Ricoh Asia Pacific Operations simplifies sales operations

Harmonizing IT services across 12 companies
Ricoh, headquartered in Japan, is a global leader in workplace technology. Its vision is to improve work life and create new values for customers through creativity, collaboration, and seamless technology. As part of Ricoh Corporate Limited (RCL), Ricoh Asia Pacific Operations (RAPO) supports 12 operating companies and major distributors across multiple countries.

Ricoh has embarked on a global digital transformation strategy to achieve efficiency, responsiveness, and a better customer experience through automation. In response to RCL’s global strategy to transform the business from a product manufacturer to a digital workplace service provider, RAPO needed to standardize business processes. One of the key challenges was to deploy a technology that helps to drive process standardization and create faster value for its customers.

On the recommendation of Ricoh Europe and Ricoh USA, RAPO selected ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM) and ServiceNow IT Operations Management (ITOM) to standardize the delivery and support of IT services across all 12 regional operating companies.

“We are impressed with the functionalities and the strong linkage of different modules on the Now Platform® which helps us deliver process standardization across 12 operating companies. It is a benefit that we rarely see in the other platforms,” says Takuya Higashimae, Senior General Manager, Information Technology, Ricoh Asia Pacific Operations Ltd.

Danny Hung, Project Manager at Ricoh Asia Pacific Operations adds that many of the ServiceNow ITSM workflows are aligned to ITIL standards with advanced UI and UX.

“ServiceNow connects technology to business needs fast and integrates complex systems, and these enable all our operating companies to scale with growth and benefit from the combined operations,” Danny explains.

Improving staff productivity and operating efficiency
Through the implementation of Service Catalog and Request Management within ServiceNow ITSM, RAPO is able to increase self-service items in the service portal and improve operational efficiency in services management across all the operating companies. It also cut the time for the IT team to enter request details on behalf of employees and respond to emails or calls. Employees can also easily submit and track their service request status via their mobile device, improving employee satisfaction.

RAPO also plans to use ServiceNow ITOM for proactive services and improve the management of machine-generated incidents. This will allow the IT team to detect a system problem and take preemptive action before impacting employees.

After using ServiceNow ITSM over three years, RAPO upgraded to ServiceNow ITSM Professional and plans to use Virtual Agent’s natural language understanding, Performance Analytics, and Predictive Intelligence (platform-native AI/machine learning), to maximize the benefits of automating IT services.

“With ServiceNow ITSM Professional, 80% of our simple requests are automatically routed to chatbots and knowledge articles, and only 20% of more complex requests need to be handled by employees. This has freed up time for our IT staff to focus on more strategic initiatives, such as learning new skills or developing solutions for customers,” Danny explains. “The automation has boosted the self-service adoption rate by employees to almost 100% and improved the speed to close cases.”

RAPO also uses Performance Analytics and Predictive Intelligence to turn operating data into actionable insights. This provides greater visibility for the IT team to optimize service management and meet the targets for SLA.

Thanks to ServiceNow ITSM Professional, RAPO can easily view and monitor service performance—how many requests the IT team can process compared to before and how much faster—and events via the dashboard instead of asking the IT manager in each operating company to provide reports via email.

Single Product Data Hub to support sales operations
Before ServiceNow, the regional team and local team used two separate databases in Lotus Notes—one for operating companies and the other one for dealers—for product catalog and pricing information. It became difficult to manage price registration and the approval process for the master product price lists. As the database involves a wide range of Ricoh’s products, partners’ products, and the price configuration for direct and indirect sales channels, RAPO needed a single platform to connect disparate workflows and improve collaboration between different offices and organizations for regional marketing and sales operations.

By using ServiceNow App Engine’s low-code development platform, RAPO built a centralized Product Data Hub to digitalize the workflows for master product price lists across all the operating companies. Sales, marketing, and supply chain management teams now have a single view of the products and pricing information, making it easier to communicate with other offices and dealers.

In particular, sales are able to connect to operations in real time to improve service and the value they bring back to business. This has helped to save time in collaboration for sales operations by 50% and reduce costs with a single regional Product Data Hub.

“The beauty of ServiceNow is that it is robust and easy to use. That helps us to quickly build a digital workflow with many stakeholders and support critical sales operations,” says Takuya.

Through the integration of the ERP system with the digital workflows for the master product price list in the ServiceNow platform, RAPO has also reduced communication volume using paper, emails, and phone calls and provided a better engagement experience for its employees.

“With the adoption of the ServiceNow platform, we have transformed the way we engage with our internal customers. Sales teams have now fully embraced the digital workflows which helps to automate their sales servicing,” adds Danny.

Improving customer service through technology expansion
As Ricoh Europe has expanded its use of ServiceNow ITSM to create a customer service portal, RAPO is planning to do the same to improve customer service for its focused growth business units including Managed Services, IT Solutions (ITS), and Office Solution Business.

“We are using two different systems to manage, monitor, and communicate with customers. Ricoh Europe is using a single system in ServiceNow that makes it more efficient, so we are working on standardizing to one system to improve our efficiency too,” Danny reveals.

“In evolving from a pure product manufacturer to a global solution provider, ServiceNow can augment, supplement, or complement our business transformation process,” says Takuya.

“I would recommend ServiceNow to any business. Not only is the cost reasonable, but we also gained value from the Now Platform.” Danny adds. “ServiceNow ITSM Professional helps us to provide employees with a better workspace experience while ServiceNow App Engine is helping us accelerate the development of digital workflows for customers, partners, and employees.”

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