Illustrator Dennis Balogh

Ursula Burns

How has doing business globally changed in recent years?

Connecticut-based Xerox Corp. (XRX) has operated globally for most of its 104-year history. But today’s instantaneous flow of information, spurred on by 21st-century telecommunications platforms and digital devices, has changed the very nature of doing business across the world, observes Ursula M. Burns, chairman and CEO. “There were times when you could pace product introductions, operating with a delay to countries far from company headquarters,” she says. “Today you have to make your message and your offerings applicable around the world almost immediately.”

What’s more, less developed markets now demand the same immediacy as developed nations. “Emerging countries are skipping technologies,” says Burns, 51, who notes that more than half of Xerox’s sales come from 160 countries outside of its U.S. home market. “Instead of evolving through technology solutions, they are moving straight to the smartphone, for example.”

The implications of this acceleration are tremendous. Burns, a mechanical engineer who has been at Xerox’s helm since summer 2009, talks about the “huge opportunities” open to even small companies as their potential marketplace increases by many orders of magnitude. She also acknowledges that achieving a reach capable of spanning the planet is a “significant barrier to entry” and says that businesses that choose to remain local give up enormous potential.

This turbocharged form of globalization is changing the way Xerox defines itself, says Burns. Beyond providing its ubiquitous copying devices, Xerox manages document flow for global companies. She points to The Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) as an example: “We handle this client’s document infrastructure — how P&G stores and retrieves documents, whether they are digital or paper,” says Burns. Document management also requires constant evolution of solutions, aided by Xerox’s $880 million annual R&D budget. “For instance, we devised a way to allow P&G executives to download and print their documents from their PDAs so they have access to their information on the road,” says Burns. “We help them sort through only the most relevant documents to find what they need.” This document management “lets P&G do its job of selling Tide and positioning its brands and partnering and doing its core jobs.”

“You have to make your message and your offerings applicable around the world almost immediately.”

Burns, who says she considers “managing change” one of the most important jobs of a CEO, explains that business as usual tomorrow will differ from business as usual today. Noting that Xerox effectively doubles its R&D budget by working alongside partners, she insists, “It’s all about the future. It’s about taking something that works fine today but knowing that information overload is here, knowing that globalization is here. You have to invest in new, better technologies to maintain relevance.”

Burns worries that the world’s educational systems are not adequately preparing the future workforce for such change. “We aren’t generating enough creators to solve the world’s problems,” she laments. “We need scientists, technologists, engineers, mathematicians, doctors. We need people to solve the challenges and grasp the many, many opportunities.” Burns notes that the U.S., in particular, is falling short on the education front. She is a member of several educational initiatives, including the White House initiative on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education (STEM).

She does see reasons for hope, however, not just from governments but also from the corporate sector. “Companies like Xerox, DuPont (DD) and P&G — which is clearly a tech company in the sense that it has product formulations, for example — are investing in science, technology and engineering at various levels in the educational cycle,” she says. Preparing for the future by investing in education “is a self-serving issue for companies. It is a self-serving issue for the U.S. and for the communities of the world.” — Sharon Kahn