Promises and pitfalls of architectural strategy in the printer industry

Abstract

The xerographic printing and copying industry has become extremely competitive. Xerox market share has gradually declined since the 1960s as the market share of corporations like Canon, Hewlett Packard and Ricoh has increased. In response to rising competition, various product architecture strategies are heralded as the means to gaining, or regaining, competitive advantage in this environment. Among the most popular of these strategies are platobrm strategy, product families and parts commonality, and outsourcing. The objective of this thesis is not to dispute the value of these strategies in the present context. Obviously, platform strategies and parts reuse enable firms to develop products faster and with less cost by leveraging previous investments. Likewise, in order to remain competitive in this environment, a firm can no longer afford to vertically integrate its products-clearly, firms can no longer afford to do everything themselves. Horizontal integration through outsourcing, or what Xerox calls extended enterprise, is therefore one source of competitive advantage. Platform strategy, parts reuse, and extended enterprise all make good sense but each of these strategies can easily backfire. In this paper we will examine these strategies and see how they relate to central themes in product architecture, such as, architectural modularity. Then we shall see how these strategies can, if not applied carefully, cause more problems than they attempt to resolve. Finally, in light of these problems, revised and more robust versions of these strategies are presented.