Ricoh Australia is setting its print management sights on the Northern Territory, with the acquisition of Darwin-based print solutions provider, DPS Business Centre (DPS).
DPS has a long history as a key Ricoh dealer for the top end, providing loca organisations with the technology company’s end-to-end print solutions. The acquisition of the business bolsters Ricoh’s document management focus in Australia.
For Les Richardson (pictured), Ricoh Australia’s managing director, the move to take on a greater footprint in the Northern Territory comes at a time when the region’s market looks set to expand.
“We believe that the Northern Territory will be one of the strongest growth areas in Australia over the next 10 years,” said Richardson. “When the opportunity arose, it was a simple decision to acquire DPS – through them we have had a successful and long standing relationship with the Territory.
“This acquisition offers an excellent opportunity to expand our consulting and document management solutions to Australia’s top end,” he said.
The acquisition of DPS comes as Ricoh Australia is working to substantially broaden its print and document management standing in the local market, with the company embracing the ‘print-as-a-service’ model as a rapidly growing alternative to the traditional ‘print-as-a-product’ model.
Around eight years ago Ricoh won a contract with Woolworths to manage the retail and grocery giant’s internal print operations. Since then, the company has signed up around 15 large companies in Australia for whom it provides some sort of document and workflow management service.
Earlier this year, Brian Nelson, Ricoh’s national manager for its Managed Document Services division, told Print21 that the world of managed document services is now much more than just printing.
“There’s a difference between MDS [managed document services] and MPS [managed print service],” says Nelson. “MPS is a forerunner to what a lot of the companies have been offering in the marketplace. MDS is about cost control and reducing C02 footprint, looking at workflow in the business environment. It’s not purely about managing print, but what organisations are doing with documents from digital to printed.”
Now that Ricoh has been flexing its MDS muscle in the local market for more than a few years, the company is branching out into all sorts of management services, most of which are linked to MDS. Now, with the acquisition of DPS in Darwin, the company is working to working to increase its national footprint, as well as its range of services.