In upstate New York, on the shores of lake Ontario, lies the small town of Webster. Its largest employer is Xerox, which chose the town for one of five R&D facilities that span the United States, Canada and Europe. Together, they employ over 5 000 researchers, scientists and engineers, all dedicated to maintaining the track record of innovation which remains core to the Xerox strategy to evolve as a document management company. These centres focus on things like colour science, computing, digital imaging, electromechanical systems and natural language, although a visit to the site makes clear that Xerox no longer pursues technological development for its own sake, nor does it rely on technology alone to remain competitive.

Complementary consulting and outsourcing services are becoming increasingly important. So, too, is integration throughout the technology platforms used within the office and professional printing environments. These services, designed to improve business processes, include the scanning of accounts, invoices, contracts and receipts to enable document management, including tracking and storage, as well as in-depth reporting.