April 2, 2025 • 23 mins
In this episode of the "What If? So What?" podcast, Jim Hertzfeld hosts Deena LaMarque Piquion, Chief Growth and Disruption Officer at Xerox. Deena shares insights into her unique role, the intentional disruption at Xerox, and how the company is reinventing itself to stay relevant in a changing market. They discuss the importance of data, the challenges of reaching next-gen decision-makers, and the innovative strategies Xerox is employing to drive growth and productivity. Tune in to learn about the modern workplace, AI integration, and the future at Xerox.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Deena Piquion (00:05):
It's awesome when you think about how you
organize this data and then whatyou can do, the power of what
you can do right?
We've now created a predictivechurn model where we can
proactively think about what arethe indicators that a client
might leave us and how do weproactively go and reach out to
them personally, right?
Jim Hertzfeld (00:26):
Welcome to what If so what, the podcast where we
explore what's possible withdigital and discover how to make
it real in your business.
I'm your host, Jim Hertzfeld,and we get s**t done by asking
digital leaders the rightquestions w hat, if so what and,
most importantly now, what?
Hey, I'm really, really glad tohave a new type of guest, in
fact a title I don't think we'vehad on before, which makes it
(00:49):
extra special, but Deena Piquionfrom Xerox, and her title is
Chief Growth and DisruptionOfficer, and that disruption
officer title is pretty exciting.
So, Deena, welcome to thepodcast and tell us a little bit
more about what you do in thatrole at Xerox.
Deena Piquion (01:04):
Sure, thank you, Jim, happy to be here and thanks
for having me.
So I was recently promoted,about a year ago, to Chief
Growth and Disruption Officerand I had the distinct honor of
being able to pick my own titleand Chief Growth Officer and
Chief Revenue Officer, ChiefCommercial Officer those are
(01:24):
typically the ones that you hearwith functions that I have but
the disruption was reallyintentional for my group and for
the company and where we are inour history and our trajectory.
Xerox is going through areinvention.
We're reinventing our brand.
We're reinventing our businessmodel and we have traditionally
(01:46):
played in an industry that is insecular decline right, we know
that, and so we don't want to bedisrupted by the market alone.
We want to identify the markettrends and disrupt ourselves
internally to really be able totake advantage of the market
landscape outside of us.
So it was intentional and it wasa really great evolution of my
(02:09):
role and, I think, one that'spossible for many other chief
marketing officers.
So I had been chief marketingofficer for two years before I
took on this expanded role andit really became kind of the
commercial fulcrum of theorganization, working with the
go-to-market leaders, the salesleaders working with product
engineering, service deliveryand consolidating some functions
(02:34):
into one group so that we couldreally weigh in and kind of
really lean into that commercialjourney at many different
points, right, everything frombrand to land, to expand, to
retain, to acquire, you know,pricing, sales support, sales
(02:55):
enablement, e-commerce, virtualsales and kind of foundational
to all of that is data reallylike looking at the data we have
in our organization marketintelligence as well as internal
data and using that moreeffectively so that we can, you
(03:15):
know, guide our reinvention withdata and market trends.
Jim Hertzfeld (03:19):
That's.
That is a lot and I think itsays a couple of things to me.
One is that sort of a sort of,I would say, a modern business
right.
Anybody, any company of size,you know, that has to think
about it and worry about a lotof things.
And the fact that you you sortof purposely tying all that
together and looking at therelationships between those
functions, I think says a lot,and certainly the recognition
(03:41):
that you have to have the rightdata to fuel it.
That alone to me seems like adisruption, because I think a
lot of companies don't pull thattogether, you know, for lots of
reasons.
They sort of live in theirsilos.
So I think that's disruptive onits own.
And you know you brought up this, you know the idea of sort of
reinvention.
You know and I think that'srelevant to Xerox, because I
(04:01):
think of Xerox you know a coupleof ways.
I think it's one of those brandnames of.
This is equivalent to the, youknow what you do in terms of
what you've done in the printindustry and what you've done
just in terms of being a stapleor an icon of office
productivity you know fordecades.
But also I think of Xerox assort of a key innovation company
(04:22):
, right, I think Park and thelabs, and there's a lot of lore
and legend there.
But you know, as part of yourreinvention, renaissance brand
journey.
What is?
What is Xerox doing today?
Cause I think a lot of peoplemay not know, right, they may
think of Xerox in the terms Ijust shared, but what is Xerox
doing to today to sort of keepit going?
Deena Piquion (04:44):
Yeah, so this brand, I mean it is an iconic
brand, it's a noun and a verb,but that's a blessing and a
challenge in its own right right, Because if you want to shift
the perception, you want to havethe market understand new
things that you're doing.
It's hard to overcome what youwere always synonymous with,
which was copy and print in thecase of Xerox right.
(05:06):
But today, I mean, we've reallyexpanded everything that we do
to focus on enabling the modernworkforce and workplace to be
productive.
