The new RICOH Cloud Workflow Solutions portfolio is going to give small businesses access to an affordable subscription service for reducing manual processes.
RICOH (TYO: 7752) looks to eliminate manual steps while reducing manual data entry and managing the interoperability of different systems. The company says it is creating an environment which allows employees to work anywhere, anytime and how they need to.
Eighty-four percent of small businesses rely on manual processes. While this might have been OK in the past, in today’s digital ecosystem it makes it extremely difficult to effectively run a company and compete successfully.
One of the challenges is building effective workflows for the many different applications a business has as part of its operations. This is what Glenn Laverty, Senior Vice President of Marketing of Ricoh Americas and President and CEO of Ricoh Canada, addressed in the press release.
Laverty said, small businesses may not have the capability or resources to use the tools they have efficiently and build out effective workflows from the different applications they have in place.
He added, “The RICOH Cloud Workflow Solutions portfolio provides tools to create connectivity and develop automation. These offerings help transform the MFP into a true hub for productivity and collaboration, and the subscription consumption model makes it affordable, scalable and streamlined so SMBs can make the most of it.”
Ricoh Cloud Workflow Solutions Packages
The three subscription-based packages have been designed to streamline common processes and help workers be more productive.
Cloud Connectors provides connectivity to a range of cloud-based applications with zero-configuration scan to email functionality, mobile printing and enterprise-class OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and more. With the RICOH Integrated Cloud Environment packages, users can connect seamlessly to more than 20 different cloud applications.
Cloud Workflows gives businesses who need specific tasks and advanced document processing the ability to quickly configure the workflow. The RICOH Smart Integration Workflows can be configured to generate functions for multi-destination routing, auto file name and folder creation for scans, QR code processes for batch scanning and routing, and more.
Cloud Services can support complex requirement including extracting content from documents with workflows and applications, integrate with cloud-based line of business applications and create multiple data routes.
What this means is you will be able to access the resources you need anytime without having to worry about on premises-based IT solutions and the challenges they present for small businesses. This includes security, which RICOH provides with a fully-encrypted information transmission between any of its cloud server or external cloud service along with required user authentication to multifunction printers (MFPs) and cloud-based services.
Benefits of Automation
Automating your workflow will not solve all of the problems your business faces, but what it will do is improve employee productivity so they don’t have to spend time on manual processes. This frees them to focus on tasks which helps the business grow.
The RICOH Cloud Workflow Solutions portfolio provides the technology to make this possible in a subscription model that will not price out small businesses from a much-needed technology.
Image: RICOH
This article, “Ricoh Rolls Out Cloud Solutions for Small Businesses” was first published on Small Business Trends