broadest portfolio and most robust tools in the industry and expand our share of managing non-Xerox (NX) devices and increasing Same Account Revenue Growth in Enterprise accounts. We also see a further shift from traditional to digital, with our investments also moving to latter due to an effective and selective targeting and measurement system. Also owing to the fact that our audience is moving online.

We also aim to driving our customers into the modern business landscape – through innovations in workflow automation that bring value to multiple areas of their business.

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