Right, we are a B2B brandthrough and through, and it's
all about enabling businesses,but the world has changed and
the workplace has changed andpeople's needs have changed, and
(05:29):
so we have a lot of differentofferings that people don't know
about yet, and it's our job nowto educate them and make sure
that they do understand that wehave AI powered platforms that
deliver productivity or insights, workflow automation all kinds
of things to really help themodern business overcome the
(05:54):
challenges that they're seeingevery day.
And in addition to that, we'vealso expanded into adjacent
markets.
So last fall, we acquired ITSavvy, which is an IT solutions
and services company.
So we've now effectively becomea very large IT solutions kind
(06:14):
of VAR right, a value-addedresource.
We sell other people'stechnology as well as our own
right.
We wrap that and bundle thatwith our own services for
businesses and you couple kindof the power of IT solutions
with our print technology, printservices and our digital
services that help digitaltransformation, productivity,
(06:37):
workflow automation.
You've really got a very newXerox in terms of the modern day
challenges they can solve.
Jim Hertzfeld (06:45):
It's interesting.
You bring up sort of the modernworkplace.
I'm in our Chicago office today, so behind me are offices and
chairs and cubicles and I waslooking earlier for today for
actually a piece of paper, likeI've got to take some notes here
.
And you know, it's great, we'vegot a bunch of people here
today and I'm here to meet somepeople and there's no substitute
(07:07):
for that.
But the, you know, the 90percent of our time is spent,
you know, disconnected,physically detached and and all
over the place.
So you know, yeah, just theacknowledgement of how we work
as teams and as individualinterface with individuals.
There's no substitute forface-to-face I mean, there's
just-.
Deena Piquion (07:25):
There is no substitute.
It will never go away.
Jim Hertzfeld (07:28):
Exactly we were just about jinxed there, Deena,
Like yeah, never going away.
Deena Piquion (07:32):
Never.
I mean.
There's something very powerfulabout being able to look
somebody in the eye and get afeel for the person right.
Jim Hertzfeld (07:41):
So what else do you think is sort of changing?
What sort of changes are youseeing out there?
I mean, we've all we've talkedabout hybrid work now for way
too long.
I'm so sick of talking about it, but I mean, I think some of
these changes were underway,just sort of the the connected
worker, the connected devices.
I think there's more and moreconnected devices out there.
I mean, what are some otherthings that you know you're
(08:02):
seeing out there?
Actually, I was going to bringup a book I saw here in the
office the World is Flat.
That's another one.
I don't know if anybody'sfamiliar with that book that
feels like it's such an old book, but it was written by Thomas
Friedman.
It's a great book about.
The idea is we sort of flattenthe world out and become more
connected.
So it might be timely.
But what else are you kind ofseeing out there from your
(08:24):
customers?
And would you mind sharing acouple of things that maybe we
haven't heard about that aresort of driving?
Deena Piquion (08:31):
Yeah absolutely, I mean hybrid, of course is
something everybody needs tosolve for security as well.
Right, you've got to be able toenable people to work securely
wherever they're working.
Sustainability is growing forus.
It has been in Europe for along time actually, and becoming
(08:52):
a lot more front and center interms of people's procurement
and technology needs.
You know the footprint on theworld right.
And so we've changed even ourown service delivery approach,
for example, and incorporatedaugmented reality, not only to
make things more efficient, butreally to kind of reduce our
(09:15):
carbon footprint in the world aswell in terms of you know, the
need to send out techniciansphysically all the time.
So you know, those are kind of,I think, the trends people are
familiar with.
But there's also this need tohelp people kind of solve for
this productivity challenge.
There's so much data internally.
There's disparate systemsdepending on the size of your
(09:37):
company and business, right, buta lot of our larger enterprise
companies have disparate systems.
They have, you know, they dowork in silos.
Not everybody has reallyintegrated the way that they
work, and so there's a realopportunity to go in and listen
to a client's issues and painpoints and develop for them.
(10:00):
And we do that.
I mean we do that for companiesas large as you know Fortune
500.
And we do that for small lawoffices or, you know, doctor's
offices or churches and localschools, as well as large
universities.
So we can go in, we can assesskind of where data sits, whether
it's structured or unstructured, document-based or device-based
(10:24):
, gather that data automate aworkflow, whether it's something
as simple as accounts payableor something really complex in a
warehouse or in a product andengineering workflow.
That's kind of our, the beautyof Xerox is that we've had this
trust of clients for so long.
(10:45):
It's a brand that's trusted.
We've been in offices for overa hundred years.
We've been behind the firewall,we've been around the office
cooler and I think there's atrust in allowing us in to solve
problems for our audience.
Jim Hertzfeld (11:02):
So, Deena, that's a line I'm going to use.
By the way, I've been behindthe firewall.
That is a great line.
So I don't know, I've neverheard that.
So that's a great one.
There's something I'm usinglater today for sure.
I mean that's a variety of usecases and audiences and people
you're trying to meet.
What do you?
You know you, you've been inhere for a hundred years but
(11:25):
you've been in this business andyou've learned a lot over a
hundred years.
