Executive Q&A: Gavin Jordan-Smith – Senior VP Commercial and Industrial Printing Business, Groups Ricoh Americas

Gavin Jordan-Smith takes on his new position as Senior Vice President of Commercial and Industrial Printing Business, Ricoh Americas at an exciting time. Ricoh is a recognized leader in print production technologies and solutions. It is also a time when the production inkjet revolution is getting past its infancy position to a place where it can, and is, providing many new print manufacturing solutions and opportunities.

DZ

Hi Gavin, thanks for taking the time to speak with me about you, your new position and Ricoh. So, let’s start with your background.

GJS

It’s been an exciting journey; I entered the printing business over 20 years ago when I came to the United States. I’ve never looked back, following my passion: print and communications. I’ve worked in an on-demand print shop, a transactional print shop and then Toppan Printing Company America, where I was a director and corporate officer running operations. From there I went to “OEM school” at Xerox, where I learned the equipment manufacturing side of the business and, importantly, the focus on the customer’s perspective. I went on to run the graphic communications business for commercial print and the premier partner program for customers until I left to join Konica Minolta. There I learned about their verticals, initially focusing on their office business lines. I took the same philosophy focusing on the customer perspective to build a very customer-focused approach inside the business. Every company has a “customer first” approach but my passion was to go beyond that aspect to drive value and to deliver the outcomes. We used that to build applications, solutions and professional services that are meaningful and tangible to the office life.

DZ

So, what attracted you to Ricoh?

GJS

There is a lot that attracted me to Ricoh. Not just what I saw in the Americas but also what I saw happening globally. I looked at the Ricoh opportunity the same way as if I was looking at a business to invest in their stock. You look at the history, you would look at the management, you look at the future strategy of the organization and where its going, where it's invested and the road behind and the road ahead. 

Ricoh’s stats are impressive. The company was founded in 1936, and now has nearly 100,000 employees worldwide in over 200 countries and an impressive leadership team. They had sales in excess of $18.1 billion last year and is a profit leader in print production technologies with double digit unit growth year over year in 2018. Over the years it has gone through a massive transformation within the industry and in the business itself. It has gone through some groundbreaking disruptive acquisitions like IKON, Avanti and more recently ColorGate, as well as acquisitions in services. I am now so in full flow within Ricoh because if you look at their transformation, you see Ricoh’s leadership as benchmark in our industry and more transparently a leadership that is not afraid of creating disruption and making bold moves.

DZ

Since you're very much about the customer, where do you see areas of opportunity for growth in the industry for print service providers? And when I say print service providers, that does include packaging and industrial print, since I know that all falls under your umbrella.

GJS

It's all about the value chain at the end of the day. So, let me take a step back to what I have previously said. I have a passion for the customer. It's been with me the entire 20 plus years that I've been in this business. Understanding those value chain needs is a mantra that I've known for a long time. It's not rocket science. It is knowing that we're not just in a B to B business, but we're also in a B to B to C to C to C business, and growth opportunities come about through entropy, change, transformation and business. Because we're in that value chain with business selling to a business who perhaps are selling to an agency, who is selling to a client who's selling to a consumer, there's a meaningful difference in print. Do your communications, irrespective of the paradigm, deliver on that so print service providers can take advantage of it?

DZ

Ultimately Ricoh has to deliver products and services that align with your philosophy. How does that happen?

GJS

We have to drive continual transformation in our industry. It’s one thing that will never change irrespective of the industries we are engaged with. It starts by looking outside as well as inside the technologies, innovation, how they are connected that are making a meaningful impact. Think about it as “more than print.” Concepts like “Industry 4.0” that can drive intelligence within a manufacturing space, is where transformation can actually exist within the value chain. The outcomes of which makes the overall importance of print’s role more impactful.

Print service providers more commonly look at two areas within their print shop. On one side it’s about growing services and/or capturing new revenues and on the other side it’s doing things with greater efficiency to reduce costs and compete in the commodity space. 

Speaking specifically about the latter, I’m looking at artificial intelligence, automating cognitive thinking, to move the shift to automatic decision making by sensing within the manufacturing line to give greater visibility to the printer to reduce the cost to drive efficiency in workflow and services. On the upside, I am currently at a Ricoh Marketing Innovations Summit and a speaker pointed out that the roles in a business are changing. We need to drive top-line business results for our customers. The convergence of top-line revenue and bottom-line performance is being driven by each part of the value chain to deliver communications in print and digital. Ricoh’s part in this is building a better partnership or what I am calling an "alliance" that drives transformation for print and provides a path for printers to be successful.

DZ

What other technologies, like the cloud, do you see value in to help drive production and business to your customers?

GJS

We're looking at our entire solution platform, and we are migrating it into a hybrid delivery model that uses the cloud and on-premises technology. Then we'll be innovating the entire business model in this space. That will make something like RICOH Process Director (RPD) accessible by all print service providers, whether you're small, medium or large. That in itself is innovative. There's a lot of cool technology that's built within this. The cloud is just a delivery model, but then again, it's also a consumption model that allows our customers to consume content and consume services in a different way. That type of innovation is how we get off the freight train of just selling hardware.

DZ

How do you keep your efforts aligned with your customers? 

GJS

We are constantly in front of the customer, listening, planning and executing. I call this approach the “Age of the Customer.” Ricoh invests a lot on this activity. Actually, I am in a fortunate situation where I am responsible for marketing, portfolio, strategy and sales. This gives me the ability to align the execution of each area and ensure the customer voice is heard and acted upon. Events like our main customer event INTERACT, as well as through our select customer advisory council allow us to connect constantly. These are great activities that allow us to directly bring together the hearts and minds of our customers and our future together. These events help us understand the more pressing short-term customer needs, while allowing us to better integrate them into our long-term thinking as well.

DZ

Ricoh has significant technologies in imaging and other areas in their portfolio. Do you see a future where Ricoh will extend their role in packaging and industrial print?

GJS

Without a doubt. Right now, globally, industrial print has many applications for us. Our inkjet technology has been around for 40 plus years. We're present in many manufacturers’ wide format devices. Not only do we have a proven technological heritage in inkjet, but we have earned the right to lead the industry. In fact, more recently we started manufacturing our own wide format printers both in latex and UV on flatbed and roll to roll devices. We are well positioned to maintain leadership and take additional market share in the continuous feed space where we are continually innovating our platforms.

Packaging does fall into that as well. Our technology platforms, from cut-sheet toner to inkjet, all play a role in production of packaging applications. We are continuously innovating how manufacturers produce, monitor and strip out costs within their manufacturing processes and provide greater visibility through services and software. Ricoh’s portfolio is the best in the industry and our customer's voice amplifies that statement.

At the end of the day we have a strong legacy with the right to participate and lead innovation together with our print services providers. Where would we go with it? It’s endless, perhaps additive manufacturing, why not!

More to Come …

I would like to address your interests and concerns in future articles as it relates to the manufacturing of Print, Packaging and Labels, and how, if at all, it drives future workflows including ‘Industry 4.0’. If you have any interesting examples of hybrid and bespoke manufacturing, I am very anxious to hear about them. Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] with any questions, suggestions or examples of interesting applications.