Ricoh Canada Inc: External Forces, Capabilities, and Future Scope

This report analyzes Ricoh Canada Inc (RCI), a Canadian subsidiary of a Japanese company, focusing on its strategy and change management in a saturated market. The report critically examines the external environmental forces impacting RCI, including technological advancements like digitalization and competition from companies like HP and Konica Minolta. It then assesses RCI's capabilities and competencies, highlighting its customer base and service offerings, while also acknowledging weaknesses in volume. Finally, the report explores the future scope of RCI, suggesting strategic changes to leverage its strengths, such as its technical expertise and service support teams, to gain a competitive advantage and achieve sustainable growth in the market. The analysis considers the importance of adapting to customer demands and leveraging technological advancements to improve service offerings and sales channels. The report concludes by emphasizing the potential for RCI's success in the business landscape, provided it continues to adapt to the changes.

Running head: STRATEGY AND CHANGE
Strategy and Change
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction of the company......................................................................................................2
Critically analyse the external environmental forces influencing the company........................2
Critically analyse the capabilities and competencies of the company.......................................3
Analyse the future scope of company with its capabilities and competencies...........................5
Bibliography...............................................................................................................................6

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Introduction of the company
Ricoh Canada Inc (RCI) was a company located in Canada that used lease and service
model with office imaging equipments. Ricoh Canada Inc is a wholly owned subsidiary
business that is headquartered in Toronto however, its parent company headquarter is in
Japan. It operated in over 200 countries and employed more than 108,000 people worldwide.
The challenge that RCI had to undergo was the fact that it had been facing saturation in the
market segment that had been the primary source of revenue for the company. On the high
point, Ricoh Canada Inc had also managed to acquire IKON Office Solutions for US$1.6
billion.
The acquisition provided Ricoh Canada Inc with an opportunity to make proper
relationship with the dealers and set up direct sales network. Ricoh Canada Inc had also faced
challenges in having to move away from its legacy of business towards an unknown service
market. Therefore, issues in strategic marketing needed to be undertaken so that the critical
corporate transformation can be suited for industry and competitive analysis along with the
strategic positioning. Ricoh Canada Inc needed to assess itself as an organisation and its place
in the market so that it can create sustainable growth strategy.
Critically analyse the external environmental forces influencing the company
The external environment forces affecting Ricoh Canada Inc can be considered as one
of the major challenges that are required to be faced by the company. It is evident that Ricoh
Canada Inc needs to build on its lost reputation and hope to continue with its development in
the market by being more adaptive to the technical changes. One of the technical changes that
are required to be undertaken by Ricoh Canada Inc is the fact that it needs to be more
digitalised to cope up with the demand of the customers.

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Musa et al. (2015) stated that the application of digital documents had helped in the
development of faster as well as efficient workflows and help in providing greater
accessibility to the customers. According to Pluess (2015), this modern day trend can be used
as portable software and can be advent for the conservation of the environment surrounding
the planet. Along with this, the availability of the digital documents could be made via the
internet and thus the development business at Ricoh Canada Inc can be analysed due to this.
With the growth in the value of the Canadian market, the clarity on the advocating of the
tablet and mobile devices had increased.
At the same time, competitors also posed threat due to the longevity of its existence as
well as the use of modern technology. For example, Ricoh Canada Inc had to face stiff
competition from Hewlett Packard Company (HP) along with Konica Minolta. As stated by
Dobscha, Mentzer and Littlefield (2015) these companies proved to be of strong
acquaintances in terms of gaining popularity among the customers and for the development
of technologies. Thus, the external environment of Ricoh Canada Inc can be stated as a form
of changing environment along with the existence of vast competitors in the market.
The customer studies undertaken by Ricoh Canada Inc had provided an indication of
the factors that are required to be met in order to gain success in the market. As identified by
Westerburg and Bode (2018) these factors include the cost effectiveness as well as
environmental sustainability so that social work can take place. Based on this, it can be said
that for Ricoh Canada Inc, it is necessary to identify the capabilities and competencies that
exist with which it can continue its existence and growth in the market.
Critically analyse the capabilities and competencies of the company
From the analysis of the factors, it can be said that customer base can be considered as
one of the essential competency that is required to be undertaken by Ricoh Canada Inc. As

