WEST CALDWELL, N.J., April 14 -- Ricoh Americas Corporation announced today that its Production Printing Business Group (PPBG) is offering Smart Business Seminars on critical production printing topics to provide additional value and service to current and prospective customers. PPBG developed the seminars to better meet the specific business needs of attendees in its three core segments -- In-plants, Graphic Arts and Data Centers. Designed to be an educational forum, these seminars offer segment-focused information that includes national industry speakers, hands-on exercises, technology demonstrations, and take-away operational assessment tools for real-life applications.

Smart Business Seminars (visit http://www.ricohsmartbusiness.com/ to register) have been held in Atlanta and Philadelphia and will tour across the country in six additional cities through the month of September, 2008 including:

* Los Angeles, CA on April 16
* New York, NY on May 14
* Washington, D.C. on June 11
* Chicago, IL on July 16
* Detroit, MI on August 20
* Houston, TX on September 17

For the In-plant Smart Business Seminars, attendees will explore the four core focus areas for strengthening their in-plants, participate in exercises to enhance their strategic perception, receive tools to analyze their operational effectiveness, and engage in a lively discussion of current in- plant and graphic arts industry trends. To enhance the relevancy of the workshop, PPBG's Greg Cholmondeley will lead the discussion along with special guest speaker Andrew Paparozzi, vice president and chief economist for NAPL (the National Association for Print Leadership). Paparozzi's nationally respected perspective on the economic and business trends in the graphic arts industry, and Cholmondeley's years of analytical and practical experience will equip attendees with the necessary tools to take their in-plant businesses to the next level by providing critical, and often overlooked insights on how to improve operations and the value brought to clients and parent organizations.

Participants at the Graphic Arts Smart Business Seminars will learn the six best practices for enabling the print-for-pay provider to create a successful and profitable customer engagement. Attendees will learn relevant lessons such as how to build credibility by using proven steps to define objectives for marketing projects, understand budgets as well as how to develop a strategic and targeted value proposition. PPBG's John Kaufman will facilitate this discussion with guest speaker Dave Erlandson, general manager of Caslon & Co., a firm that specializes in helping companies take advantage of new business opportunities through digital printing. These seminars will guide attendees on how to be a more trusted business partner by uncovering customer's real-time business and marketing issues. This session will also highlight today's key trends in digital printing and show customers how to most effectively create strategic solutions and sales tools to increase their businesses' bottom-line.

In today's competitive business environments, data center customers need to ensure that their transactional documents are produced and delivered in the most cost efficient and timely manner.

For the Data Center Smart Business Seminars, customers will learn best practices on how to create stand-out documents that are efficiently delivered. Special guest speakers Irene Etzkorn, simplification practice advisor for Siegel & Gale, and Kemal Carr, president of Madison Advisors, an independent analyst firm, will join PPBG's Kurt Konow to lead customers through what it takes to operate a highly successful, competitive data center with the most up-to-date business processes. Among the key lessons attendees will learn include how to design effective documents that cut through the clutter as well as the most efficient practices from production to delivery.

"We are proud to be offering these seminars as they address current and critical issues faced by customers today. By providing tangible resources and best practices to address these challenges, we are providing a platform for companies to differentiate from the competition and improve bottom-line business results," said Carl Joachim, vice president of Marketing, PPBG, Ricoh Americas Corporation.

For more information on PPBG please visit http://www.ricoh-usa.com/ppbg.