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…….

Canon stated that since Ricoh bought IKON, it has signed up only 23 new dealers in the U.S.

Ricoh: Getting Ready to Rumble?

The August 3 issue of Barron’s had a great article on Ricoh and their acquisitions, including InfoPrint and IKON. The link below will take you to the article.

One item that was startling to me was the quote “IKON, which also hasn't delivered a profit to its new parent,….” It would seem to me that the war between RiKON (Ricoh owned IKON) and Canon is having a significant impact on IKON’s ability to make a profit. Word is that street level equipment margins at RiKON have been halved, to 14%, over the last year. Service margins are also taking a hit as RiKON fights off Canon’s assault on their service base, having to match aggressive offers. Whatever the reason it is clear that RiKON has been operating in the red for the last year.

More perplexing are the future revenue and expected operating profit EPS from RiKON, at ¥280 billion and ¥8 respectively. Converting to dollars, revenues would equal $3 billion with approximately $65 million in operating income. Let’s assume there were subsidiary sales of approximately $350 million between Ricoh and IKON, this still represents an approximately 30% decline in IKON’s pre acquisition revenues and an almost 40% reduction in operating income. Wild to say the least.

Ricoh has been reorganizing their direct operations for years. Well informed individuals have stated that Ricoh direct has been losing money for years, with those losses accelerating. It seems to make sense for Ricoh to combine their current RBS operations with RiKON. The question is not if but when, and it appears as if the current results indicate that the still nebulous answer is “sooner rather than later.” If Europe and Canada are any indication—both of which have been combined with the Ricoh direct operations—it could be real soon.

It is nice that Ricoh takes risks to increase their business. We will see how Ricoh’s IKON acquisition works out long term. I believe a lot of changes will need to occur if it is going to be successful. When this acquisition first occurred I stated it would be great for the independent dealer. One year later and clearly it is great for the independent dealer. Revenue is cratering, the entity is losing business, Canon is assaulting the base: In a nutshell RiKON is focused on survival. Carpe Diem!

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB124908694002798273.html

Rain On Me

IKON’s warehouse in Orange County, Florida, had its roof ripped off and trailers upended during a severe storm last week. 16,792 copiers were exposed to rain.