Ricoh Expands IT Services with New Acquisition

On March 16th, Ricoh Europe announced that it had acquired IT-services company Avantage, which it says further enhances its position as a digital-services company. Ricoh did not disclose terms of the deal.

The firm stated that Ricoh customers in the Netherlands are set to benefit from an even greater range of IT services and digital-transformation capabilities through the company’s acquisition of Avantage.

Avantage is an IT services company that supports customers with workplace automation, IT infrastructure, and cloud services.

The acquisition is set to further strengthen Ricoh’s existing digital workplace and IT services. This includes IT consulting, implementation consulting, Microsoft knowledge and experience, help-desk services, remote management services, and sales consulting.

Ricoh says Avantage customers will benefit from Ricoh’s global presence, support, financial capacity, and IT infrastructure. They will also have access to Ricoh products, which include document-management systems, business-process services, production-printing systems, and workplace management. In turn, Ricoh customers will benefit from Avantage with increased employee productivity through IT services.

Avantage will operate as a Ricoh subsidiary responsible for its own operations and results. It will become part of the Ricoh Office Services business.

Alberto Mariani, senior vice president of Office Services for Ricoh Europe, commented: “This exciting acquisition is part of a global strategy to further enhance Ricoh’s digital services, related competencies, and provision of even greater support. Avantage offers the perfect fit for Ricoh in terms of customers, employees, propositions, and size. It also complements other areas of our business such as document-management solutions, workflow solutions, and print services to provide customers with truly dependable extensive service and support.”

The transfer of shares will take place after final approval by the national Authority for Consumers & Markets (ACM).

Ricoh’s previous digital-services acquisitions in Europe include:

• The Ridgian companies in the field of analytics;
• Aventia for user experience and ecommerce;
• Techno Trends in the field of unified communications and video conferencing systems;
• NPO Sistemi for cloud solutions, technology and integration and software solutions;
• LAKE Solutions AG for data storage, security, and cloud integration;
• The IPM and TotalStor businesses for the transformation and modernization of critical IT infrastructures, data storage, and analytics in private and hybrid cloud;
• Mauden for data center, IT infrastructure, artificial intelligence and business intelligence;
• Orbid for critical IT infrastructures, managed services, data centers, private and hybrid cloud;
• DataVision for AV and workplace management solutions;
• DocuWare for cloud and on-premise document management and workflow automation software;
• SimplicITy for data center design and transformation;
• MTI for data center transformation solutions, hybrid cloud, cyber security and managed services.

• March 2021: ‘Print Remains at the Heart of Ricoh’s Digital Services Strategy’
• March 2021: As Office Print Declines, Ricoh Lays Out Path for Office Services and More
• February 2021: Ricoh Reports Earnings, Impairment Losses
• December 2020: Ricoh Discusses Digital-Services Shift, Finances, More in New Report