There’s no truth to the rumor that Jim Coriddi has written a book titled, “Everything I Need to Know, I Learned at ConvergX.” The vice president, Dealer Division for Ricoh Americas can take consolation in knowing that the OEM’s most recent ConvergX dealer conference, held late in 2019, envisioned a future of change, without possibly having insight into what 2020 would hold for the business world.
Yes, the pandemic hastened digital transformation to an unforeseen degree. It thrust dealers and their sales reps outside of their comfort zones, requiring them to obtain and hone new marketing skills. It brought focus to document management and workflow automation, which made Ricoh’s 2019 acquisition of DocuWare somewhat prescient. And the pandemic showed how valuable an offering such as production print could be to an overall portfolio.
But as Coriddi observes, the true path toward dealers solidifying relationships with end-users is to step beyond the role of a print provider. It means forging a consultative partnership that’s steeped in delivering information management as part of a refined go-to-market strategy. We spoke with Coriddi to learn more about Ricoh’s role in enabling dealers to make this next critical step in their journey.
Talk a little about Ricoh’s business performance in 2020. What were some of the key variables driving your results?
Coriddi: Our fiscal year began in April, so it was right in the teeth of the pandemic. During that first quarter, April through June, we focused on nothing but training. My dealer support team usually works on commissions, but no one was on sales commissions for that first quarter. Everything was driven by goals that were established to interact and have training for my people, with the focus on taking that solutions orientation to another level. Most importantly, we were focused on dealer sales training, both knowledge- and skills-based, and keeping dealer salespeople productive. The training also focused on how to contact customers in this new environment and how to use that to build their pipeline. We stressed virtual selling and turning salespeople into digital marketers. It entailed taking everything we talked about at ConvergX, all the customer value elements, and accentuating it in this new environment for the purpose of skills enhancement. From July through December, we stressed applying those new skills and utilizing all of these new elements to be able to maximize sales engagements.
When you look at our performance, it was probably similar year over year, but what really marked the year was the software-type initiatives such as DocuWare. We were winning deals focused on managing information by utilizing DocuWare and securing $100,000 or $200,000 deals on the strength of DocuWare’s capabilities. With the Ricoh Smart Integration (RSI), some dealers were making RSI a standard platform in selling their MFPs and, in the more traditional sense, production equipment. Production held its own, much more than other areas of the general office. On the whole, I think our dealers were able to maintain a reasonable comparison to year over year, but it was mostly as a highlight centered on the significant growth we saw in selling software solutions and services.
What were some of the highlights in 2020 for Ricoh across all lines of business, particularly in the dealer channel?
Coriddi: Dealer principals and the leadership and resilience they showed throughout the year really jumps out at me. They found new ways to secure their customers. Once the pandemic started, they initially focused on cementing relationships with their customers, not just selling themselves. For example, we have a dealer in the Albany, New York, area called Electronic Business Products (EBP). Ricoh and EBP collaborated to help Ithaca College produce face shields using Ricoh production products. However, the college needed an accessory, but there really was no money in the budget, so Ricoh donated that and EBP took it to the next level. They set up the solution and assisted in the making of these masks for health care employees. There are a lot of these little stories that highlight how our dealers addressed the situation. It all came down to leadership.
Tell us a little about Ricoh’s strategic approach during the pandemic from a product and service perspective and how it pivoted to meet the needs of its resellers.
Coriddi: It was more of an acceleration or an expansion of what we started during ConvergX than a complete pivot. During the conference, we discussed focusing on the customer value and the digital transformation that needed to take place, which we thought would happen over the next two or three years. All of a sudden, the pandemic hit and we had to come up with things and execute within a two- or three-month timeframe. Within that acceleration, we had to mix in elements such as virtual selling, but a lot of what we were doing along the solutions orientation side was already in motion.
Ricoh was recently honored by The Cannata Report as the Best Production Print manufacturer. What role do you see production print playing in the dealer portfolio moving forward?
