Ricoh targets IT services with Ridgian buy

Acquisition for undisclosed amount designed to help grow Ricoh's IT services revenue by 20 per cent

Print vendor Ricoh has acquired information management consultancy firm Ridgian in an effort to beef up its IT services division.

Speaking to CRN, Paul Braham, director of IT services and enterprise solutions at Ricoh, said he hoped the deal for an undisclosed amount would help the print player grow its IT services revenue by 20 per cent.

"We have been delivering managed services for the past 10 years in various scales and types. It's fair to say that over the past five years that has really accelerated and we now have some very well-established managed services clients such as Vodafone and Specsavers, where we do 24/7 service desk and remote monitoring.

"The core print business of manufacturing products is still critical to us, but ultimately we look at how we engage with our clients from a services aspect. We have around 25,000 customers in the UK and we probably only sell to one per cent of those anything other than print. So there is a huge opportunity to sell more services to existing Ricoh customers," he said.

"We are looking to continually grow our IT services business, which ultimately this [acquisition] rolls up into, and we are looking at an overall growth of 20 per cent in revenues of our IT services business over the next 12 months, year over year."

Ridgian had been a Ricoh partner for the past three years, and the IT services firm has customers which include Barclays and the University of Nottingham.

"The nice thing with Ridgian is, because we knew them as a supplier, we knew the business was clean, profitable and well run. From my perspective it was a very easy acquisition," Braham said.

Following the acquisition, Ridgian is set to stay as a separate entity for the next two years, maintaining its moniker and Birmingham office, and there will be no restructuring of the management team for the "foreseeable future".

Braham said he expects the Ridgian business will be absorbed into Ricoh by 2017.

In 2014, Ricoh acquired Italian IT services provider Npo Sistemi, and the print player is looking for more acquisitions in the coming months.

"I think there are definitely more [acquisitions] in the pipeline. One thing we won't be doing is buying another print-related company, but we will look at professional services and services-related organisations," Braham said.

Phil Keoghan, Ricoh chief executive, said: "I am delighted with our acquisition of Ridgian, which makes for a great strategic and cultural fit with Ricoh. Both companies operate across a wide range of industries providing a rich shared-client base to which we can add value not just via expanded services, but also through harmonised processes."