Ricoh has announced the acquisition of document management and workflow automation company DocuWare, headquartered in Germany and the United States.

DocuWare provides cloud and on-premise document management and workflow automation software to over 12,000 customers in more than 90 countries across the globe through a network of 600 partners.

David Mills, Corporate Senior Vice President, Ricoh Company Ltd, said, “The agreement we have made with DocuWare, which has a market-leading, cloud-first content services offering, is a hugely significant step in meeting that need. We are delighted at the additional capabilities we will be able to offer current and new customers.”

Ricoh’s Australia and New Zealand both have existing partnerships with ECM vendor Laserfiche. How this will be affected by the new acquisition is unclear.

Following completion of the deal, DocuWare will operate as a subsidiary of Ricoh with Dr Michael Berger and Max Ertl remaining as presidents.

Mills added: “Our ambition at Ricoh is to ‘empower digital workplaces'. What that means in practice, is connecting people to information faster and more conveniently, improving communication and creativity; the synergy between Ricoh and DocuWare speaks directly to this ambition.

“DocuWare will operate as a standalone subsidiary of Ricoh and we are committed to maintaining and growing its hugely successful partner programme, through expanding its channel network and investing in further product development.

“DocuWare already seamlessly integrates with our new IM C series of multifunction printers, through Ricoh Smart Integration, providing customers with a simple, secure way of scanning documents and feeding them directly into a highly effective, intelligent workflow process.”

Mills continues: “As a long-time partner, Ricoh understands the power of DocuWare's channel to deliver document management and workflow automation solutions to customers. Ricoh wants to strengthen and grow this route to market and is committed to helping and learning from DocuWare and its management team.