New Delhi: Minosha India Ltd, the distributors of digital services, print and imaging solutions major Ricoh, is targeting to clock a turnover of Rs 500 crore in the next five years, having signed a strategic partnership pact with the Japanese firm, according to the company’s Managing Director Atul Thakker.
Minosha India, formerly known as Ricoh India Ltd which was a 74 per cent subsidiary of Ricoh Japan, had taken over the Indian operations in 2020 after the Japanese entity quit due to management issues. It is seeking to tap opportunities in the startup and e-commerce logistics sectors.
Last month, Minosha India had inked a partnership deal with Ricoh under which it was authorised to cater to the Indian market with the Japanese partner’s office equipment and digital services.
“At one point of time we were at Rs 500 crore…Hopefully, in FY22-23 everything comes back to pre-pandemic (levels) and the target we have internally set is Rs 500 crore in the next five years up from around Rs 200 crore in FY21-22,” Thakker told PTI.
He was responding to a query on the company’s future growth expectations.
The turnover of FY22 has been achieved despite the challenges of not having access to the full range of products and COVID-related restrictions, Thakker said.
“Even now the software industry has still not gone back to work and many MNCs are still to open their offices,” he added.
In the last three to four years, Ricoh, in the absence of a proper distributor, could not introduce all its new products, he said, adding with Minosha signing the distribution agreement it would have access to the whole range of products and solutions which will be introduced in the Indian market soon.
Commenting on the office automation market in India, Thakker said it was around 1.5 lakh units annually in the pre-pandemic days. In the first year of COVID-19, it fell down to around 90,000 to 95,000 units and in FY21-22, it has clawed back to 1.1 lakh units annually.
In terms of competition, Canon is the biggest player, followed by Konica.
Asked about Ricoh’s standing, he said, “We are in the high single digits currently. At one point of time we were at around 20 per cent and that is the target in five years, that we go back to our original market share.”
Stating that globally Ricoh is always number one or two in the markets it is present in, Thakker said, “That is our understanding they also want to have that same ranking in India.” He, however, did not share a timeline for achieving that target.
In terms of target areas, he said, “One is the startup industry. They are growing like anything and are raising funds and they are also succeeding. That is one area which we have to cover.”
The other is logistics, as the fulfilment centres of e-commerce players like Amazon or Flipkart are moving to tier II and III cities to be near their customers.
“Each warehouse requires a specific printer, because there are three-four prints required for each parcel which goes out. Now, we are looking at solutions for that. We have the reach because we have 300 partners across India,” he added.
Stressing that Minosha offers guarantee for customer service through its partners within a specified period of time even in smaller cities, he said the same approach has been adopted for the BFSI (banking, financial services, and insurance) sector in which the company has big clients, which have presence in locations ranging from 200 to 1,000.