Photo/Illutration Ricoh Co. President Yoshinori Yamashita speaks during an interview on Dec. 26 in Tokyo's Ota Ward. (Taiki Koide)

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 Yamashita 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 Yamashita.

The company is harnessing its global sales network to determine the specific challenges faced by client corporation workplaces with an eye toward identifying what functions to add to printers. Based on the feedback, it has already started offering a service to digitally read and process bills using a printer, allowing accounting documents to be published automatically. 

Ricoh is also asking construction, nursing care, real estate and other businesses what functions they would like their multifunction printers  to have, the aim being to have menial tasks completed by all-in-one printers, while developing and offering an environment where workers can focus more on the creative process. 

"We're redefining what the multifunction printer is from the standpoint of how to pinpoint and handle customer difficulties, not from the standpoint of how to print documents more finely," Yamashita said. 

Ricoh posted a record net loss of 135.3 billion yen ($1.23 billion) for the business year ending in March 2018. The poor performance resulted in the dismissal of a total of 8,000 employees across the globe, mainly from the sales promotion section in North America.

"We have thoroughly examined the profitability in a visualized form, and took actions that were necessary to a substantial extent," said Yamashita, looking back.

The reform led to an operating profit of 14.7 billion yen for the printer-relevant service section in the fiscal year ending March 2019. It was the first time for the business to move into the black.

The department reported an operating profit totaling 13.4 billion yen in the half year ending in September 2019, meaning that the section profited at a faster rate than the previous year.

According to research firm International Data Corporation Japan, Ricoh, Canon Inc., the group of Fuji Xerox Co. and U.S.-based Xerox Corp., Konica Minolta Inc., Kyocera Corp. and Sharp Corp. control 90 percent of the huge global A3 multifunction printer market.

While this means that Japanese firms dominate the market, their unit sales have declined in Europe and Japan, whereas their products sell well in other Asian and African nations.

"As it is expected that some production facilities will not be needed in the future, cooperation with other companies may be further enhanced in such fields as manufacturing and development," Yamashita said.