The difficult choices made by Canon in attacking
Xerox highlight the importance of choosing in an
explicit way what to do and what not to do.
At the time of the attack, Xerox had a lock on the
copier market by following a well-defined and
successful strategy, the main elements of which
were the following: having segmented the market
by volume, Xerox decided to go after the
corporate reproduction market by concentrating
on copiers designed for high-speed, high-volume
needs. This inevitably defined Xerox’s customers
as big corporations, which in turn determined its
distribution method: the direct sales force. At the
same time, Xerox decided to lease rather than sell
its machines, a strategic choice that had worked
well in the company’s earlier battles with 3M.