1. Running head: TEAM B DISCUSSION 1
Team B discussion
Karen MacDonald
MGT/230
May 21, 2015
Michael Zervos

2. TEAM B DISCUSSION 2
Team B discussion
Xerox had a plan to give the reins over to a CEO who knew nothing about bringing them
back from Bankruptcy. The CEO was ANNE MULCAHY she was the last person the board
thought would work in bring the company back to it former profits. This CFO did bring them
back and showed a profit in business.
How did a sales person work her way up to being a CEO of a very large company and be
successful at it with no training in finance. Anne Mulcahy did all of that by cutting cost in sales,
operation and Human resources. She was smart enough to know not to cut cost in research and
development; she also knew what the competition was doing and what Xerox was not doing.
Anne Mulcahy rebuilt Xerox by listening and communication to her customers and
vendors. Once she knew the way to go was in color printing then the campaigning of reselling
Xerox began. As she has said that she was more a COC chairman of communication than
anything else. Here are the facts of what Xerox did under her management. “Under her
leadership, Xerox moved from losing $273 million in 2000 to earning $91 million in 2003. By
last year, the company’s profits had reached $859 million on sales of $15.7 billion. At the same
time, its stock has risen, returning 75% over the last five years, compared with a loss of 6% for
the Dow Jones Total Stock Market Index” (Wharton School of Business, 2005).
Anne Mulcahy worked from the bottom up to become strong manager and CEO. She did
by moving up steadily in the company and learning all she could as she was going along. She
did not get complacent in her job but kept asking questions and moving her ideas to the people in
the company who recognize her talent. There are not enough people today with a company for a
long period of time who can watch a company grow and then lose its place in the marketplace.

3. TEAM B DISCUSSION 3
Anne Mulcahy had made a lot of friends along the way she knew her product that she
was trying to move very well and she had all the right people advising her on finance. There are
so many CEO that have worked hard in other companies and then come on to a new one and do
not know the product only the finance. More companies are looking for internal people to help
them grow their business by listening to those who know the products and can sell them. This is
called the Anne Mulcahy way know your product and go out and sell it to the vendors, clients
and Xerox board members. If she did not know her product, she would not have been able to go
to bank to qualify for more loans for research and development. This is where she started to
grow the business with capital and the research to back up what she was communicating.
Xerox is once again a well renowned company with products that are innovated and are
they are able to compete with their competitors. “Mulcahy found a compass to help her guide
Xerox from a piece of corn-pone advice from a Texas customer. He told her that she was “like
the farmer whose cow was stuck in the ditch,” she recalled. “I was like, ‘Oh, really. How so?’
And he said that the farmer had to get the cow out of the ditch, had to understand how the cow
got in and had to make changes so she never got stuck there again” ( (Wharton School of
Business, 2005).

4. TEAM B DISCUSSION 4
Reference
Wharton School of Business. (May 2005). The Cow in the Ditch: How Anne Mulcahy Rescued
Xerox. Retrieved from http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-cow-in-the-ditch-
how-anne-mulcahy-rescued-xerox/