Ricoh's Mark Taylor and Jacques van Wyk on the brave new world of work

Ricoh South Africa CEO Jacques van Wyk, left, and Ricoh International CEO Mark Taylor

The world of work has changed fundamentally, and quite possibly forever. Companies need to adapt, and one area that needs particular focus is how they manage their physical offices.

As the Covid-19 pandemic starts to ease into 2022 – fingers firmly crossed – companies need to manage the gradual return to work of their employees. But how do they make their people feel safe in the workplace, and how can they use the latest systems and technologies to made the workplace more efficient?

Ricoh, the Japanese multinational, has a solution: Ricoh Spaces. And in this episode of the podcast — watch or listen to it below — Ricoh International CEO Mark Taylor and Ricoh South Africa CEO Jacques van Wyk unpack the big issues.

Taylor, who is no stranger to South Africa’s ICT sector – he recently emigrated to his native UK after decades in senior roles in South African banking, telecommunications and IT companies – gets the conversation going with a look at Ricoh and what it does.

He then talks about how Ricoh itself has been reconfiguring its offices and the way it manages them in the wake of Covid and the shift to a hybrid working environment. Van Wyk and Taylor unpack the trends Ricoh is seeing in South Africa and what the last 18 months have meant for productivity – and for the mental health of employees – before turning to how Ricoh Spaces has helped Ricoh adapt, and why they believe the solution can be used productively by businesses everywhere.

Many advantages

In essence, Ricoh Workspaces allows you to book a desk or a parking bay, for example. You can book lunch or a boardroom, check if visitors have been vaccinated, and manage the flow of both guests and employees throughout the work environment. This allows better utilisation of company assets and allows companies to plan their workspaces better.

There are many advantages. They include being able to contain Covid exposure much better than before – instead of sending an entire division or even an entire company into isolation, companies have a more granular view of who might have been exposed, meaning less disruption to the productive work environment. The technology, says Van Wyk, also proves itself useful in the event of an on-site emergency like a fire.

Van Wyk talks about how one of South Africa’s telecommunications operators is using Ricoh Spaces to make better practical use of its workspace. And both Van Wyk and Taylor unpack about how companies can measure return on investment from the solution.

It is a brave new world of work, and Ricoh hopes its Ricoh Spaces solution can help make it easier for companies to get to grips with it. Don’t miss the discussion!

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