Ricoh SA announced exciting developments for 2012 at an event at Swartkop Airport Base in Pretoria on 13 July, including Ricohs increased investment in its operations in South Africa, investing R200 million in the region, a move which is part of Ricoh’s strategy to expand its presence in key emerging markets. South Africa is an important focus for the group in EMEA. The investments will further enhance Ricoh’s direct customer interactions and enable it to stay at the forefront of their document management needs.
There are three new initiatives; the launch of Ricoh Capital South Africa; an optimised supply chain process and infrastructure enhancements. Combined they also ensure Ricoh has a more streamlined approach to account management and that its clients receive a single, consistent Ricoh experience, no matter where they operate. The initiatives will also drive new employment opportunities in the region.
Ricoh Capital South Africa will provide clients with the option to take on leases or service contracts and enjoy all the benefits of Ricoh solutions without capital outlay. They will also have the convenience of managing their entire document solution including service and software into one regular payment. Ricoh Capital has designed its offerings to support the specific needs of Ricoh customers and focuses on its core business areas of office solutions, production printing and managed document services. Ricoh Capital customers will also benefit from increased agility within their business and the ability to make purchasing decisions quickly. They will have greater flexibility to upgrade their solutions during the lease period. It also enables them to keep credit channels open for other business needs.
The review and optimisation of the supply chain process resulted in Ricoh diverting stock management and distribution to Ricoh Europe’s operations in the Netherlands. As a result Ricoh SA gained savings of R100 million which will be reinvested into the business and provide infrastructure enhancements, social responsibility and skills development.
Infrastructure enhancements are part of an EMEA-wide project, designed to streamline Ricoh’s business processes. They ensure more stable processes and robust systems, to drive business growth and enhance customer service, and enable Ricoh to enhance its sales, services and billing processes. They also support Ricoh’s focus to provide a world-class, end to end customer experience.
Richard Pinker, MD of Ricoh SA, said, Our region is an important focus for Ricoh in EMEA and our team is energised to further increase our client services and contribute to the overall Ricoh growth strategy. Our business focuses upon optimising document processes and improving the interaction between people and information. Our technology heritage and experience means that we can help organisations to be ready to meet the future challenges presented by the impacts of new technologies and the increase in information. We look forward to continue working with organisations in South Africa to further understand how we can help them to reduce costs, streamline document processes and even enhance security, while making realtime informed decisions.
Ricoh SA has also appointed Morgan Crosby as its new project manager. Crosby will head the companys project office responsible for rolling out strategic business projects and large customer projects. Crosbys appointment is closely linked to Ricoh SAs significant investment to ramp up services, solutions, and infrastructure, in response to local and global market influences.
I spent a decade in customer-facing, operational food services prior to numerous roles throughout the next nearly 14 years at Compass Group SA, a member of Compass Group PLC, including change and project management and heading up the IT department, procurement management, and sales support through financial analysis and project management of new business and bids, said Crosby.
He has also been deeply involved in a Y2K project and more recently project managed a three-year development of a bespoke, decentralised system, which included testing and rolling it out to more than 450 national locations.
Crosbys primary role will be to formalise and extend Ricoh SAs project management capabilities following the industry standard PRINCE2 and Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) principles.
