Nick Pearson, CIO at Ricoh Europe, describes his job as energising. The company’s shift in business model presents challenges and significant opportunities for him to draw on previous experience at other blue-chip firms.
Pearson joined the printer and tech services supplier in December 2023. He was previously head of IT platforms at Vodafone and held senior tech roles at RS Group and PepsiCo, where he spent almost a decade and was latterly UK IT director. In his role as CIO at Ricoh, Pearson is a member of the European executive board engaged in business transformation.
“We’re going through a seismic change that pivots Ricoh from a device and manufacturing company – an asset-based firm – into a services organisation,” he says.
“That shift on all levels – the way people think, the way we build systems, the way we sell, the way we operate, and the way we deliver – is energising. And that change is occurring against the backdrop of everything happening in the wider technology space.”
Assuming responsibility
Tokyo-listed Ricoh employs close to 80,000 people globally across three core divisions: Japan and Asia-Pacific, EMEA and North America. Pearson reports to the European CEO, who reports to the global CEO.
Pearson says the company runs a federated business across its three regions, loosely coupled back to its Tokyo headquarters. The European division employs about 17,000 people and boasts annual revenues of more than £3bn.
“For me, it’s a nice opportunity in a chunky organisation,” he says.
One element of the loosely coupled relationship with the Japan headquarters is that the company doesn’t have a global IT organisation. Pearson is part of a board in Japan that governs technology and creates a strategy across North America, Europe and Japan. This IT leadership approach was one of the major attractions of the role.
“There wasn’t a CIO [at Ricoh] before me. Running technology was a role someone adopted as part of their C-suite responsibilities. Now, a big part of my role is talking about the benefits of technology”
Nick Pearson, Ricoh Europe
“This model allows us to operate a fairly autonomous but linked IT estate, without over-globalising platforms and services. At PepsiCo, we pushed globalisation to the extent where, as a CIO or IT director, your role shifted at a regional level into more of a business relationship – you were the director of how you provide those globalised services,” he says.
“Ricoh is loosely coupled. And that setup excited me as a CIO, because it gives you the innovation space and the opportunity to deliver solutions that are ultimately closer to the customers here in Europe, rather than a global standard becoming the accepted index.”
Pearson says another appealing factor was that he knew Ricoh and respected its work. He had partnered with the firm at PepsiCo, where the technology specialist ran his helpdesk. Pearson recognised from initial discussions with senior executives at Ricoh that reporting directly to the European CEO would allow him to showcase the crucial role of digitisation.
“The conversations were about putting technology at the very heart of the business,” he says. “Before I joined, we never really had an IT leadership voice on the board. There wasn’t a CIO before me. Running technology was a role someone adopted as part of their C-suite responsibilities. Now, a big part of my role is talking about the benefits of technology.”
Shifting priorities
Pearson’s role has two main components. First, he assumes a traditional CIO position, overseeing artificial intelligence (AI), data, digital transformation, cyber security and business applications, while managing an internal team and a growing network of partners.
“I provide technology services to 17,000 people in Europe, about 200 applications, and all the services that run enterprise IT,” he says. “That’s my CIO stomping ground where I’m feeding, watering, supporting and operationally running IT.”
The other half of Pearson’s role is external facing. As a technology company, Ricoh sells products and services to CIOs. His conversations with his digital peers focus on his company’s developments across a range of areas, from private cloud to software that supports customers to technologies that form part of the company’s internet of things (IoT) platform.
“I am not the product owner of those end-solutions,” he says. “That responsibility sits in the commercial business. But the platforms and the technologies that support our solutions are a thread of mine that we’re growing. We’re moving away from just being a back-office function and looking at those front-office solutions that we’re providing.”
In short, suggests Pearson, some of the products and services his team develops in the back office might become front-office solutions for the firm’s customers. He describes this approach as a customer-zero strategy, where Ricoh Europe uses its own technologies before releasing them to the public.
“I’m trying to bring that approach through,” he says. “So, for instance, what are we doing for workplace experience? What are we building out in terms of capabilities, and where do they land? Private clouds are a good example. Our customers need a private cloud solution, and so do I. It’s about building something that’s a scalable solution and a win/win for us.”
