Executive Q&A: John Fulena, Vice President, Production Printing Business Group, Ricoh USA, Inc.

1. Tell us a little about your company, the segment of the market it serves, and what you consider to be your "core" users.

Ricoh is a global technology company that has been transforming the way people work for more than 80 years. In fact, we in the Ricoh Production Printing Business Group are celebrating our 10th anniversary this October. Already a big name in document management solutions and digital cameras, ten years ago Ricoh made the leap to the production print space. This may not seem a long time to some, but when you look at where we were when we entered the production print space and what we’ve achieved since then, it’s pretty impressive. We entered a market that was fairly saturated with quite a few well-known players. Yet that didn’t stop us and within ten years we escalated from zero market share to the number one in cut sheet color and cut sheet black-and-white and continuous feed. That momentum and success are attributes our organization is extremely proud of.

Our company tagline “Imagine Change” is not just a catchy marketing idea, but a way of doing business. In this new world of work, we have made it our focus to develop technology that doesn’t just meet current customer’s needs but anticipates future ones.

The entire global entity that is Ricoh serves a huge variety of market segments. Specifically focusing on the production print space, Ricoh serves quite a range of end customers from commercial printers in the education, healthcare, the legal community, along with to signage shops and in-plant facilities. One way we differentiate ourselves, is that we offer our customers more than just a piece of equipment, but rather a solution set of people, process and technology that allow our customers to look at offerings for new markets they hadn’t considered before.

2. How did you get involved with the company? What is your background before that?

I was probably the 4th or 5th person hired when Ricoh launched its Production Printing Business Group (PPBG) in 2006. You could say I was one of the founding members of the organization. My career in the print industry began in the early 80s. Starting out selling typesetters; I’ve been in the business just about thirty years. This has allowed me to be a part of the digital transformation that has overtaken our industry.

3. What do you consider your greatest achievement in this market to be?

Ricoh’s longevity in this industry is a big deal. The print space has required a great amount of adaptability, especially in the last ten years. To go from typesetters to mobile print applications requires people who know when and how to adapt with the changing business needs. That is a big achievement we continue to accomplish here at Ricoh. When I started, our group set a plan and stuck to it, achieving the goals we wrote down in eight versus ten years. We were able to do that, because we embraced the changes happening in the print industry versus railing against them. We listened to our customers “new” needs and adapted our offerings accordingly to meet and exceed those needs. Our consistent focus on the customer helped to make where we are at today possible, and has positioned us for strong future growth. When you look at how far we’ve come in these past ten years, and where we are heading, you get a clear picture of the longevity we’ve built for ourselves in this industry. Considering the challenges print has and will continue to face, that is a great achievement.

4. If there was anything you could change, either about your career in regards to the print industry, your company, or the market as a whole, what would it be and why?

It’s a good question and not an easy one to answer. They say hindsight is 20-20, but I actually feel like the career path I’ve been on before and since joining Ricoh has been one that has afforded little regrets. I guess if I could change one thing it would be how the industry handled the onset of digital technology. I’d like to go back and help the industry as a whole more effectively deal with the challenges that the digital age brought in the early years. More than anything I’d like to go back and encourage my peers to embrace digital a lot sooner. I think if there had been a larger industry adoption of the blending of digital and print in the early years, some of today’s challenges might be more easily addressed.

5. What do you consider the greatest challenge to be for the industry right now? Why?

This like so much of what I’ve already said, comes back to the technology. This industry is transforming right now and continues to undergo large changes every year. Being able to continue to reinvent one’s approach and technology to stay in sync with industry changes is an ongoing uphill battle. To adapt to mobile technology, to find ways to make print and digital complement each other, to ease price pressures for customers – are all challenges we have to face now and in the future. While print is not going away, it is evident to all of us in the industry that we are seeing less print and that is increasing customer expectations on quality, cost, turnaround time and more, and we have to allow for that and continue to find ways to create technology that will meet and exceed those expectations.

