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NEW YORK, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Ricoh Co (7752.T) will invest $300 million to bulk up its document management business, capitalizing on corporate demand for services such as paper scanning and storage while cutting its reliance on printer sales.

The Japanese company, which will make the investment over the next three years, is the latest of a string of rivals including Xerox Corp (XRX.N) and Canon Inc (7751.T) to announce expanded offerings to corporate clients. [ID:nSGE6811BK]

"We have to focus much more on information management with our customers as opposed to just the copier and the lease on the copier," Ricoh U.S. Chief Executive Jeffrey Hickling said in an interview.

As demand for new printers wanes, companies are looking to recoup profits by becoming one-stop shops for a range of services from managing records to serving information technology needs.

Ricoh is aiming to generate $3.3 billion of its annual revenue from its managed document services business by fiscal year 2013, the company said on Thursday.

Its other target is for its non-hardware revenue, now 50 percent of its total revenue, to reach 66 percent, also by 2013. Ricoh's global sales were $21 billion in the year ended March 31, 2010.

Gartner's Pete Basiliere is one of the analysts who support Ricoh's efforts to build up the services side of its business.

"Margins continue to shrink across the printer industry, so printer manufacturers need to expand into other services," he said.

Ricoh's Hickling said the company would hire new staff globally and retrain current employees as part of the changes. He did not say how many new employees would be brought on board.

The company took its first major step to diversify its printer business date in 2008 when it acquired Ikon Office Solutions, which sells and leases office equipment, for about $1.62 billion in cash.

Ricoh has a leg up on some competitors because it already has strong relationships with its customers, since it sells them printers directly, as opposed to a company like Toshiba Corp (6502.T), which sells its printers through a variety of channels, said Cross Research analyst Shannon Cross.

But Xerox, which acquired Affiliated Computer Services in 2009, is the current leader in providing these services and Ricoh might have a hard time catching up, she added.

"Ricoh's competitors are pretty far ahead of them," Cross said. (Reporting by Liana B. Baker; Editing by Gary Hill)
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Art stated: "Geesh, so where does that leave the likes of KonicaMinolta, Toshiba, Kyocera and Sharp?"

This specific Ricoh Press Release is a direct response to Konica Minolta acquiring All Covered, Inc.

If you read carefully, there is no real newsworthy 'event' or 'announcement' in the Press Release, which is a statement in itself.

The Press Release announces an 'intent' rather than an 'action' that has been taken.

Sources tell me that this 'dog-and-pony' show was dressed up at an event held at the Ricoh New York City Tech Portal yesterday, with folding chairs throughout the main floor and yellow balloons scattered throughout.

Ricoh can put on an impressive show.

I'll wait to see the substance.

The big Battleship is not turning quickly enough and this baby is gonna start to take on water.

Like some infamous East Coast executives, Ricoh has been caught with their pants down again.
That reminds me of the controversy when IKON started to absorb RBS into it's operation and they targeted the Teknoforce first:

"These new Toyota vehicles would no longer be painted with the TEKNOFORCE logo, yet they would be launched as the IKON I-KARS, as part of the IKON Assimilation Strategy. As the RBS Direct Branches and IKON local offices merged, the new entity would be supplied with IKON I-KARS, accompanied by a national advertising campaign.

The Toyota Venza was specifically chosen due to it’s size, which has a larger rear compartment than the Toyota Matrix (former RBS TEKNOFORCE vehicles). The Toyota Venza would be able to hold Service Technician Car Stock, Laptops, Tools, and had enough room to fit the upcoming Ricoh A4 device (manufactured by Samsung and re-labeled as Ricoh) for delivery and install."

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Originally posted by yeti:
What is Canon doing these days? I never see them in the field.


Revenue for the quarter rose 12% to 1.068 trillion yen from 954.1 billion yen. "There's no sign of any slowdown in the sales of our new products," said Executive Vice President Toshizo Tanaka. For the whole of 2010, Canon's net profit jumped 87% to 246.60 billion yen from 131.65 billion yen in 2009, while operating profit rose 79% to 387.55 billion yen from 217.06 billion yen.

I don't know about in Canada, but they are doing OK in the US.
There are 3 Canon dealers of size in the Dallas market, & at least one of them is in virtually every deal. One that has a 90 minute response time has been growing like crazy since they came into the market in the mid-2000's. Those 3 dealers probably do $50mm-$65mm per year, & there's also a CBS branch here. Canon does a lot of business in DFW.

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