But there's a whole, youmentioned to me before, a whole
next gen decision maker.
You know this is still a B2Bbusiness at hard right.
You're behind the firewall andand you built trust.
But you know how do you, as agrowth, sort of put on your
growth officer lens, you knowwhat are some of the challenges
(11:45):
you have in kind of reachingthose types of buyers.
Deena Piquion (11:48):
Yeah.
So that I mean we did a lot ofresearch or at least I did when
I came into this seat as the CMOkind of figuring out what do we
have to build on and what do weneed to change from a brand
perspective and we do have anextremely strong and favorable
opinion.
With 45 and over, I fall inthat category right, we know
(12:10):
Xerox and we have a veryfavorable and strong opinion
about Xerox.
But there's this whole next genkind of digitally native
decision makers that are cominginto positions today.
They're making the decisions inbusinesses.
But 25 to 44 audience is kind ofour sweet spot for that next
gen decision maker and theymight know of Xerox but it's not
(12:32):
top of mind, it's not relevantfor them, they're not very
familiar with what we do.
So it is really an opportunityfor us to introduce ourselves
right, reintroduce ourselves tosome segments but introduce
ourselves to others.
So what we've done is we'vereally focused on kind of like
bolder copy and visuals a littlebit punchier, a little bit
(12:54):
funnier, making it intriguingfor people to kind of think
about hey, I didn't know Xero alittle bit funnier, making it
intriguing for people to kind ofthink about hey, I didn't know
Xerox did that or I want to knowmore and really focusing around
kind of we make work workwherever work happens.
Right, like expanding what wedo for people but staying very
clearly in our B2B space, aboutenabling workplace productivity.
Jim Hertzfeld (13:18):
Oh my gosh, Deena , you're like throwing lines at
me.
I'm going to use so much.
We make work, work, like thatis great.
Deena Piquion (13:27):
That's our tagline for our campaign that we
launched in the second half of2023.
And we're doubling down.
Like we tried a lot ofdifferent things.
We tested.
You know, we did a lot of outof home that Xerox wasn't
usually, you know, we you didn'tusually see ads in LaGuardia or
JFK or on buses or in bus stopsabout Xerox, but we did, we
(13:49):
tried it.
We tried some TikTok ads.
We obviously used a lot ofLinkedIn and, and you know,
relevant social platforms for us.
But we're evolving all of thetime and we just launched a new
partnership with the AstonMartin, the Aramco Aston Martin
Formula One team, really to kindof advance that narrative of
(14:12):
you know it's a sport oftechnology, we're a technology
company.
You might not think of us inthat way, but we're integrating
our technology into the sport oftechnology to make a team
faster and more productive.
Jim Hertzfeld (14:24):
Yeah, that is great.
So I just love the empathy andthe listening that you're
putting into it.
I think that's so important.
What are some things you'redoing, then, sort of internally
so reinventing the brand and howyou engage, but you've been
reinventing yourselves.
You mentioned, you know, someof the services you're expanding
into, but and you mentioneddata you mentioned data being.
I hear this a lot.
(14:45):
You know from other customersthat you know when they start to
kind of break down what theyreally want to do and how they
really want to work differently,how they want to make their own
work work, they start to fallback on the data that they don't
have or that they need or it'sgot to be cleaner, and you know.
So how is that manifestinginside the organization?
Deena Piquion (15:03):
Yeah, I'm a data geek.
By the way, I love data, so I'mnot your typical, you know,
creative marketing person and Ilove to surround myself with
those people, but I love thedata like what the data tells us
and how does that guide what wedo?
And you said earlier kind ofeven just putting the groups
together that I have togetherunder one umbrella, is
(15:25):
disruptive in and of itself andit surfaced so many
opportunities for us.
So what started as a campaign toclean our data, for marketing,
segmentation and email marketing, and all of this turned into
this much broader project forthe organization where I now own
client data, created a clientdata governance council,
(15:48):
implemented a master datamanagement system a golden
record for clients so that wecan unify data from different
sources, different systemsRemember, xerox has acquired
companies over decades, right,and we have different
transactional systems as well asmany different systems we use
for service delivery, for clientsentiment, different things.
(16:12):
So we've unified all of our datainto a data cloud, into a
client data platform, and nowthe use cases we're able to see,
of course, to give morerelevant marketing to buyers at
the time they want it or need it, but also just to give better
insights internally into howwe're designing things and what
(16:34):
we're doing with our offerings,with our service delivery plans,
with many different thingsinternally.
It's been great and goingthrough that exercise and we're
now in the process of layeringon one of our own offerings on
top of it as kind of client zero, so that when we go to the
market and say we can do thisfor you.
(16:58):
you know, Mr and Mrs CMO, I willbe able to personally speak to
how it's helped me right.
Jim Hertzfeld (17:04):
Yeah, that's great.
I've seen that come togetherwith.
You know you mentioned thegolden record.