Enabling transformation
Pearson says the broad aspiration is to use technology to help power the company’s business transformation from products to services. This shift is already underway. He estimates that about 55% of the company’s revenue now comes from services.
Some growth has come from the development of new services in key areas, such as cyber security, cloud, document management and meeting room spaces. Another key growth factor has been acquisitions, including the 2023 purchase of digital infrastructure and managed services company PFH Technology Group.
“My job collectively is to look at some decent growth, some declining growth, and explore opportunities to pivot,” says Pearson, reflecting on the transformation. “I need to consider how we run a model for everything from acquisitions through to manufacturing and print, our distribution business, while also growing our IT services organisation.”
Pearson says his IT strategy to enable this effort has “two brains” – a fit-for-growth element for internal IT and a second part that focuses on growth. When it comes to internal IT, Pearson is striving for operational excellence. He is working to speed up day-to-day technology delivery, and that’s meant taking a detailed look at the underlying architecture.
“Ricoh was on a journey, using quite monolithic stacks around Oracle and big back-office systems,” he says.
“We need to get to a more agile model, so we’ve got choices and flexibility. So, for example, we’re driving a dual strategy in an area like ERP [enterprise resource planning]. We’ve got Oracle, but we don’t want to slow the business down. We want to offer choice.”
When it comes to the second part of his strategy, supporting growth, Pearson says the organisation needs to ensure that cyber security awareness becomes a key part of its DNA, particularly on the manufacturing and distribution side of the business. Meanwhile, continuing to grow the services side of the business means giving people secure access to data-enabled platforms, such as the internet of things (IoT), private cloud and automation.
“Our approach to emerging technology is that we’re using AI where it matters,” he says. “We are a very much taking an ‘N-minus-one’ view in the sense that we say, ‘Let’s leverage, let’s partner, let’s scale, let’s use what’s working for our customers and for us internally,’ and we think that’s the best way we’re going to get value from this technology.”
Driving growth
Pearson has developed Ricoh Europe’s AI strategy over the past 12 months. He’s set up a tri-party AI council alongside the head of service operations and the commercial manager in Spain, which is one of the company’s most progressive businesses.
This council explores opportunities to buy, build and reuse emerging technologies operationally and commercially. Internally, the company is investigating how to use Microsoft Copilot technologies to boost operational productivity. Externally, the organisation considers how data can be used to improve customer processes, such as using AI to boost room-booking capabilities and exploit office space more effectively.
We’ll be doing AI where it matters, people will understand where it matters, and they’ll be using it where it matters, not because of the fear of missing out Nick Pearson, Ricoh Europe
Pearson is eager to make some key developments through 2026. His team is rolling out ServiceNow field service management technology to about 2,000 engineers across Europe.
“That means we can get better engineer automation, better fixed rates for when people visit clients, and we’ve got a lot of work we’re doing to automate our helpdesk facilities as customers call contact centres to get better problem resolution,” he says.
Another priority relates to an overarching initiative called One Ricoh, where his team ensures acquired businesses and their staff can benefit from using a standardised application estate.
“We’re looking at our back-office systems, especially around ERP, where we’re bringing companies across Europe into a consolidated solution set. That’s driving efficiency,” he says.
Pearson also wants to drive business growth by exploiting information. Ricoh Europe uses the Snowflake data platform and has invested in Microsoft technologies, such as Power BI and Fabric.
“We want to power a step change in business capabilities,” he says. “We’re setting up a data factory, which hopefully helps our AI journey as well, with more employees shifting into becoming data product owners on that side.”
Looking forward, Pearson suggests the platform he’s building will deliver a strong, digitally enabled business two years from now.
“Number one, we will have capabilities in data and applications that mean, whether you’re a small or a big business in Ricoh, selling a single line or every line of our portfolio, you’ll have standard tooling to enable you to do that,” he says.
Second, he expects his customer-zero strategy to produce big benefits. “We’ll be out there, proud and innovative in the way we run our company, and showing our workplace experience outside-in.”
Finally, Pearson says the organisation will have established a clear data and AI strategy that is recognised by internal staff and external customers.
“We’ll be doing AI where it matters, people will understand where it matters, and they’ll be using it where it matters, not because of the fear of missing out,” he says.
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