An Industry Giant Gains Momentum - And A Serious Blow to Canon

Implications: The bottom line:  Ricoh now has one of the broadest distribution channels in the market, they have the broadest product line in the market, and they now have one of the strongest service delivery teams in the business.   The competitive impact:  Canon is the biggest looser.  IKON was their largest distribution channel in North America for their highly profitable copier / MFP line.  HP is now threatened by a serious contender who has shown a willingness be aggressive in building capabilities through acquisitions.  Xerox is now eclipsed by their Japanes rival. This is another in a serious of brilliantly executed strategic acquisitions by Ricoh. 

Analysis: Three years ago I wrote an article in which I described Ricoh as the 'sleeping giant' of the imaging industry.  When I said this, I was describing a company which was aggressively pulling together a broad product portfolio, an extensive distribution network, and excellent services capabilities in order to become one of the top three hardcopy firms in the world.  The combined firms revenues will be over $26B (USD) with over 100,000 employees world-wide.

The bottom line - this move provides a significant boost to Ricoh's US and Western Europe distribution and significantly adds to their ability to deliver advanced Managed Print Services offerings (the fastest growth sector in the market).

At the same time, this makes Canon's largest copier distribution channel (IKON) 'captive' to a key competitor (RICOH).  IKON is also a significant distributor for HP.

Ricoh now has distribution which is as strong as Xerox, a product line which is the broadest in the industry, and the advanced services capabilities equal to anyone in the industry.  The firm has put together a string of acquistions (roughly one every twelve months) to become one of the top three hardcopy imaging firms. 

The imaging landscape is rapidly changing, and Ricoh is becoming one of the key firms to watch.