I mean it's such I don't topeople who don't understand that
a little bit but you know, anMDM, master data management like
if you, especially whenacquisition, you know there'll
be like I have my first namehere, my last name there, my
phone number somewhere else, andhow do you tell that those
(17:26):
three records are me?
That's a challenge.
I mean you don't have to.
And again, people I think havebeen down this road or they want
to be driven this way.
They have to tackle thosefundamental problems.
But when you get it done andyou actually see data supporting
decisions, I mean there's.
I've been in so many rooms Ithink we all have in so many
(17:48):
meetings where you know thesqueaky wheel gets the grease,
or the extrovert, you know,beats out the introverts, or you
know there's just inertia incompanies.
There's just like, well, we'vealways done it this way and we
haven't stopped to look at thedata.
So I just think it's somethingthat we need to be reminded of
constantly about you know whatit really means to be data
driven, because it sounds cool,but you know it's a lot of
(18:08):
change that comes with it, too,like people have to give up
their assumptions.
Deena Piquion (18:12):
Yeah, and it's I mean imagine, for 118 year old
company that's been successfulfor so long and people have done
things that worked for a longtime.
But over time, we've acquiredother companies, you've moved
into different businesses.
The world has changed, right?
So it is making sure that,fundamentally, people need to
challenge the status quo andallow our next steps to be data
(18:37):
driven.
And it's awesome when you thinkabout how you organize this
data and then what you can dothe power of what you can do
right.
We've now created a predictivechurn model where we can kind of
proactively think about whatare the indicators that a client
might leave us and how do weproactively go and reach out to
(19:00):
them personally, right?
Or pricing we've now layered onan AI pricing model that helps
us to maximize win rate but alsoenable us to maximize profit,
right.
So it's that kind of sweet spot.
And there are so many otherareas.
We're now hosting AI workshopswith salespeople and Salesforce.
(19:24):
That is our system of recordand our CRM, and that's where
we've invested in our clientdata platform.
So we're doubling down and weare working with them for them
to see the day in the life of asales rep at Xerox and start
thinking with us strategicallyabout how do we augment that day
in the life of a sales rep withagentic AI to make their life
(19:47):
easier, right.
To make their work, better forthem and make them more
productive.
Jim Hertzfeld (19:53):
Well, that's a great application of agentic and
AI and we're seeing that aswell, because and it's great
that you sort of start small, Ithink, having those wins I love
this sort of these workshopsthat you talked about, or you
know, well, let's try it thisway.
And then you got to sort ofcrawl, walk, run with people,
right, so they understand whatit is.
In fact, I was just having thisconversation with somebody the
(20:13):
other day who had not tried agenerative, a chat, GPT or a
co-pilot.
I said, well, you know, hey,yeah, so you haven't tried this
yet.
And so you just start showingthem and then their minds start
to go because they know theirwork right, they know the shift,
the disruption right is, youknow, takes a little confidence
building and it's just smallsteps.
(20:33):
And you know, I think a lot oforganizations look at that and
you know they're not trying todownsize, they're not trying to
do more with less, they'retrying to do way more with what
they have, you know.
Deena Piquion (20:44):
And so and modernize right.
I mean, you know, like thefoundation of a modern sales or
marketing organization is datatoday.
It's just right, and so Ialways tell my team we'll crawl,
walk, run right.
So like start small.
(21:05):
So we often start with councils, like we have people nominated
from sales to be on these AIworkshops on a council.
We had a marketing AI councilthat started with some proof
points and use cases.
So I think it is important tofind people that can be those
change agents for you internallyand can spread the word once
they have those great stories totell.
Jim Hertzfeld (21:24):
That's great.
I like those sort of functionalapplications.
You know of AI.
So, Deena, you know what comesbefore a crawl, walk, run.
Does anybody know what that iscry?
If you've had children, youknow that it's cry.
And they, finally they crawl,walk, run.
So you know we have sometimeswe have to point out you know,
like how bad it is, like youshould be crying, you know, and
(21:47):
we got to motivate them.
But anyways, this is great.
I love like the disruption andgrowth you're fusing together.
I really appreciate you sharingit.
If there's one thing you couldtell listeners people who were
in your shoes maybe a few monthsago, who were trying to grow
and disrupt at the same time,what's sort of one piece of
advice or one thing that youthink they could do tomorrow?
Deena Piquion (22:09):
I would say, develop some really key
partnerships internally.
I think that's been reallyhelpful for me.
Kind of CTO, CFO partnershipsare really important, right.
They need to be on the journeywith you.
You know, however your companyis structured whoever leads up
IT and whoever pays the billsneed to be on the journey with
(22:30):
you.
Jim Hertzfeld (22:30):
Definitely who pays the bills.
So well, Deena, thanks, so much.
Thanks for sharing again, and Ilook forward to seeing what you
guys are going to disrupt next.
Deena Piquion (22:39):
Thanks, Jim, thanks for having me.
Jim Hertzfeld (22:41):
Take care.
Joe Wentzel (22:43):
You've been listening to What if, So What?
