Konica Minolta and Ricoh offer digital transformation solutions across a range of industries in Japan.
COVID-19 is rapidly promoting telework as the predominant work style. Along with this, there is a demand for digital transformation (DX) within the workplace. The imaging industry, which has been working on these workflow improvements for many years, is devoted to developing service products that are easy for dealers to sell and contribute to customer DX conversion by analyzing customer workflows and packaging solutions.
Konica Minolta Japan has reorganized its solution products to address its customers’ industries and business issues in the Japanese market. Konica Minolta Japan is branding these updated solution products and its operational know-how as “Success Pack,” and the company is already submitting proposals to customers. As a result, companies experiencing customer workflow and packaging-solution issues can quickly find optimal solutions through the web and sales staff and promote effective DX with a smooth introduction and operations. Ricoh Japan, which has taken the lead in this market, recorded sales of more than 10,000 of its SMB industry business offering, “Scrum Package,” in March 2021. The company revealed that the cumulative number of packages sold through March exceeded 140,000.
Konica Minolta Japan explained the background of why it is offering Success Pack. One of the main reasons is that companies and government agencies in Japan have been increasingly demanding work-style reforms through DX to achieve work-quality improvement as well as labor savings and improved efficiency in recent years. However, the urgency increased due to the spread of COVID-19. The Japan Users Association of Information Systems (JUAS), a neutral IT user group that investigates and researches the utilization of IT, conducted the “Corporate IT Trend Survey 2021 2nd Emergency Fact-Finding Survey” in October 2020. According to the survey, 64.7% of the respondents indicated “improving the efficiency and speeding up business processes” as a future priority issue for management that they want to solve with IT investment.
Additionally, Japanese SMBs have few IT resources. According to the “IT Human Resources White Paper 2020,” issued by Information-Technology Promotion Agency (IPA), an organization that plays a part in IT implementation measures in Japan and aims to create a society where people can utilize secure IT, 33% of respondents said that there is a “significant shortage” of IT human resources in Japan, while 56% answered “somewhat of a shortage.” Cumulatively, nearly 90% of the companies identified addressing the shortage of IT human resources is needed to promote DX.
Konica Minolta Japan began its work-style reform efforts in 2013. Based on the knowledge gained from its own full-scale telework operation that launched in 2017, the company has commercialized “Success Pack.” These packaged services were introduced to customers and operated successfully, and different solutions were co-created with partner companies with various expertise.
As an example, the “Office Design Pack for General Affairs” provides consulting for solution implementation based on the achievements and know-how of work-style reform promoted by Konica Minolta Japan. In addition, the “Vehicle Dispatch and Accounting Support Pack for the Transportation industry” is a Success Pack Konica Minolta Japan co-created with a solution partner. It provides solutions that solve transportation industry issues by installing them in Konica Minolta’s Workplace Hub.
Ricoh Japan’s Scrum Package, which targets SMBs, digitizes and streamlines processes unique to industries and businesses by combining edge devices, software, cloud services, and other applications. It is provided by Ricoh Japan or collaborative partners for customers such as SMB MFP users. Instead of the conventional fragmentary business improvement proposals based on individual products and services, it is designed to make proposals that capture a customer’s entire business flow and is supported by solutions that don’t require a large-scale IT investment. Since launching the Scrum Package in October 2017, Ricoh Japan has commercialized 147 packages for nine industries, including construction, real estate, manufacturing, welfare and care, health care, transportation, sightseeing, printing, and distribution, as well as three businesses for work-style reform, security and the back office.
Although sales of MFPs have peaked, Ricoh Japan sees the Scrum Package as a product that helps customers promote DX and focuses on providing its sales and services to expand it further as a growth area with a large potential market.
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