Coriddi: In our traditional business, we talk a lot about how print volume has gone down, but production has really held its own and offers companies a lot more efficiency. Ricoh really went all in on production about 20 years ago; the investment it requires is significant, but it is really paying dividends now. We think our Ricoh dealers are particularly well positioned because we’re going to continue to expand our portfolio, and we’re investing in increased training and resources. We’re putting a lot more focus on integrated solutions around the box. We’re going into more emerging, adjacent categories. When you look at the Ricoh line now, on the color production side, we range from entry level—our RICOH Pro C5300s series has been extremely successful throughout 2020—up to our creative capability, the Pro C7200 series with the five stations. And at the higher end, we have the RICOH Pro C9200 Graphic Arts Edition Series. That’s going to continue to expand. For dealers that are truly serious about applying the necessary focus and investment, we now have industrial flatbed wide format, and later this year we’re going to enter into the heavy segments with cutsheet inkjet. We’re only going to keep expanding that portfolio.
What are the driving forces behind the growth of production print?
Coriddi: As businesses look for ways to become efficient and produce the same or more work with fewer people and less activity, there is a need to produce high-end documents and different types of communication deliveries. Increasingly, they’re looking for expertise, and it almost takes on a managed services-type of mentality for producing high-end information. Companies are increasingly moving toward in-house printing. With the technology becoming much more capable instead of moving to offset-type solutions, they’re able to produce things with production gear. An example of this is Ricoh’s five-station, five-color machine. When you look at some of the creative elements that you can accomplish by bringing in that fifth station—utilizing the white and various other elements—the creativity is going to another level with a “multifunction printer” more than ever before. The technology is becoming so much more capable and versatile, it’s able to produce so many different things now that it is being utilized more than it ever was.
Speaking of honors, Ricoh was also recognized with a PaceSetter Award from Buyers Lab in Business Process Services, central to this being Ricoh’s Intelligent Business Platform (IBP). Share some insight into the value of IBP.
Coriddi: We’re always proud to be recognized by someone like Buyers Lab. Ricoh’s Intelligent Business Platform combines a form of artificial intelligence with the new buzzword, low-code application, to more effectively deploy services into a cloud ecosystem, ultimately making workflow much easier. With a lot of the workflow software, past installations literally took months to complete. Now, with the advent of IBP, it can be done in a manner of weeks or even days. It’s condensing, bringing in and building a workflow in a much simpler and repeatable manner. That’s very exciting, and we feel it’s going to accelerate this whole solutions orientation and will make our providers that much more relevant in this area. Dealers will be able to do it in a more profitable way, because they’re not tying customers up for as long a time.
If Ricoh were to entertain future acquisitions, what type of product would help augment its offerings going forward?
Coriddi: When it comes to acquisitions, our strategy has not been to go after the traditional types of businesses in our space. The focus is on bringing in capabilities such as DocuWare, which was very timely considering everything that has happened. As far as potential acquisitions, the company is always looking to bring in elements to add to this solutions orientation, making it something that works as opposed to making deals for the sake of acquiring. We won’t be buying a bunch of IT companies simply because it’s IT. We’re always looking to solidify the solutions and services side, but we have done a lot of in-house development. Ricoh has been good about focusing on where capabilities are going to fit into our overall strategy, and any future deals would need to fit into that mold.
The pandemic impacted Ricoh’s ability to deliver a ConvergX program. What is the messaging you would like to convey as dealers embark on attaining some level of normalcy in 2021?
Coriddi: During the previous ConvergX, the theme revolved around collaborating for customer value, taking a more consultative approach with clients. If we were to have a ConvergX meeting next month, the message we would look to convey—one we’ve been communicating regularly to our dealers—is that what needs to change is how customers view the dealership. Dealers need to transition from being that trusted print provider to being a consultative partner in addressing the customers’ overall information management needs. The new approach starts with the sales organization and its reps being more comfortable and confident. That’s why we’re dedicating so much time to it in our dealer training program.
