Ricoh SA Western Cape assembles industry top dogs for services-led operations

Ricoh SA is in the process of assembling one of the most powerful sales, technical, and operational teams in the document imaging, managed document services, and production print industry at its Cape Town office.

Ricoh SA has chosen to focus on Western Cape as a strategic region due to the large number of branch offices of its international customers, the high concentration of production printers, and the economic value of the region.

“We have rationalised our national operations by creating opportunities for our business partners and retained a core interest in Western Cape,” says Jacques van Wyk, COO of Ricoh SA. “We are consequently concentrating our expertise, skills, and service delivery capability in Western Cape to service a region of significant strategic interest to us."

Ricoh SA’s Western Cape branch has already employed or relocated 14 people to its office with more in the offing. Some come from Ricoh SA’s other national operations, some from close business partner offices in Eastern and Western Cape, and some from competitors. New employees are selected according to their abilities to complement Ricoh’s expertise in document process innovation, document management expertise, expertise in production printing, underpinning Ricoh’s shift to a services-led business model, and supporting its commitment to helping businesses be ready for the future.

“Western Cape, is a key strategic region for us,” says Charl Vogel, regional manager, Western Cape, Ricoh SA, “which is why we have invested so heavily in developing our capability here, to ensure we can provide the professional level of service, technical expertise, and solutions customers expect from every one of our global operations."

Among the new employees are Chris Weideman, now Customer Service operations manager and formerly country technical manager at Ricoh Nelspruit, with more than a decade of experience in the business. Derek Weatherall is now Pre-Sales Consulting & Solutions specialist who was formerly a solutions specialist at another business and who has more than two decades of experience in the industry. Among Weatherall’s impressive list of skills are enterprise content management, business process optimisation consulting, business analysis, and cloud computing, to mention a few.

Katarzyna Korona (Kasia) is Commercial Accounts sales manager, Graham Gall joins Major Account sales after being a senior accounts executive with top industry credentials. He is joined by Lindi Theunissen and Jason Woodbine, who was promoted from Commercial Accounts, Michael van Soest returns to Ricoh with five years of previous industry experience, as customer service and PR representative focused on Strategic & Key accounts, Christopher Clark is in commercial accounts sales, Kyle Adonis is a Technical Support field engineer along with Lesley Smit and Taariq Martin, Tanya Davids handles Service Delivery support, Theuns Prinsloo is responsible for Commercial Account sales, while Nadia Nelson handles customer support.

“We are serious about the Cape market,” says Vogel, “and the calibre of the team reflects that. We now have the full capability to support Ricoh’s vision of a services-led business model, where we focus on five core areas: managed document services, managed print services, production print services, communication services, business process services, and IT services. These services are the activity pillars that promote primary customer benefits that range from agility to mobility, productivity, and employing technology for profitability."