OREANDA-NEWS. Ricoh Company, Ltd. announced that it will restructure its subsidiary, Ricoh Innovations, Inc. ("RII") as Ricoh Innovations Corporation ("RIC") effective April 1, 2013. The company's charter as a research center developing innovative technologies will be expanded to include the development of new businesses worldwide applying advanced information technology.

RII was founded in 1997 as a subsidiary of Ricoh, growing out of the California Research Center established in 1989. RII is home to world-class technologists with a broad set of competencies in areas such as intelligent sensors, computational optics, mobile visual communication and cloud-based collaboration. Completing the team are experienced ethnographers with deep insights into user and customer experience, and creative designers with a fundamental understanding of user interfaces and industrial design.

RII will be reorganized as RIC with the added responsibility of global new business creation, leveraging core technologies developed by the Ricoh Group including RII and its R&D subsidiary Ricoh Innovations Private Limited ("RIPL") in Bangalore, India. RIC will build on RII's combination of user, technology and business insights to produce deep innovation that drives new business creation.

"The new company incorporates the key elements needed to create new customer value," said Yoshinori Yamashita, Corporate Executive Vice President of Ricoh Company, Ltd. "RIC leverages a unique combination of innovative technologies and the research / business leadership of President and CEO Dr. Nikhil Balram, who will be promoted to Corporate Senior Advisor of Ricoh Company, Ltd. as of April 1, 2013."

"I am excited by the challenge and opportunity afforded by RIC to make a real impact on the future of Ricoh," added Dr. Nikhil Balram, the President and CEO of RIC. "The expanded charter and new corporate structure enable the goal of incubating new highly differentiated businesses that can achieve a global footprint."

First to be launched by RIC is the Visual Services and Solutions business. Its first product connects physical objects to digital content using the unique and proprietary Ricoh Visual Search technology that has over ninety patents granted or pending. Utilizing a smartphone camera to capture a poster, magazine or other printed materials, users are presented with a variety of related online information. This can include multimedia content, purchase options and social media links.

RIC will concentrate on disruptive, new information technologies with special emphasis on four large markets: retail, health care, office and consumer. Technologies developed at Ricoh will be augmented by Open Innovation through strategic partnerships with universities and companies. RIC's global charter will include developing new businesses for emerging regions such as India and Africa, as well as developed ones.