The dealers’ go-to-market strategies have to be attuned to the different needs of the customer. That’s why what you’re going to see from Ricoh is very unique to our company, because we have such a large direct customer base, and we’re learning so much from the different customers in all these different, specific businesses. We’re turning that information into sales materials that help our dealers know what to look for and what to uncover, business by business. Their whole go-to-market approach needs to become more refined. An absolute requirement is a strong digital marketing capability, and Ricoh is looking to provide content for that. We’re going to be launching different videos that can be used as part of this digital marketing.
Could we see ConvergX return in 2022?
Coriddi: I would say yes, but we may need the flexibility to do it in different forms. Is there going to be a ConvergX as we know it, a meeting in Las Vegas in 2021? Probably not. The timeframes and the comfort levels to make it happen don’t exist. As we go into 2022, a lot is going to depend, quite frankly, on how this whole environment progresses. We are definitely going to do some things differently in 2021 to enhance communications with our dealers and make it as compelling and effective as possible. Teams and Zooms meetings are getting old for everyone, and planting people in front of a screen for hours and days at a time is not the answer. We’re looking for different ways to communicate effectively with our dealers and provide a lot of the benefits they would’ve reaped from our normal sales conferences. As for when the next face-to-face meeting is, we really don’t know. We’ll follow what happens with our society in the months to come.
Many experts are citing diversification as being key to future dealer business growth. With such a wide array of products in your portfolio, talk a little about the guidance Ricoh is providing dealers.
Coriddi: Ricoh is going to continue expanding its A4 portfolio, but it’s focused on business-to-business, not the office superstore itself. When you’re working in business-to-business and you have a focus on the power user environment like we do, it’s essential to have a common user experience. What you see with our A4 needs to be similar compared to what’s in A3. The trend we see is a combination of A4 integrating with A3 as part of the overall solution. When you look at what makes the business-to-business power user efficient, they’re some of the same things we’ve been doing with our A3 products, such as the smart operation panel, having a cloud-enabled platform in each different element. The customers are looking for safety and security, and that has to be built in. We think that there will be a certain amount of return to office, but we’re geared more toward the hybrid employee—a combination of home and office. The key to having that flexibility is remote information access, and that’s why you need that platform. We’re looking to expand our A4, but having it be fully functional with the same type of user experience. That’s where our dealers will be able to make money, with the software and the services side tied to the print device.
What can dealers do to ensure they are maximizing their opportunities for growth under less-than-optimal conditions?
Coriddi: It goes back to our overall mindset that they have to focus on continuing to develop their approach to the market, with a mindset of getting customers to that next level of digital transformation. We need them to do everything they can to be the customers’ 911/help-desk call for overall information management. Dealers must make their organizations confident and comfortable with having more complete discussions, centered on recommendations that benefit each customer’s unique information workflow needs. When you think in terms of their go-to-market methodologies, dealers need to introduce tactics such as virtual engagement. Digital marketing has to be part of a salesperson’s activity, beyond what their marketing department does.
Looking back at the last 10 months of the pandemic, can you point to any lessons learned, either from a company standpoint or your point of view? What are your biggest takeaways?
Coriddi: The pandemic put a lot of businesses in a position where managing and preserving cash was extremely important, so we all had to take a number of different measures to be more efficient in how we did business. One bright spot that came out of this—through creativity and necessity, we all learned how to be more efficient in how we did business. That’s something we should carry with us as things start to swing in a more positive way.
What is Ricoh looking to accomplish in 2021?
Coriddi: We are gearing everything toward becoming a more holistic provider of real customer value. This year, we’re going to basically refresh our entire print device technology portfolio. What people will see as we launch all of these new products is not so much about speeds and feeds, or even the print technology itself. It’s going to be all about the platform, engaging with the cloud and being able to make these devices more connected to an overall workflow solution. Everything we’re looking to do is going to be centered on being a more comprehensive provider to address a lot of the new challenges customers are experiencing and will continue to face as we move forward. Ricoh has a strong amount of collaboration with its dealers, and has a lot of information and resources to address customer needs because of the significant customer base we have with directs. Ricoh has an openness to share all of that information with our dealers, and we’re positioning them to be strong as this transformation accelerates.
