Ricoh grows IT services capabilities with acquisition of Avantage

• Acquisition further enhances Ricoh’s position as a digital services company
• Avantage customers to benefit from Ricoh’s global footprint and extensive IT infrastructure 

Ricoh Europe, London, 16 March 2021 – Ricoh customers in the Netherlands are set to benefit from an even greater range of IT services and digital transformation capabilities through the company’s acquisition of Avantage.

Avantage is an IT services company that supports customers with workplace automation, IT infrastructure and cloud services to improve productivity.

The acquisition is set to further strengthen Ricoh’s existing digital workplace and IT services competences. This includes IT consultancy, implementation consultancy, Microsoft knowledge and experience, helpdesk services, remote management services, and sales consultancy.

Avantage customers will benefit from Ricoh’s global visibility, continuous support, financial capacity, IT infrastructure and international area of influence. They will also have access to the wide range of Ricoh products, which include document management systems, business process services, production printing solutions and workplace management. Ricoh customers will benefit from the exceptional infrastructure and competencies of Avantage in the context of increased employee productivity through IT services.

Avantage will operate as a Ricoh subsidiary responsible for its own operations and results. The company will become part of the Ricoh Office Services business. 

Alberto Mariani, Senior Vice President, Office Services, Ricoh Europe, says: “This exciting acquisition is part of a global strategy to further enhance Ricoh’s digital services, related competencies, and provision of even greater customer support. Avantage offers the perfect fit for Ricoh in terms of customers, employees, propositions, and size. It also complements other areas of our business such as document management solutions, workflow solutions and print services to provide customers with truly dependable extensive service and support.”

Eric Carree, CEO, Avantage, adds: “By joining forces with Ricoh, we meet our ambition to strengthen our organisation. Ricoh is a strong international player and offers us room to grow further. We can provide customers with even better services in the field of digital workplaces and IT services. We look forward to a successful future.”

The transfer of shares will take place after final approval by the national Authority for Consumers & Markets (ACM).

The acqusition of Avantage is a key part of Ricoh’s growth strategy to provide even greater customer benefits and support for digital transformation. Previous digital services acquisitions in Europe include:

• The Ridgian companies in the field of analytics
• Aventia for user experience and ecommerce
• Techno Trends in the field of unified communications and video conferencing systems
• NPO Sistemi for cloud solutions, technology & integration and software solutions
• LAKE Solutions AG for data storage, security and cloud integration
• The IPM and TotalStor businesses for the transformation and modernisation of critical IT infrastructures, data storage and analytics in private and hybrid cloud
• Mauden for data centre, IT infrastructure, artificial intelligence and business intelligence
• Orbid for critical IT infrastructures, managed services, data centres, private and hybrid cloud.
• DataVision for AV and workplace management solutions
• DocuWare for cloud and on-premise document management and workflow automation software
• SimplicITy for data centre design and transformation
• MTI for data centre transformation solutions, hybrid cloud, cyber security and managed services.

For more information on Ricoh’s IT services capabilities visit www.ricoh-europe.com/its.