Empowering Ricoh's business transformation with global cybersecurity services

Headquartered in Japan, Ricoh is a global company and major player in the imaging and electronics industries, catering to a wide range of businesses from small to medium-sized enterprises to large multinational corporations. Founded in 1936, the company has become renowned as a provider of top-grade office equipment, including printers, copiers and multi-function devices as well as commercial printing services.

To address the evolving needs of today’s workplaces, such as the shift to remote and hybrid work, Ricoh is transforming into a digital services company. Expanding beyond its traditional offerings, Ricoh now provides a broad range of digital services that span key areas, including Process Automation, Workplace Experience and IT Services, creating powerful synergies for clients seeking integrated, end-to-end support in the digital workplace. 

As digital transformation accelerates across industries, businesses increasingly rely on IT services to support remote work, streamline operations, and enhance resilience. At the same time, the need for integrated cybersecurity has grown more urgent, with cyberattacks becoming both more frequent and more sophisticated.

Ricoh has seen rapid growth in its IT services business as well — with a substantial increase in customer demand for services such as application management, IT service desks, and managed IT solutions across global markets—including Africa, APAC, Europe, Latin America, and North America—Ricoh recognised the need to change. Strengthening its offerings of cybersecurity capabilities next to its traditional IT services would be critical to continued growth. Although Ricoh was already providing security services to its customers, these efforts varied across regions, resulting in a fragmented global security operations setup. Some countries had established their own local security operations, which presented opportunities to further enhance consistency and service quality for international customers. 

To deliver advanced cybersecurity services, Ricoh decided to build centralised security operations. This initiative included the launch of a Global Security Operation Centre (GSOC), designed to provide customers with robust managed security services. The first GSOC was established in Poland to serve European customers. With a tight 9-month timeframe for completion, the project required close coordination between teams in Japan and Poland, presenting a complex challenge that called for dedicated external expertise.

Ricoh chose PwC Japan and PwC Poland due to their strong reputation in professional services, extensive experience in driving complex business transformation, and deep expertise in cybersecurity operations. To facilitate effective delivery, consultants from Japan and Poland supported the initiative across key strategic, technical, operational, and organisational dimensions while leveraging local cybersecurity expertise and market knowledge.

PwC developed and designed a solution operating model and selected each component of the technology setup, including Microsoft’s Sentinel, Defender XDR, Power BI and Azure Lighthouse, to form a cohesive technical foundation. Building on this, PwC crafted the supporting processes and stakeholder interactions and assisted with recruitment to help the GSOC team build the right skills mix needed to deliver a high-quality service. 

Based on its deep experience of deploying advanced security technologies, PwC evaluated the technology solution against the agreed strategic assumptions and design principles. Once the tech infrastructure was in place, PwC carried out rigorous testing to confirm the quality of the service, including the technology setup itself as well as the personnel and supporting processes.

Seamless collaboration between Ricoh and the PwC teams in both Japan and Poland was critical to deliver the project on time. In addition, leadership from both teams aligned regularly to enable that Ricoh’s strategic goals were met in the end. This strong foundation of collaboration, thorough evaluation, and rigorous testing set the stage for measurable success. 

Ricoh’s establishment of its first centralised security operations centre marks a significant milestone in their cybersecurity journey. The company has since conducted its own thorough testing of the new Europe-based GSOC and acquired ISO 27001 certification, meeting the highest standards for information security management.

With PwC’s support, Ricoh now has an efficient operating model for its first GSOC and a well-defined supporting business service strategy that it can replicate as it continues to expand and develop centralised security operations across its global regions. Alongside this, Ricoh has also been able to develop an efficient team structure and strong security frameworks, strengthening their capacity to deliver high-quality managed security services. For clients, this translates into enhanced protection, faster incident response, and consistent security standards across regions. They benefit from a proactive security approach that adapts to emerging threats and supports their business continuity.

Together, Ricoh and PwC have shown that a clear strategy, trusted collaboration and operational consistency can establish cybersecurity capabilities that are both effective and future-ready.