A digital strategy podcast fromPerficient with Jim Hertzfeld.
We want to thank our Perficientcolleagues JD Norman and Rick
Bauer for our music.
Subscribe to the podcast anddon't miss a single episode.
You can find this season, alongwith show notes at perficient.
com.
Thanks for listening.
It's awesome when you think about how you
organize this data and then whatyou can do, the power of what
you can do right?
We've now created a predictivechurn model where we can
proactively think about what arethe indicators that a client
might leave us and how do weproactively go and reach out to
them personally, right?
Jim Hertzfeld (00:26):
Welcome to what If so what, the podcast where we
explore what's possible withdigital and discover how to make
it real in your business.
I'm your host, Jim Hertzfeld,and we get s**t done by asking
digital leaders the rightquestions w hat, if so what and,
most importantly now, what?
Hey, I'm really, really glad tohave a new type of guest, in
fact a title I don't think we'vehad on before, which makes it
(00:49):
extra special, but Deena Piquionfrom Xerox, and her title is
Chief Growth and DisruptionOfficer, and that disruption
officer title is pretty exciting.
So, Deena, welcome to thepodcast and tell us a little bit
more about what you do in thatrole at Xerox.
Deena Piquion (01:04):
Sure, thank you, Jim, happy to be here and thanks
for having me.
So I was recently promoted,about a year ago, to Chief
Growth and Disruption Officerand I had the distinct honor of
being able to pick my own titleand Chief Growth Officer and
Chief Revenue Officer, ChiefCommercial Officer those are
(01:24):
typically the ones that you hearwith functions that I have but
the disruption was reallyintentional for my group and for
the company and where we are inour history and our trajectory.
Xerox is going through areinvention.
We're reinventing our brand.
We're reinventing our businessmodel and we have traditionally
(01:46):
played in an industry that is insecular decline right, we know
that, and so we don't want to bedisrupted by the market alone.
We want to identify the markettrends and disrupt ourselves
internally to really be able totake advantage of the market
landscape outside of us.
So it was intentional and it wasa really great evolution of my
(02:09):
role and, I think, one that'spossible for many other chief
marketing officers.
So I had been chief marketingofficer for two years before I
took on this expanded role andit really became kind of the
commercial fulcrum of theorganization, working with the
go-to-market leaders, the salesleaders working with product
engineering, service deliveryand consolidating some functions
(02:34):
into one group so that we couldreally weigh in and kind of
really lean into that commercialjourney at many different
points, right, everything frombrand to land, to expand, to
retain, to acquire, you know,pricing, sales support, sales
(02:55):
enablement, e-commerce, virtualsales and kind of foundational
to all of that is data reallylike looking at the data we have
in our organization marketintelligence as well as internal
data and using that moreeffectively so that we can, you
(03:15):
know, guide our reinvention withdata and market trends.
Jim Hertzfeld (03:19):
That's.
That is a lot and I think itsays a couple of things to me.
One is that sort of a sort of,I would say, a modern business
right.
Anybody, any company of size,you know, that has to think
about it and worry about a lotof things.
And the fact that you you sortof purposely tying all that
together and looking at therelationships between those
functions, I think says a lot,and certainly the recognition
(03:41):
that you have to have the rightdata to fuel it.
That alone to me seems like adisruption, because I think a
lot of companies don't pull thattogether, you know, for lots of
reasons.
They sort of live in theirsilos.
So I think that's disruptive onits own.
And you know you brought up this, you know the idea of sort of
reinvention.
You know and I think that'srelevant to Xerox, because I
(04:01):
think of Xerox you know a coupleof ways.
I think it's one of those brandnames of.
This is equivalent to the, youknow what you do in terms of
what you've done in the printindustry and what you've done
just in terms of being a stapleor an icon of office
productivity you know fordecades.
But also I think of Xerox assort of a key innovation company
(04:22):
, right, I think Park and thelabs, and there's a lot of lore
and legend there.
But you know, as part of yourreinvention, renaissance brand
journey.
What is?
What is Xerox doing today?
Cause I think a lot of peoplemay not know, right, they may
think of Xerox in the terms Ijust shared, but what is Xerox
doing to today to sort of keepit going?
Deena Piquion (04:44):
Yeah, so this brand, I mean it is an iconic
brand, it's a noun and a verb,but that's a blessing and a
challenge in its own right right, Because if you want to shift
the perception, you want to havethe market understand new
things that you're doing.
It's hard to overcome what youwere always synonymous with,
which was copy and print in thecase of Xerox right.
(05:06):
But today, I mean, we've reallyexpanded everything that we do
to focus on enabling the modernworkforce and workplace to be
productive.
Right, we are a B2B brandthrough and through, and it's
all about enabling businesses,but the world has changed and
the workplace has changed andpeople's needs have changed, and
(05:29):
so we have a lot of differentofferings that people don't know
about yet, and it's our job nowto educate them and make sure
that they do understand that wehave AI powered platforms that
deliver productivity or insights, workflow automation all kinds
of things to really help themodern business overcome the
(05:54):
challenges that they're seeingevery day.
