Xerox Modicorp Ltd is putting in place a strategy to secure a turnover growth of 15 per cent and a PBT growth (profit before tax) of over 20 per cent in the calender year 2002. In the calender year 2001, the company would have registered a PBT growth of 60 per cent over the year 2001 even as there was a dip in overall turnover growth.

Says Mr Pierre Nothard, managing director, Xerox Modicorp: ‘‘The dip in turnover was, partly, deliberate as we decided to get out of unprofitable, low-end, small-boxes, low-margins businesses.’’

Mr Nothard said that the ceterpiece of Xerox’ new product strategy will be to focus on a range of colour-specific segments. Globally, Xerox holds a marketshare of over 72 per cent.

‘‘As the costs of monochrome and colour products converge, the choice will be the colour,’’ he said. ‘‘We’re looking at being a dominant player in colour office and colour production (subsititute for offset processing) segments.”

Mr Nothard said that the company was revisiting its distribution strategy with sharper accent on indirect channel to derive ‘‘better coverage at lower costs.’’ The company is likely to finalise a distribution network of 130-140 channel partners in the sphere of indirect sales.

Xerox is also looking at opportunities to add to its capabilities in the outsourcing environment. A new focus is being lent to the 450-employee strong Xerox Business Services division. The vertical industries targeted by the division are: telecom, banking, finance, insurance, health care (gradually in a major way in India as well), government and education.

Mr Nothard said that in the next couple of yeaars Xerox would secure equal contribution from its four broad areas — equipmnent sales, maintenance, business services and supplies and consumables. Currently, Xerox gets around 35 per cent from equipmnet sales, 33 perc cent from maintenance, 20 per cent from supplies and consumables and 12 per cent from business services.

Mr Nothard said that even in the sphere of solutions and services, the company will remain focused on being a document company. ‘‘in the long-term our move would be to expand our capabilities in the management of the digital document documents,’’ he said. ‘‘By and large our past has been focussed on the production of paper documents — the future must be the management of the digital document as well.’’

As a part of an image re-positioning exercise, Xerox is presenting Mr Alvin Toffler as the keynote speaker for DocuWorld India 2002 to share knowledge with select CEOs on January 24, 2001 in Mumbai.