Ricoh Americas Corporation today announced its launch of a new global brand identity expressed by the tagline imagine. change. The launch aligns Ricoh Company, Ltd. operations worldwide under a common vision, describing the way Ricoh brings value to its customers’ business.

The new brand identity also unites Ricoh and IKON Office Solutions under one brand in the U.S. – Ricoh – culminating a careful, steady progression since Ricoh’s acquisition of IKON in 2008. The result is a single-minded organization offering the best of two worlds: Ricoh’s time-tested technology innovation and IKON’s demonstrated commitment to service excellence.

The new tagline, imagine. change., captures the essence of Ricoh’s approach – always moving forward with new ideas for improving its customers’ business, and understanding that change is driven by the power of the collective imagination that exists inside an organization.

“This announcement kicks off a new era of even higher-value service to all of our customers,” said Shun Sato, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Ricoh Americas Corporation. “In addition to being a document expert, Ricoh is a full-service provider of business solutions for the evolving needs of our customers. Services-led, technology-enabled and people-driven, we are committed to helping companies harness the powerful information and knowledge that already exists throughout their organizations – often untamed, untapped and buried – to create the future they want.”

Fifty years in America

Ricoh’s new brand identity coincides with its 50th anniversary of innovation in America. For the rest of 2012, Ricoh will spotlight its technology breakthroughs from the past half century, wherever in the world they originated, as well as the company’s progress on these developments since. The focus will be on helping companies optimize their business processes.

Seventy-six years ago Ricoh was established in Japan, and its founder, Kiyoshi Ichimura, envisioned a world where information could be copied precisely and distributed at the touch of a button – a world where critical business knowledge was available anywhere at any time. After establishing a Ricoh subsidiary in the U.S. in 1962, Ricoh spearheaded the era of office automation, giving the world the first high-speed digital facsimile machine for office use. Ricoh also became the first company in the office automation industry to win the coveted Deming Prize for excellence in quality control, introduced the first solar-powered SLR camera, and created Times Square’s first solar-powered billboard, among other firsts.

Today, Ricoh combines people, processes and technology to help build information infrastructures that are faster, smarter, greener and less expensive than customers imagined. Through cloud computing, remote monitoring and other innovations, the company is also making information more secure, mobile and personal. As a result of such measures, organizations can collaborate and innovate like never before.

For more information on the new Ricoh global brand identity, visit http://www.ricoh-usa.com/brand-message, and for more information on the IKON brand transition in the U.S., visit http://brand.ricoh-usa.com. To see Ricoh’s global press release on the new brand messaging, please visit http://www.ricoh.com/release/2012/0402_1.html.