| | December 20148CIOReviewAs a $22 billion company with more than half our revenue coming from services, it should be of no surprise that Xerox is a leader in prescriptive analytics and analysis of Big Data. As an example, we process more than 34 million credit card transactions yearly, 37 billion public transpor-tation transactions and more than 400 million Medicaid claims annually. With that focus on data and infrastructure, it also makes perfect sense to apply the same parameters to our global purchasing operations.Our supply chain operations, like every major company in the world, are the backbone of generating revenue. It is this infrastruc-ture that is responsible for obtaining goods and parts from a global list of suppliers and in turn making sure the final products and ser-vices arrive on time to our worldwide customers.Behind the scenes at Xerox, hundreds of individuals in Global Purchasing manage Xerox's yearly spending for business services, contract labor, facilities, information technology, marketing, trans-portation, business travel and vehicle fleets. They also direct produc-tion material suppliers, contract manufacturing, and design partners who help Xerox produce digital publishing systems, office printers, and multifunction devices and associated inks and toners.To ensure that we deliver the most cost efficient service to the com-pany, we have developed a robust set of world class procurement tools such as competitive analysis and best of breed modeling. These, along with powerful product cost engineering systems ensure we are able to deliver our cost productivity targets.At Xerox, we've clearly defined our common platforms for our core business processes. This enables our architects and service owners to quickly build plans to migrate to our global standard platforms. We create catalysts for quick decisions and actions. And we find barriers and tear them down. It is this modernization of the supply chain infrastructure that has enabled us to make significant strides in developing an integrated com-mand system through our Oracle ERP platform surrounded by best in class bolt on applications.Xerox has thousands of vendors around the world and now we have extensive data on those vendors and on our inventory. With the development of new IT systems, we have been able to reduce supply chain inventory by as much as 20 percent, which in turn, delivers an im-Harnessing Tomorrow's Technology to Build a World Class Supply ChainBy Robert K. Davis, VP, Xerox Business Systems & Transformationopinionin myRobert K. Davis | | December 20148CIOReview
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