Anticipating the shift from paper to digital pays off for Ricoh NZ

Anticipating the shift from paper to digital has paid dividends for Ricoh New Zealand as the company revealed another year of solid profits.

Releasing its fifth full Sustainability Report for the 2012/13 year, the theme for the 2013 report is ‘changing the way we work’ and the company says this reflects its continued investment in its IT Services and Consulting divisions to support its long-term view of creating ongoing revenues from a client base that is printing less.

Ricoh New Zealand Managing Director Mike Pollok says while this might sound like bad news for a company like Ricoh, it has long anticipated the shift from paper to digital.

“These days, our customers want to talk to us about their back-office functions and how much they can automate and digitise," he says.

"These conversations also involve looking at how much our customers print and actively seeking to reduce that.

“We are ahead of this curve and have actively moved into ‘business process improvement’ – enabling organisations to automate workflows, leading to increased productivity and flexibility to meet their own customers’ requirements.”

Pollok says the digital office revolution is about changing the way we work and is also a win environmentally – reducing energy consumption and paper use, which in turn reduces office costs.

Key highlights from the 2013 Sustainability Report include:

· Product stewardship and a market for waste plastic:

Ricoh New Zealand collected and recycled almost 70,000 used toner cartridges from customers, some of which were turned into stands for scooters that are now in use at schools around the country. See the case study on page 41.

· World-class innovation from within:

Ricoh’s focus on internal innovation saw three staff members develop a propriety iPad app for updating firmware remotely, saving technicians’ time and, more importantly, ensuring maximum machine up-time for customers.

· Quirky ways to save power:

Ricoh New Zealand issued mobile staff with portable solar panels that allow them to charge their mobile devices with free solar energy while they are out on the road. See the case study on page 47.

· Growth in Ricoh IT Services:

This division remains in a strong growth phase and was bolstered by the acquisition of three IT services companies in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin, deepening Ricoh’s IT services offering across the country.

· Recycling and re-use:

Ricoh continued its focus on re-use and recycling with 1,967 machines resold and 2,326 recycled.

“Despite the continued growth of our IT Services and Consulting divisions, Ricoh is continued to be perceived as being primarily about machines," Pollok adds.

"Educating the market about the breadth of our services is critical because we are so much more than copiers."