And in addition to that, we'vealso expanded into adjacent
markets.
So last fall, we acquired ITSavvy, which is an IT solutions
and services company.
So we've now effectively becomea very large IT solutions kind
(06:14):
of VAR right, a value-addedresource.
We sell other people'stechnology as well as our own
right.
We wrap that and bundle thatwith our own services for
businesses and you couple kindof the power of IT solutions
with our print technology, printservices and our digital
services that help digitaltransformation, productivity,
(06:37):
workflow automation.
You've really got a very newXerox in terms of the modern day
challenges they can solve.
Jim Hertzfeld (06:45):
It's interesting.
You bring up sort of the modernworkplace.
I'm in our Chicago office today, so behind me are offices and
chairs and cubicles and I waslooking earlier for today for
actually a piece of paper, likeI've got to take some notes here
.
And you know, it's great, we'vegot a bunch of people here
today and I'm here to meet somepeople and there's no substitute
(07:07):
for that.
But the, you know, the 90percent of our time is spent,
you know, disconnected,physically detached and and all
over the place.
So you know, yeah, just theacknowledgement of how we work
as teams and as individualinterface with individuals.
There's no substitute forface-to-face I mean, there's
just-.
Deena Piquion (07:25):
There is no substitute.
It will never go away.
Jim Hertzfeld (07:28):
Exactly we were just about jinxed there, Deena,
Like yeah, never going away.
Deena Piquion (07:32):
Never.
I mean.
There's something very powerfulabout being able to look
somebody in the eye and get afeel for the person right.
Jim Hertzfeld (07:41):
So what else do you think is sort of changing?
What sort of changes are youseeing out there?
I mean, we've all we've talkedabout hybrid work now for way
too long.
I'm so sick of talking about it, but I mean, I think some of
these changes were underway,just sort of the the connected
worker, the connected devices.
I think there's more and moreconnected devices out there.
I mean, what are some otherthings that you know you're
(08:02):
seeing out there?
Actually, I was going to bringup a book I saw here in the
office the World is Flat.
That's another one.
I don't know if anybody'sfamiliar with that book that
feels like it's such an old book, but it was written by Thomas
Friedman.
It's a great book about.
The idea is we sort of flattenthe world out and become more
connected.
So it might be timely.
But what else are you kind ofseeing out there from your
(08:24):
customers?
And would you mind sharing acouple of things that maybe we
haven't heard about that aresort of driving?
Deena Piquion (08:31):
Yeah absolutely, I mean hybrid, of course is
something everybody needs tosolve for security as well.
Right, you've got to be able toenable people to work securely
wherever they're working.
Sustainability is growing forus.
It has been in Europe for along time actually, and becoming
(08:52):
a lot more front and center interms of people's procurement
and technology needs.
You know the footprint on theworld right.
And so we've changed even ourown service delivery approach,
for example, and incorporatedaugmented reality, not only to
make things more efficient, butreally to kind of reduce our
(09:15):
carbon footprint in the world aswell in terms of you know, the
need to send out techniciansphysically all the time.
So you know, those are kind of,I think, the trends people are
familiar with.
But there's also this need tohelp people kind of solve for
this productivity challenge.
There's so much data internally.
There's disparate systemsdepending on the size of your
(09:37):
company and business, right, buta lot of our larger enterprise
companies have disparate systems.
They have, you know, they dowork in silos.
Not everybody has reallyintegrated the way that they
work, and so there's a realopportunity to go in and listen
to a client's issues and painpoints and develop for them.
(10:00):
And we do that.
I mean we do that for companiesas large as you know Fortune
500.
And we do that for small lawoffices or, you know, doctor's
offices or churches and localschools, as well as large
universities.
So we can go in, we can assesskind of where data sits, whether
it's structured or unstructured, document-based or device-based
(10:24):
, gather that data automate aworkflow, whether it's something
as simple as accounts payableor something really complex in a
warehouse or in a product andengineering workflow.
That's kind of our, the beautyof Xerox is that we've had this
trust of clients for so long.
(10:45):
It's a brand that's trusted.
We've been in offices for overa hundred years.
We've been behind the firewall,we've been around the office
cooler and I think there's atrust in allowing us in to solve
problems for our audience.
Jim Hertzfeld (11:02):
So, Deena, that's a line I'm going to use.
By the way, I've been behindthe firewall.
That is a great line.
So I don't know, I've neverheard that.
So that's a great one.
There's something I'm usinglater today for sure.
I mean that's a variety of usecases and audiences and people
you're trying to meet.
What do you?
You know you, you've been inhere for a hundred years but
(11:25):
you've been in this business andyou've learned a lot over a
hundred years.
But there's a whole, youmentioned to me before, a whole
next gen decision maker.
You know this is still a B2Bbusiness at hard right.
You're behind the firewall andand you built trust.
But you know how do you, as agrowth, sort of put on your
growth officer lens, you knowwhat are some of the challenges
(11:45):
you have in kind of reachingthose types of buyers.
