Executive Summary

Findings from a recent IDC study indicate that documentdriven processes — the business processes that are governed and controlled by documents in electronic or paper format — have a profound impact on companies’ customer-facing functions. Furthermore, reengineering these document processes can yield strategic, top-line benefits including revenue growth and improved market responsiveness, which this study found to be the highestrated business priorities for enterprises today. Despite the belief held by many business executives that documentdriven processes relate only to “back office” functions, IDC research indicates that this conventional wisdom is off the mark and that optimizing document-driven processes presents a significant revenue growth opportunity.

IDC’s recent global study of 1,516 document-driven business process owners and information workers suggests that common perceptions around document-driven business processes are mistaken. Businesses have placed a great degree of focus on improving their business processes, and many may believe they have achieved optimum efficiency in their document-driven processes. While it is true that improving document-driven processes can have a strong impact on reducing operational costs — and this study shows there is still room for improvement in this area — it can have an even greater impact on an organization’s top-line potential for revenue.

Specifically:

• Over 83% ofstudy respondentsindicated that optimizing customer-facing document-driven business processes would increase revenue — on average by 10.1%.This could be achieved by improving customer communications, streamlining the sales and customer onboarding process, and improving customer support.
• In theirrole as consumers,more than half of the respondents are dissatisfied with the document-driven processes in six of the seven industries studied: business services(64.9%), government (63.9%),healthcare (63.1%), education (62.3%),insurance (54.3%), and telecommunications(51.8%).

TOKYO, June 5, 2013 — Ricoh Company, Ltd. (President & CEO: Zenji Miura) is to reinforce production line facilities for high value-added thermal paper products, to cater to growing demand in the North American market and pave the way for new market development in Latin America. Approximately 5 billion yen will be invested in new thermal facilities at the Georgia Plant operated by Ricoh's U.S. production subsidiary Ricoh Electronics, Inc. (REI), in order to double the company's annual production capacity in the U.S.

Ricoh is developing, producing, and marketing durable, high value-added thermal paper mainly for barcodes on food POS, home deliveries, medical supplies, and airline luggage tags and has earned a large share of the market in many regions around the world. All this is underpinned by Ricoh's advanced technologies, which strike a balance between high sensitivity to color at low energy and durability based on the company's many years of technical expertise in areas such as thermal fax paper. Having initially entered this field in the U.S. in 1985, Ricoh has continued to extend its reach steadily since then, and surpassed its target of securing a 50% share of the market in fiscal 2012.

Challenges

This international media and entertainment business is the third largest in world. It comprises a number of film, TV production and broadcasting companies and associated media and entertainment operations, and has made a wide range of highly popular and successful movies and TV programmes.

When the business consolidated several of its UK offices into a single, new central London site, the move took staff from a traditional, segmented, 200- nit office, to a brighter, modern and open plan working environment. As the Facilities Director for the media and entertainment business says, “An office move is a real chance to make some fundamental changes to the way people work and the way print resources are deployed and used.” 

The change to a new location was an opportunity to overhaul the way the organisation manages its print operation. The new working environment also meant adopting a new approach to the way print is used. One of the main changes was to stop having multiple printers cluttering up people’s desks and workspace.  

At the previous offices, some 90 printers were sitting on desks and there was little information about how staff used these printers and, therefore, little control over or knowledge about how much print was costing the organisation. The task facing the organisation was to find a way of fundamentally changing how staff use print resources, and to gain much better control of those resources, all without hindering staff work or creativity.

Challenges

Astec Projects is a £30-million turnover construction business based in Reading, Berkshire. Although one of the largest specialist ceilings contractors in the UK, Astec Projects provides a number of other construction services, including facades - now its main activity – glazing, cladding and shop fronts. Recent projects include refurbishing McDonald’s drive-through restaurants with the new green brand facades.

A key part of Astec Projects’ work is design. Of its 109 staff, around 36 are Computer Aided Design (CAD) designers. These designers frequently need to produce and print complex designs and technical specification drawings for various projects. Typically, these designs are printed in black and white.

But there had been an increasing demand to provide colour designs, particularly at the tender and design stages of a project, where high-quality, high-impact presentation is important. Terry Noone, Financial Director for Astec Projects, says, “Although a lot of design work is now produced and shared electronically, there is an increasing need to use printed designs in presentation and tender situations. And the ability to add colour to a design often makes the design easier to use, easier to communicate concepts and easier to demonstrate an in-depth understanding of project challenges.”

However, using colour in wide-format printing is usually too expensive to make it a viable option.