6. What do you consider the greatest asset to be for the industry right now? Why?

At Ricoh, our greatest asset in this business is our team and its resiliency. Like I said before, we have figured out how to adapt to the changing business needs and survive. And it’s not just the actual change, but the willingness to make those changes, to understand that change was not a luxury but a necessity. In the last ten years we have managed to provide a viable alternative to technology that was in the marketplace, giving our customers the ability to get the same types of quality they’d come to expect (and demand) on devices with a much lower cost structure. The global nature of our company and the print business has also played a major part in the changes we have seen. As the technology has gotten better, cost structures have been reduced making the industry more competitive for us and for our customers. These lower cost structures have allowed smaller commercial printers to compete with mid-sized commercial printers and allowed printers to enter into new areas of business (marketing, alternative signage, etc…) that they may have not thought about entering into before. A great example of that would be our RICOH Pro C7100X series. Prior to our release of that machine, if I am a printer and I want to do five- and six-color printing, I have to buy a product like a NexPress, an Indigo or an iGen, that are higher priced products. The RICOH Pro C7100X series can produce five-color prints, but at a much lower cost of entry. As such with the release of that printer, we opened that area of the market to a much larger range of print shops.

7. In your opinion, what have been the biggest changes to the way we communicate with one another in the past few years? How would you recommend this industry take advantage of that?

The Internet and mobile technology have changed communications. It’s not that you can’t still do a direct mail print campaign or create printed corporate brochures, but rather that you need to have a website link in your printed mailer or a QR code inserted into your brochure that directs people to more information. Those of us who were part of digital print technology’s coming of age saw early on that it wasn’t that digital would replace print, but rather that it would offer a compliment to print. Early adopter printers and print shops began installing technology that would help their clients create multichannel offerings that allowed customers to engage with the communications by reading a printed document or visiting a website or pulling up information on their mobile device or all three. Moving forward, it’s important for this industry to understand that communications are not one size fits all and that applying a blended approach of both print and digital will ensure they reach the broadest subset of customers. Incorporating a multichannel approach to any type of print campaign is fast becoming a necessity for good communications and something I believe all printers should take a close look at when thinking about their offerings to their customers.

8. Looking ahead, what major innovations or technologies do you believe will shape the future of the industry? Why?

Inkjet is on everyone’s mind right now. Go to any tradeshow, any company meeting, any customer event and you can see that it is the future. It opens up so many doors to printers large and small (in industries from healthcare to publishing to education) and provides possibilities that past technology simply could not offer. As the quality has gotten better, the cost structure has changed and improved and we will continue to see it improve further. Paper developers, ink developers and printers all are focused on ways to make inkjet quality better, substrate variety greater, ink delivery systems superior. The industry as a whole is embracing inkjet and that is leading to a shift that we will see continue many years into the future.

9. What is the biggest piece of advice you would give to printers and others involved in this industry?

Look at your business inside and out and don’t shy away from technology that might be able to ultimately bring in incremental revenues. Look closely at areas that are perhaps outside of your comfort zone – like wide format or multi-channel or web-to-print offerings – and find ways to expand your business into those areas, filling in the gaps and increasing revenues. It’s important in this industry to be multidimensional and look at new technology and new service offerings that can create alternative ways to bring in business and money, different than what is your core business. Also pay attention to the vendors you do business with. Forming strong alliances with those vendors, becoming partners, can ensure that needs are not just met today but looked after in the future. Don’t just buy a printer or a piece of software, form a relationship and find partners that see your business as an extension of their own. Moreover, ask your customers for feedback. Their feedback is powerful for your future growth.

10. Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?

At Ricoh we talk a lot internally about how we are this well-kept secret. We hear from customers all the time – “hey, I didn’t know you guys did that.” It’s not that we are hiding our capabilities; we simply are focused more on development and innovation than promotion. We’d like people to know that our goal has always been to be a single source provider to printers – a company that can provide you with the equipment, the software, the services, the support and everything else you need. It is why we have expanded our consulting division and partnered with or purchased third party company technologies (like PTI and Avanti) to integrate their offerings into our products. We want to come in and be able to help with all facets of a customer’s business, not just the printing of paper. And we are succeeding. We are deeply committed to the production print space and as noted above, our longevity speaks for itself. We have been and will continue to be aggressive and look to exceed expectations. As mentioned above – our continuing market share growth says a lot about what we’ve achieved and where we are going.