Ricoh ignites IT services market
King, who took over the new role at the start of September, says the first managed service offering from the division is expected to hit the market in November.
While King was reluctant to give much away, he says the division will be a full service capability company in the SME market and a niche player in the enterprise market.
"I’m particularly interested in cloud and managed services and our offerings will be leaning towards those areas,” he adds.
Internationally, Ricoh Japan has partnered with Microsoft for cloud services, with King citing Office 365 as an example, and the company has also partnered with Kaseya. "You can put two and two together and see the type of services we may offer,” King notes.
He says ‘everything is on the table at this point’, with the division still looking at each market segment it wants to be active in and finalising vendor partners. "In most cases we are choosing one vendor in each segment, but on rare occasions we are looking at two vendors, that’s where there is a split between offerings for enterprise and those for SME. Then we’re making contact with the vendors.”King says the new division offers significant opportunity for partnering within the channel.
Worldwide Ricoh has had a stated intention to purchase or partner with IT companies as it seeks to branch out and acquire new business.The company has about 43% share in the multi-function device market, King says, and for the last few years has had a consulting team as it looks to build a company that supports its clients and gains more traction in the market.
"It’s not just about selling multi-function devices,” King says. "It’s about starting to look at networking and supporting the network and making inroads into clients.” The company has 12,000 customers locally, including 7000 active, and King says making inroads is easier done by gaining more business from existing customers, than seeking out large numbers of new customers.
Says King: "Ricoh has a lot to offer. We have our own finance company, 14 branches around the country, 300-plus staff in New Zealand and are a leader in MFD, so we’re not here just for the short term.”Enterprise architect James MacKinnon has also joined the new division.
