How some businesses get back to profits

By Jolene Castelyn, head of Marketing at Ricoh South Africa

Three issues will drive economic regeneration in 2022 according to 60% of respondents to Gartner’s 2021 CEO survey. AI, corporate activism, and digital transformation. 

In another Gartner survey in mid-2020, more than two-thirds of boards of directors accelerated digital transformation following COVID-19 disruption. 

We’ve been doing it a lot longer than that and so have many of the companies we help every day. 

We all know that companies use advanced technology to innovate new processes and drive business transformation so they can interact with customers in new ways that are better and more profitable for both parties. Customers have also come to expect better services, better products, and unprecedented experiences. Plus, there are new business models that emerge from that nexus to revolutionise industries or develop new markets. 

Digital is not new, it’s been around since ENIAC, essentially the world’s first programmable computer and calculator. We’ve offered digital solutions for a long time ourselves, the more recent and recognisably digital solutions being workflow and document management solutions, enabled by the imaging, scanning and printing devices we’ve made for decades. 

But today digital transformation is about more than just putting those elements in place because of the reasons why we undertake it. Our businesses want to explore the benefits of adopting cloud, creating e-commerce and other business platforms, or developing better customer experiences and new business models. 

We’ve transformed our own business so we know one thing for certain; regardless of how you go about it, and regardless of what digital transformation looks like in your own business, it isn’t a quick fix. 

Our own recipe has resulted in Gartner positioning us in its 2021 Magic Quadrant for Managed Workplace Services in Europe and we recently ranked amongst the top three companies in IDC’s European Technology for Sustainability and Social Impact Index Market Maturity Report.

We have also experienced first-hand the evolutionary progression from print-centric enterprises to digitally transformed organisations. Companies need capable hardware, robotic process automation, and cybersecurity. But they also need services and integration for a comprehensive experience.  

At the heart of enabling the shift are unshackling employee creativity and productivity. It’s about seamless rather than disparate processes. It’s about scalability, flexibility, and adaptability. That is how we adapt and overcome. 

Nor is it about radical departures from what we know and trust. It’s about evolutionary progress, taking the fundamentals to the next level. It’s about shifting to digital first, which is how we unlock the adaptability, flexibility and scalability that helps organisations survive and thrive. That’s something we know first-hand.

Discover how Ricoh can help your business succeed on its digital journey here.