Deena Piquion (11:48):
Yeah.
So that I mean we did a lot ofresearch or at least I did when
I came into this seat as the CMOkind of figuring out what do we
have to build on and what do weneed to change from a brand
perspective and we do have anextremely strong and favorable
opinion.
With 45 and over, I fall inthat category right, we know
(12:10):
Xerox and we have a veryfavorable and strong opinion
about Xerox.
But there's this whole next genkind of digitally native
decision makers that are cominginto positions today.
They're making the decisions inbusinesses.
But 25 to 44 audience is kind ofour sweet spot for that next
gen decision maker and theymight know of Xerox but it's not
(12:32):
top of mind, it's not relevantfor them, they're not very
familiar with what we do.
So it is really an opportunityfor us to introduce ourselves
right, reintroduce ourselves tosome segments but introduce
ourselves to others.
So what we've done is we'vereally focused on kind of like
bolder copy and visuals a littlebit punchier, a little bit
(12:54):
funnier, making it intriguingfor people to kind of think
about hey, I didn't know Xero alittle bit funnier, making it
intriguing for people to kind ofthink about hey, I didn't know
Xerox did that or I want to knowmore and really focusing around
kind of we make work workwherever work happens.
Right, like expanding what wedo for people but staying very
clearly in our B2B space, aboutenabling workplace productivity.
Jim Hertzfeld (13:18):
Oh my gosh, Deena , you're like throwing lines at
me.
I'm going to use so much.
We make work, work, like thatis great.
Deena Piquion (13:27):
That's our tagline for our campaign that we
launched in the second half of2023.
And we're doubling down.
Like we tried a lot ofdifferent things.
We tested.
You know, we did a lot of outof home that Xerox wasn't
usually, you know, we you didn'tusually see ads in LaGuardia or
JFK or on buses or in bus stopsabout Xerox, but we did, we
(13:49):
tried it.
We tried some TikTok ads.
We obviously used a lot ofLinkedIn and, and you know,
relevant social platforms for us.
But we're evolving all of thetime and we just launched a new
partnership with the AstonMartin, the Aramco Aston Martin
Formula One team, really to kindof advance that narrative of
(14:12):
you know it's a sport oftechnology, we're a technology
company.
You might not think of us inthat way, but we're integrating
our technology into the sport oftechnology to make a team
faster and more productive.
Jim Hertzfeld (14:24):
Yeah, that is great.
So I just love the empathy andthe listening that you're
putting into it.
I think that's so important.
What are some things you'redoing, then, sort of internally
so reinventing the brand and howyou engage, but you've been
reinventing yourselves.
You mentioned, you know, someof the services you're expanding
into, but and you mentioneddata you mentioned data being.
I hear this a lot.
(14:45):
You know from other customersthat you know when they start to
kind of break down what theyreally want to do and how they
really want to work differently,how they want to make their own
work work, they start to fallback on the data that they don't
have or that they need or it'sgot to be cleaner, and you know.
So how is that manifestinginside the organization?
Deena Piquion (15:03):
Yeah, I'm a data geek.
By the way, I love data, so I'mnot your typical, you know,
creative marketing person and Ilove to surround myself with
those people, but I love thedata like what the data tells us
and how does that guide what wedo?
And you said earlier kind ofeven just putting the groups
together that I have togetherunder one umbrella, is
(15:25):
disruptive in and of itself andit surfaced so many
opportunities for us.
So what started as a campaign toclean our data, for marketing,
segmentation and email marketing, and all of this turned into
this much broader project forthe organization where I now own
client data, created a clientdata governance council,
(15:48):
implemented a master datamanagement system a golden
record for clients so that wecan unify data from different
sources, different systemsRemember, xerox has acquired
companies over decades, right,and we have different
transactional systems as well asmany different systems we use
for service delivery, for clientsentiment, different things.
(16:12):
So we've unified all of our datainto a data cloud, into a
client data platform, and nowthe use cases we're able to see,
of course, to give morerelevant marketing to buyers at
the time they want it or need it, but also just to give better
insights internally into howwe're designing things and what
(16:34):
we're doing with our offerings,with our service delivery plans,
with many different thingsinternally.
It's been great and goingthrough that exercise and we're
now in the process of layeringon one of our own offerings on
top of it as kind of client zero, so that when we go to the
market and say we can do thisfor you.
(16:58):
you know, Mr and Mrs CMO, I willbe able to personally speak to
how it's helped me right.
Jim Hertzfeld (17:04):
Yeah, that's great.
I've seen that come togetherwith.
You know you mentioned thegolden record.
I mean it's such I don't topeople who don't understand that
a little bit but you know, anMDM, master data management like
if you, especially whenacquisition, you know there'll
be like I have my first namehere, my last name there, my
phone number somewhere else, andhow do you tell that those
(17:26):
three records are me?
That's a challenge.
I mean you don't have to.
And again, people I think havebeen down this road or they want
to be driven this way.
