Dik Bentley, Jon O’Brien and James Pycock
Xerox Research Centre Europe
Cambridge Laboratory
Like many other players in the digital market, Xerox is increasingly moving towards a solutions-based rather than box-based engagement with its customers - this perspective entails an orientation to the specification of an integrated response to a customer’s formal requirements that draws together products (including third-party products) and processes to generate a response that provides ‘a solution’ to the customer’s need.
This paper outlines the relevance of ethnographic work as a resource for the specification and evaluation of such solutions in a commercial context. Given the emphasis in these solutions of flexibility and evolutionary capability in meeting developing customer requirements, the formulation of appropriate combinations of software, hardware and processes for long-term versatility and adaptability is essential. Ethnography has emerged as having some potential in documenting and explicating the work practices which bind these elements of the solution together, and indeed, enable the solution to work. This kind of evaluation has, then, been used as a means of developing an understanding of the role of both technical arrangements and working practice in delivering the required levels of flexibility, and of growing software development ideas which take this into account.
We report on our experiences of undertaking ethnographic work in this context as part of Xerox’s engagement with a major Utility company, handling the outsourcing of its customer billing activities in an increasingly de-regulated marketplace. We discuss the ways in which new requirements emerge from this work, and the issues associated with working through these requirements in the context of the broader organisation, especially in cooperation with business groups centrally involved in these activities.