Xerox and P&G – What it takes to be a “Dynamic Duo”

 

Submitted By:  Becky Dziedzic, Xerox PR

 

I’ve written before about the great partnership Xerox has with Procter & Gamble – from our launch of mobile print, to the Innovation council, our teams continue to put their heads together to improve the way both companies do business. And now, we’re thrilled to be recognized with the “Dynamic Duo” award for best partnership from the Outsourcing Institute and Vantage Partners as part of the third annual Outsourcing Relationship Management Awards – the RMMYs.

The RMMY panel judges chose us because of our “clear communication, our mutual investment in success that goes beyond what’s in the contract, our defined metrics and joint dedication to enhancing and modifying the way we reach them.”

Here are a few of our best practices that impressed the judges:

  • Problem solving as a team: Xerox is known for the “dreaming sessions” we conduct with customers – building a spirit of co-inventing and continuous improvement from the very beginning of the relationship. P&G representatives visited Xerox’s Research Centre Europe in Grenoble, France to “dream” together with Xerox researchers and scientists about how to make P&G employees more productive, more sustainable and more mobile. The result was a matrix of innovative projects that both companies are working to implement today.
  • Putting plans into practice: To quickly attack the problems that are real and important for P&G, we created an “Innovation Council” – a group made up of representatives from both companies that meets and prioritizes innovation opportunities that make sense for P&G. P&G brings stakeholders to the forum who can weigh in on the IT infrastructure and business units, while Xerox offers representatives from across the value chain that can conceive and implement these innovations.
  • Commitment at all levels: P&G made the managed print services project a priority and assigned the appropriate resources – including offering Xerox their “A team” and requiring us to provide ours. They demand that Xerox measure targets so that everyone is aligned and knows what expected. They pick their priorities – what’s important, where they need help, what they foresee as challenges. They encourage and expect that their partners will work with one another.

In a nutshell, the collaborative relationship we’ve built and the transparent processes we have in place keep us invested in each other’s success. P&G calls it a “virtuous cycle” – and together we look forward to the future success it yields!

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One Comment

  1. Vlad Wulff October 17, 2011 -

    I was wondering whether Xerox and P&G who are both meta-nationals (striving to tap into local tacit knowledge and scale it up globally) are trying to leverage Innovation partnering and global customer management. I guess that if a company like Xerox aims at increasing its competitive advantage through innovation partnering, it should develop/take advantage of organizational capabilities that allow the people involved in the “dynamic duo” to have influence without formal authority across geographical boundaries and functional silos. This may go far beyond R&D excellence.

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