They have to tackle thosefundamental problems.
But when you get it done andyou actually see data supporting
decisions, I mean there's.
I've been in so many rooms Ithink we all have in so many
(17:48):
meetings where you know thesqueaky wheel gets the grease,
or the extrovert, you know,beats out the introverts, or you
know there's just inertia incompanies.
There's just like, well, we'vealways done it this way and we
haven't stopped to look at thedata.
So I just think it's somethingthat we need to be reminded of
constantly about you know whatit really means to be data
driven, because it sounds cool,but you know it's a lot of
(18:08):
change that comes with it, too,like people have to give up
their assumptions.
Deena Piquion (18:12):
Yeah, and it's I mean imagine, for 118 year old
company that's been successfulfor so long and people have done
things that worked for a longtime.
But over time, we've acquiredother companies, you've moved
into different businesses.
The world has changed, right?
So it is making sure that,fundamentally, people need to
challenge the status quo andallow our next steps to be data
(18:37):
driven.
And it's awesome when you thinkabout how you organize this
data and then what you can dothe power of what you can do
right.
We've now created a predictivechurn model where we can kind of
proactively think about whatare the indicators that a client
might leave us and how do weproactively go and reach out to
(19:00):
them personally, right?
Or pricing we've now layered onan AI pricing model that helps
us to maximize win rate but alsoenable us to maximize profit,
right.
So it's that kind of sweet spot.
And there are so many otherareas.
We're now hosting AI workshopswith salespeople and Salesforce.
(19:24):
That is our system of recordand our CRM, and that's where
we've invested in our clientdata platform.
So we're doubling down and weare working with them for them
to see the day in the life of asales rep at Xerox and start
thinking with us strategicallyabout how do we augment that day
in the life of a sales rep withagentic AI to make their life
(19:47):
easier, right.
To make their work, better forthem and make them more
productive.
Jim Hertzfeld (19:53):
Well, that's a great application of agentic and
AI and we're seeing that aswell, because and it's great
that you sort of start small, Ithink, having those wins I love
this sort of these workshopsthat you talked about, or you
know, well, let's try it thisway.
And then you got to sort ofcrawl, walk, run with people,
right, so they understand whatit is.
In fact, I was just having thisconversation with somebody the
(20:13):
other day who had not tried agenerative, a chat, GPT or a
co-pilot.
I said, well, you know, hey,yeah, so you haven't tried this
yet.
And so you just start showingthem and then their minds start
to go because they know theirwork right, they know the shift,
the disruption right is, youknow, takes a little confidence
building and it's just smallsteps.
(20:33):
And you know, I think a lot oforganizations look at that and
you know they're not trying todownsize, they're not trying to
do more with less, they'retrying to do way more with what
they have, you know.
Deena Piquion (20:44):
And so and modernize right.
I mean, you know, like thefoundation of a modern sales or
marketing organization is datatoday.
It's just right, and so Ialways tell my team we'll crawl,
walk, run right.
So like start small.
(21:05):
So we often start with councils, like we have people nominated
from sales to be on these AIworkshops on a council.
We had a marketing AI councilthat started with some proof
points and use cases.
So I think it is important tofind people that can be those
change agents for you internallyand can spread the word once
they have those great stories totell.
Jim Hertzfeld (21:24):
That's great.
I like those sort of functionalapplications.
You know of AI.
So, Deena, you know what comesbefore a crawl, walk, run.
Does anybody know what that iscry?
If you've had children, youknow that it's cry.
And they, finally they crawl,walk, run.
So you know we have sometimeswe have to point out you know,
like how bad it is, like youshould be crying, you know, and
(21:47):
we got to motivate them.
But anyways, this is great.
I love like the disruption andgrowth you're fusing together.
I really appreciate you sharingit.
If there's one thing you couldtell listeners people who were
in your shoes maybe a few monthsago, who were trying to grow
and disrupt at the same time,what's sort of one piece of
advice or one thing that youthink they could do tomorrow?
Deena Piquion (22:09):
I would say, develop some really key
partnerships internally.
I think that's been reallyhelpful for me.
Kind of CTO, CFO partnershipsare really important, right.
They need to be on the journeywith you.
You know, however your companyis structured whoever leads up
IT and whoever pays the billsneed to be on the journey with
(22:30):
you.
Jim Hertzfeld (22:30):
Definitely who pays the bills.
So well, Deena, thanks, so much.
Thanks for sharing again, and Ilook forward to seeing what you
guys are going to disrupt next.
Deena Piquion (22:39):
Thanks, Jim, thanks for having me.
Jim Hertzfeld (22:41):
Take care.
Joe Wentzel (22:43):
You've been listening to What if, So What?
A digital strategy podcast fromPerficient with Jim Hertzfeld.
We want to thank our Perficientcolleagues JD Norman and Rick
Bauer for our music.
Subscribe to the podcast anddon't miss a single episode.
You can find this season, alongwith show notes at perficient.
com.
Thanks for listening.
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