Ricoh Unveils Managed Document Services 2.0

TOKYO, October 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

- Investment in services yields early insights and results; company launches online repository of resources for addressing customers' top business concerns in information management

Ricoh Company, Ltd., a worldwide leader in digital office equipment and advanced document management solutions and services, today announced Ricoh Managed Document Services™ (Ricoh MDS) 2.0, born from an in-depth analysis of customer engagements and focused on measurable results.

MDS 2.0 represents significant early progress in the evolution of the services-led business model Ricoh unveiled in January 2011, as it made a three-year commitment to enhance its global MDS infrastructure. The strategy shift was intended to leverage the power of improved document workflows and document management so that customers can concentrate on their business goals and bottom lines.

As part of Ricoh MDS 2.0, Ricoh today unveiled a new global website that serves as a source of information and guidance to help customers achieve their business goals through Ricoh Managed Document Services. The site includes case studies, white papers and videos, delivering this content via a customized user experience.

Defining the Ricoh MDS challenge

Through its global MDS engagements, Ricoh has scrutinized thousands of projects and pinpointed customers' top business concerns in managed print services (MPS), which is the foundation of "Ricoh MDS, MPS and Beyond™." These concerns have yielded a new Ricoh MDS delivery structure focused tightly on producing desired outcomes in these areas.

The top identified concerns are cost control, environmental sustainability, information security and governance, business process efficiency, organizational change management, information worker (iWorker) productivity, information optimization and strategic infrastructure. Ricoh MDS 2.0 defines the services and deliverables that map directly to each concern to help customers achieve measurable and sustainable business outcomes.

"We applied our expertise and sharpened our focus on what customers need, even when they can't articulate their requirements in so many words," said Sergio Kato, Associate Director of Ricoh Company, Ltd. and General Manager of Global MDS Center. "Our refined service delivery methodology is designed to better help customers meet their business objectives while retaining the flexibility they need to overcome their unique challenges."

Ricoh MDS Adaptive Model

Using these new insights, Ricoh has streamlined its delivery framework, producing a new, simpler five-phased Adaptive Model. With the customer at the center, the first phase - Understand - begins with an expert assessment of the customer's "current state." The Improve phase includes the design of a "desired state." The Transform phase focuses on deployment, the Govern phase ensures all objectives are met, and the Optimize phase addresses ongoing improvements and sustained savings.

The new model strengthens the three stages of partnership engagement: Project Management led by PMI®- and PRINCE2®-certified Ricoh project managers who follow globally accepted best practices to track, manage and measure each engagement; Service Management led by ITIL®/ISO 20000-1-certified professionals who ensure the newly transformed environment is effectively governed and optimized; and Organizational Change Management, which accelerates the transition from the current to the desired state, and makes productivity gains a permanent part of the culture.

This new framework creates a globally cohesive approach to executing MDS programs based entirely on the ways Ricoh customers prefer to do business. Refinements are already paying dividends: since April, Ricoh has signed more than 10 global customers, including one that operates in more than 70 countries.

New sustainability services

Leveraging Ricoh's rich history of environmental stewardship, including being named one of the "Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World"(1) for seven years in a row, Ricoh has evolved its MDS service portfolio by introducing a comprehensive set of end-to-end sustainability services. These offerings can be combined in different ways to address the unique needs of Ricoh MDS customers across the globe. They include:

• analysis and definition of the baseline carbon footprint from electricity and paper consumption;
• creation of an optimization design with measurable reduction targets;
• implementation of the design along with education and training;
• governance and monitoring of sustainability performance to identify and action any gaps between actual performance and defined targets; and
• guidance for balancing any remaining and unavoidable carbon footprint (EU market only).

"We're detecting a deepening demand among our customers for sustainability, which has become an integral part of a business's brand as well as an ethical imperative," said Ike Kakegawa, Vice President, Environmental Sustainability, Ricoh Americas Corporation. "As we have demonstrated for years, sustainability is squarely in our domain: documents, records and electronic information have significant implications for a company's environmental performance on a number of levels. Further, reducing our customers' environmental footprint is an integral part of Ricoh's strategy to achieve our social responsibility goals."

Ricoh has delivered custom MDS solutions to customers around the world. For customer success stories on Ricoh's MDS approach, please visit mds.ricoh.com.

About Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Ricoh Company, Ltd. is a company specializing in technology and services that transform high-volume, document-intensive business processes into more efficient ones. This is achieved through Ricoh's expertise in Managed Document Services, Production Printing, Office Solutions and IT Services. By working with Ricoh, businesses can streamline the way they work, become more efficient and profitable, and share knowledge more effectively within their organizations. Ricoh's worldwide operation covers more than 180 countries and territories in Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific, China and Japan.

© 2011 Ricoh Company, Ltd. All rights reserved. All other company or product names, and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Ricoh Web Site: http://www.ricoh.com 

(1)  Corporate Knights Inc. of Canada selects the top 100 corporations in the world every year to create the Global 100, which highlights global corporations that have been the most proactive in managing environmental, social and governance issues (ESG) integrated with financial data.

    MEDIA CONTACTS:
    Linda Montefusco                 Heather Nevers
    Ricoh Americas Corporation       Brodeur Partners
    +1-973-882-2172                  +1-617-587-2814
    linda.montefusco@ricoh-usa.com   hnevers@brodeur.com

    Europe
    Janice Gibson
    Ricoh Europe PLC
    +44-(0)20-7465-1153
    Janice.Gibson@ricoh-europe.com

    Japan
    Francis Harrison
    Corporate Communications
    Ricoh Co., Ltd.
    +81-3-6278-4713
    Francis.Harrison@nts.ricoh.co.jp