IKON Executives Assume Responsibility for Ricoh Americas

The rumors were confirmed yesterday as the executive team from IKON assumed all of the senior roles at Ricoh Americas.

Kevin Togashi announced in a memo to Ricoh and IKON employees

“First, to manage the asset value and to execute governance of all of our sales companies in the Americas, I will be leading a newly formed holding company, Ricoh Americas Holdings, Inc. (RAH), as Chairman and CEO. RAH is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ricoh Company, Ltd. and owns 100% of the shares of Ricoh Americas Corporation. Ken Tokuhiro will report to me and assist in developing the role of RAH in the Americas. I am excited about my new role and look forward to continued involvement with Ricoh Americas in this new capacity.

Second, I am pleased to announce Matt Espe’s appointment to Chairman and CEO of Ricoh Americas Corporation. As Chairman and CEO of IKON since 2002, Matt’s strengths in leadership and vision have delivered outstanding results for IKON, and his recent responsibility leading the business improvement teams gives him a strong foundation to lead Ricoh Americas. In addition to Matt’s role leading the day-to-day operations, he will also oversee the integration planning for Ricoh U.S. and IKON.”

Matt Espe announced in his memo:

“We have a lot of work ahead of us, but also a tremendous opportunity. As we enter FY10 and develop our integration plans, we will pursue a balanced business approach with three key objectives:

• Growing revenue and increasing market share through an unrelenting focus on our customers and our dealer channel and by delivering the most valued products and services in the industry.
• Increasing our efficiency and creating the most competitive organization in the industry.
• Attracting, retaining, motivating and developing the best team in the industry as an employer of choice, while remaining committed to living our values and conducting business with the highest level of integrity.

In order to accomplish these objectives, I am pleased to announce a new Ricoh Americas Corporation leadership team that will report to me and have responsibility over the entire Ricoh Americas organization, including IKON. In addition to the day-to-day operations, this team will work closely together on developing a multi-step integration plan for Ricoh and IKON in the U.S. The following leadership structure will be effective April 1, 2010:

• Martin Brodigan will take on a new role as Executive Vice President and CFO, with responsibility for leading the Finance organization for Ricoh Americas Corporation, with both Dennis Dispenziere and Henry Miller reporting to him. He will also have responsibility for Ricoh Canada and Ricoh Latin America, with Glenn Laverty, President and CEO of Ricoh Canada, and Peter Stuart, President and CEO of Ricoh Latin America reporting to him. In addition, Martin will be responsible for the Business Development team led by Vince Roma. Martin brings a strong background to this role, most recently as President and CEO of Ricoh U.S. Prior to his current role, Martin held the position of CFO for Ricoh U.S., served as President of Ricoh Canada for eight years, and held other leadership positions throughout his 19 year tenure with Ricoh. Martin will bring strong leadership and experience to his new responsibility.

• Jeff Hickling will take on a new role as President and CEO of Ricoh U.S., with a leadership team who will have operational responsibility for both Ricoh U.S. and IKON. Jeff’s background and experience will be instrumental leading this team and developing our integration plans. In his current role as IKON’s President and Chief Operating Officer, Jeff has responsibility for IKON’s U.S. sales, services and operations functions. Since 2005, he has held responsibility for supply chain and customer administration, and played a key role in IKON’s Oracle stabilization. Jeff will send additional information to all U.S. employees shortly to provide more detail about the Ricoh U.S. structure and integration planning.
Rounding out the leadership team for Ricoh Americas Corporation are the following direct reports:

• Mark Hershey, IKON’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel, will expand his role to Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Ricoh Americas Corporation, with Allen Hans reporting to him.

• Hede Nonaka, Ricoh’s Executive Vice President of Marketing, will become Senior Vice President of New Business Development, with responsibilities including strategic alliances such as IBM. Dan Murphy will report to Hede.

• Shun Sato, Ricoh U.S.’s Senior Vice President of Corporate Marketing, will succeed Hede Nonaka as Senior Vice President of Marketing for Ricoh Americas.

• Tracey Rothenberger will continue to lead IT as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, expanding to a Ricoh Americas role.

• Donna Venable will continue to lead HR as Senior Vice President, expanding to a Ricoh Americas role.

• Ike Kakegawa, Vice President of Environmental Sustainability, will continue to have responsibility for environmental initiatives.

• Akira Oyama, Joji Tokunaga and Steve Poole will form the Strategic Management Office to help lead our integration planning and improve strategic alignment.”

Jeff Hickling then went on to announce:

“In conjunction with Matt’s announcement of a new leadership structure for Ricoh Americas Corporation, I am announcing an integrated leadership structure for Ricoh U.S., with leaders that will have day-to-day functional leadership for both Ricoh U.S. and IKON. Additionally, these leaders will oversee the development of functional integration plans. The following senior leadership team will report to me effective April 1, 2010:

• Mark Bottini will lead the direct Sales organization as Vice President, Direct Sales, Ricoh U.S. Dave Greene will report to Mark with continued responsibility for Ricoh Business Solutions sales, and IKON’s four Regional Vice Presidents will continue to report to Mark with responsibility for IKON. In addition, Associated Business Systems and Automated Business Products, both Ricoh companies, will report to Mark.