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stated by Davcik and Sharma (2016) the manner in which the company can continue to
develop its customer base can indicate the capabilities it possesses along with the opportunity
of success that can be gained. Ricoh Canada Inc had managed to sell 89% of sales by making
business-to-business deals with 11% profit coming from the sale to the dealers.
One of the strategic challenges that Ricoh Canada Inc had to face was the morphing
of the customer demand at a rapid rate. The capability in terms of being innovative needed to
be implemented so that Ricoh Canada Inc could identify the current customer experience
level required for success. Therefore, as stated by Huda et al. (2019) it can be said that
strategic and geographic location identification can be considered as major factors that had
affected Ricoh Canada Inc in its quest to become global leaders in Canada. The current
service offering made by Ricoh Canada Inc can be broken down into three segments.
As pointed out by Breznik and Lahovnik (2016) these segments include technical
services, professional services and managed services. However, lack of volume in these areas
can be considered as a weakness. This can be made up with the type of technology that the
company possess. The technical service offered by Ricoh Canada Inc includes staying true to
its legacy by involving service machines and a level of agreement.
At the same time, the professional service provided helped in gaining the interest of
the customers and thus, can be considered as essential for the overall growth of the company.
In this regard, it can be said solutions can be offered so that proper implementation of the
capabilities can be implemented in the future. Thus, it is necessary that an analysis be made
so that the future of Ricoh Canada Inc can be secured by identifying the scope that can be
gained by the implementation of the capabilities and competencies that exist.

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Analyse the future scope of company with its capabilities and competencies
In order to understand the future scope of Ricoh Canada Inc based on its capabilities
and competencies, it can be said that certain changes can be made so that the company can
maintain its success. One of the observations made had showed that Ricoh Canada Inc is
weak in terms of volume of the technical competencies but is more into the development of
technical scheme. The manner in which the company can implement the success can be
considered as one of the major advantages that may help it to become one of the fastest
growing companies in the world and gain competitive advantage over HP.
At the same time, Peters et al (2016) is of the opinion that the management of
documented systems need to take place so that in the age of digitalisation IT hardware can
help in the remote monitoring of the services. The concept can help to ensure proper point-to-
point access to the various departments of the company with accountability made for the
proper positioning of the documents. The service support team that Ricoh Canada Inc has can
also help in the development of an overall structure so that the sales channel can improve.
With its improved engineering facilities as well as sales marketing, Ricoh Canada Inc
can be said to have huge scope of success in business (Mao et al., 2016). The support of the
teams can help in providing he required education for the improvement of the technical
competencies in the market. Therefore, Ricoh Canada Inc can be said to have a proper future
with accessibility to provide better competition to its rivals in the industry.

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Bibliography
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Davcik, N. S., & Sharma, P. (2016). Marketing resources, performance, and competitive
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Dobscha, S., Mentzer, J. T., & Littlefield, J. E. (2015). Do external factors play an antecedent
role to market orientation?. In Proceedings of the 1994 Academy of Marketing
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Huda, M., Qodriah, S. L., Rismayadi, B., Hananto, A., Kardiyati, E. N., Ruskam, A., & Nasir,
B. M. (2019). Towards Cooperative with Competitive Alliance: Insights into
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Competitive Advantage with Social Entrepreneurship (pp. 294-317). IGI Global.
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Musa, M. M., Bin Amirudin, R., Sofield, T., & Mus, M. A. (2015). Influence of external
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Peters, M. D., Wieder, B., Sutton, S. G., & Wakefield, J. (2016). Business intelligence
systems use in performance measurement capabilities: Implications for enhanced

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Pluess, M. (2015). Individual differences in environmental sensitivity. Child Development
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