As an increasing number of businesses go "paperless," Ricoh Co. is reconfiguring its entire approach to printers that can also be used as copy and fax machines, offering features to handle digitized documents in increasingly sophisticated ways.
Speaking to The Asahi Shimbun last month, the president of the major copy machine maker referred to "going paperless as a good opportunity" for the company to offer new value.
Ricoh is currently concentrating its resources into the development of a new service whereby extra features can be added to the multi-function printers for a monthly fee.
As the market becomes increasingly difficult for such companies, as seen in the slowdown of global sales of multifunction printers, Ricoh is struggling to maintain its presence in its core business of the all-in-one printers.
The remark by President Yoshinori Yama****a came during a Dec. 26 interview in reference to Ricoh's plan to aggressively introduce services by combining its multifunction printers with computerized data.
"While Microsoft, Amazon.com and other such companies have strengths in handling data, Ricoh's advantage lies in the development of machines that can deal with paper (through digitization)," said Yama****a. read the rest here