• Kiyo Shimizu will continue to lead the dealer channel for Ricoh U.S. as Vice President, Dealer Division, Ricoh U.S.

• Glen Mandernacht will lead Technology Services as Vice President, Technology Services, Ricoh U.S., with responsibility for the Ricoh U.S. and IKON service teams and operations. Brian Murphy will report to Glen.

• Tom Hammond will lead the Customer Administration / Customer Care organization as Vice President, Customer Administration, Ricoh U.S. and Dan Piccoli will report to Tom.

• Suzanne Shenk will lead our Supply Chain operations as Vice President, Supply Chain, Ricoh U.S. Hank Ando and Dan Piccoli’s current Supply Chain direct reports will report to Suzanne.

• Tim Vellek will continue to lead the Production Printing Business Group (PPBG) as Vice President, PPBG and Matt Sakauchi will continue to lead the Office Printer Business Group (OPBG) as Vice President, OPBG.

• Vic Rainsford will lead Enterprise Services as Vice President, Enterprise Services, Ricoh U.S. Enterprise Services includes Managed Services and Professional Services, as well as the Ricoh Technology Center and the Solutions and Services Business Group (SSBG). Carl Sills and Mark Minshull will report to Vic.

• Mike Dane will lead a new Ricoh U.S. marketing organization to support both the direct and dealer business as Vice President, Marketing, Ricoh U.S. Mark Boelhouwer will report to Mike.

• Gary Crowe, Vice President, Finance, Ricoh U.S., will provide financial support to Ricoh U.S. and will report to Martin Brodigan.

• Mark Pagenkopf, Vice President, Human Resources, Ricoh U.S., will provide HR support to Ricoh U.S. and will report to Donna Venable.

This new U.S. structure is the important first step in building the plan to integrate the Ricoh and IKON team. As Matt mentioned, we will continue to explore business synergies and are excited to blend cultures, including foundational elements such as vision, mission and values, organizational vitality, and diversity and inclusion.”

I assume next week the announcement will come out that Ricoh America’s headquarters is moving to Malvern…….

ITEX 2010—What a Great Event

Wow, ITEX was phenomenal this year. For those of you that attended, and there were many, I know you agree because I have heard the feedback. What makes ITEX such a great show? To me the number one attribute of ITEX is the networking opportunity; most of the industry decision makers attend the show. When I say decision makers I mean dealer/reseller principals and senior management. Company owners and senior management have a unique perspective on the industry and having the opportunity to speak with thousands of this group provides untold benefits to all, including companies like mine in the consulting field.

The second benefit of ITEX is the education. Unlike many shows, where the sponsors get all of the speaking spots (Nothing against listening to a software or hardware vendor giving their perspective on the industry but after all, won’t the vendors pay you to listen to them), ITEX vets the presenters and chooses those that bring benefit to the dealer/reseller community. For less than $100, the entry fee, attendees get to choose from dozens of educational tracks on all aspects of the business. SD has presented for years and this was the first year we had a booth at the show, and we were asked to speak months before we were asked to consider exhibiting.

If I had to critique the show I will say that I was disappointed with the “Hybrid” moniker. Every time I hear hybrid I think of a car or fuel option. It seems to be the most over used word in the English language these days. I can’t pick up a newspaper or magazine without reading about some company, industry, or option presenting themselves as hybrids. I think it supplanted “solution” as the most ubiquitous word in the business press. ITEX is more than the hybrid dealer, covering education on all aspects of running a successful company. That was reflected in the educational options offered at ITEX.

Strategy Development consultants presented in many areas of the business and each of our classes had approximately 200 participants. David Ramos presented on self managed teams and opportunities in the color space. Ed Carroll presented on professional service. Mike Woodard presented on creating the ideal service and IT team as well as managing the base to control service cost. And I (Tom Callinan) presented on repositioning your business model, which was essentially business planning.

So if you look at the educational offerings presented by Strategy Development we covered sales management, color opportunities, professional services, service operations, and business planning. And, there were dozens of other well (albeit the SD seminars were sold out…) received educational offerings.

If you missed ITEX you missed a great event, and we missed you! We’ll be at the BTA Northeast and Southeast events as well as InfoTrends Solution Summit 2010 in Chicago. Like ITEX, all of these events provide a great ROI. The BTA events have solid education and networking opportunity, on a regional level, and InfoTrends provides enough research to make the trip well worth the effort. If you cannot make these great events we hope to see you next year at ITEX 2011 in DC.