In case you missed it earlier this week Ricoh Company, Ltd. announced that they had made a significant investment in PTI Marketing Technologies, a provider of Web-to-print and marketing personalization solutions for enterprise users and print service providers.
According to the press release, “this investment will be used to further enhance the development of new marketing collateral management tools to help enterprises and commercial printers on their continued path towards efficiency and growth. It is another strategic move by Ricoh to provide complete, end-to-end production print solutions for customers, ensuring that they are equipped with all of the necessary resources to become marketing service providers, including marketing automation and brand management.”
The partnership will enable Ricoh and PTI to bring new technologies, software and services to market to enable companies to drive relevant, multichannel marketing campaigns at the global, regional, and local levels. Historically, Ricoh has been committed to helping companies leverage marketing and business development tools through such programs as Business Booster and the Ricoh Business Driver Programme. These value-added initiatives are aimed to help companies pursue a more productive and profitable business strategy, according to Ricoh. The press release further states, “With this investment in PTI, Ricoh customers can now extend that capability beyond the enterprise, making it easier to expand their portfolios from just one print channel, such as direct mail, to a full spectrum of multichannel communications, driving value and growth for their businesses and their clients.”
The two companies have had a relationship for the past couple of years from a reseller perspective according to Theresa Lang, vice president solutions & services at Ricoh. She says that this investment integrates Ricoh’s software and solutions with the PTI solution allowing the two companies to leverage opportunities in the marketplace.
In 2011, the companies announced that Ricoh will offer a cloud-based software solution that supports various output delivery formats for print and other media, including PDF, AFP and HTML e-mail based on PTI’s SaaS software, MarcomCentral. This solution enables enterprises to provide distributed agents, salespeople and others with access to brand-driven collateral.
Although the press release doesn’t delve into the down and dirty details of the investment, Coleman Kane, president and CEO of PTI, reports that Ricoh now has approximately a one third ownership in PTI.
“There are some additional monies that will expand our existing relationship, including a deeper integration into some of Ricoh’s middleware so we can tie our Web-to-Print solution into the devices more closely. We’re working on what we call vertical portals where we have turnkey marketing solutions so we can provide to the commercial printers prepackaged solutions where they can go into their local healthcare provider or financial institution, etc. and offer them an array of template solutions that they can personalize.”
The relationship will also allow for faster expansion for PTI worldwide through the Ricoh channel. Currently, PTI’s worldwide presence is modest with the vast majority of its 400+ clients in the U.S.
Kane adds that Ricoh is making a serious commitment to the PTI solution.
“Ricoh is putting the stake in the ground that this is at least the Web-to-Print-enabled data image personalization solution of choice, and then we obviously will tie into integrations of MIS systems, shop floor management systems, finishing systems, etc.”
Some of the new technologies and software will be the aforementioned vertical portals as well as the Clickable Paper tool. “We’re working with Ricoh and a third party to finish off that technology to make sure we have a better offering tool for where the servers are, a more user friendly phone app, and have Clickable Paper available through our Web portal which we call MarcomCentral along with the branded portal the commercial printers use for their clients,” explains Kane.
He also sees an enhancement to the analytic capabilities through the Ricoh relationship. “Obviously the old InfoPrint has a lot of robust deep analytic capabilities so we’re looking at ways with Theresa’s team on how to bring better analytics back into MarcomCentral.”
While target markets are enterprise customers and commercial printers, the biggest impact of the investment will be seen primarily with commercial printers. “Being able to take the technology over the past 15 years, including everything from Web-to-Print to image personalization to e-mail, and online list purchasing, and have that all wrapped up into one portal which is how we present it and then making it available through the Ricoh channel which has 13,000+ sales people out there who will have that as the wedge for taking technology to the commercial printers.”
All in all Lang sees this as a differentiator in the market, especially with print providers and the third parties Ricoh deals with. She adds this will also help them advance their go to market strategy beyond print. And don’t be surprised if it allows them to sell more hardware too.
“I see this as a combined approach that will bring value to current customers and attract new customers. We see this as a way to help them grow their business and a way to bring that capability to the commercial printer. Obviously, we are also a manufacturer and looking to drive more pages to the commercial printer and more printer sales would be important as well.”
Kane reports that the two companies will be showing some of the vertical portals at Graph Expo in October along with the integration between PTI’s system and the Ricoh hardware. Additionally, there will be samples of Ricoh’s Clickable Paper tool available through MarcomCentral.
For more information about Ricoh’s Print and Beyond initiative, please visit: www.ricoh-europe.com/about-ricoh/news/2012/Ricoh_Focuses_on_Print_and_Beyond_at_drupa2012.aspx
