Ricoh Organizational Changes

Ricoh has finally pulled the trigger on the much anticipated merger of Lanier and Ricoh. The new Corporation will be call Ricoh Americas Corporation. The U.S. business unit of Ricoh Americas Corporation will continue to be known as Ricoh U.S.

Lanier's Direct Sales Force will be merged with Ricoh Business Systems and thier name will change to Ricoh Business Solutions and they will sell Ricoh branded products.

Existing Gestetner Dealers and Lanier Dealers will be merger to form a new National Dealer Network selling Lanier branded products and the Gestetner name will be phased out!

I for one had hoped that the Lanier name would just go away, but instead they opted to remove one of the oldest names in the business Gestetner.

The name change of Ricoh Business Systems to Ricoh Business Solutions is ideal for changing market place, however the clout of this merger may hurt Ricoh Dealers. What I mean is that you will now have twice as many reps running around telling customers that they are buying from Ricoh Direct! If they were buying direct they would be buying from Ricoh Americas Corporation right?

Will all of these branches have to turn a profit? Or are they there just to gain market share by selling on price. I believe I read an article where most of these business units were losing money and very few were turning a "real" profit. What's whacked out about RBS is the compensation for thier sales reps, paying commissions on Gross Dollars billed is bad for the industry, and most direct sales locations of all manufacturers have turned great pieces of equipment into a commodities market. When you compensate your reps on gross dollars, who cares how much is made on the box. Unfortunatley Dealers again will bear the brunt of this merger. Ricoh Americas Corporation must take a note from Dealers and learn "how to sell" and "how to sell solutions", Ricoh's Dealers must turn a profit, if not they will be out of business. So why is it that thier branches can not or will not turn a profit? From what I have seen is that the best and most experienced reps are working for dealers and not branches, hmmmmm why is that?

Another thought comes to mind, with the merger of Lanier Dealers and Gestener Dealers, what are they going to call themselves Lanier Direct? I'm sure there are a few Gestetner Dealers that are not happy with the way this has panned out. They spent all these years selling against the Lanier's and now they must adopt the name change.

I sell down the street, just like alot of you, the last thing I need is another 4 reps in my area telling customers that they are direct with Ricoh and another 4 reps selling the same model number.

Don't you think it would be a great time to launch the Great American Copier Corporation, darn... forgot about Xerox, however most of thier boxes are manufactured overseas also.