The importance of GEMBA
By Diego Imperio, President & Chief Executive Officer, Ricoh Latin America, Inc
GEMBA means “being in the place of the action.”
I came across this Japanese concept several years ago, when I started my career at Ricoh because it is one of our corporate values. For us, “GEMBA” means coinciding in time and space with what our clients do, being there with them, in their geographies, in their companies, where their pain is identified and their challenges are defined.
I have discovered, over the years, that the “GEMBA” concept is becoming more and more relevant in the business environment for several reasons…
• B2B sales have evolved and are no longer just a transaction, they are a long-term accompanying relationship. We no longer go from technology to our clients, but rather the opposite.
• Being close to clients will always bring mutual benefits, it will allow us to get to know them and co-create tailored solutions.
• Anticipation is another advantage; knowing in-depth the clients' processes and challenges can help us determine patterns that sometimes the client, because they are immersed in the dynamics of the business, cannot visualize.
And how is that GEMBA or being close to the client achieved?
The first thing is to understand that it is a privilege to accompany clients in their growth, in the case of Ricoh, accelerating their digital adoption.
Trust is another key aspect that enables closeness; if the client trusts us, it allows us to get to know them.
The support and credibility that our company's clients perceive is very important, because it is what consolidates a long-term relationship.
Finally, generate deep conversations with the client, to identify how we can support them. And at this point, for example, at Ricoh Latin America Inc we begin our process of approaching clients through a consultancy, in which we get involved in their business, to have a detailed understanding of their needs. In addition, we created the RIL (Ricoh Innovation Lounge) in Costa Rica and Colombia, which are Centers for Innovation and Co-Creation of Technological Solutions, so that customers can experience our technology in an immersive way.
Thus, I briefly share how important “GEMBA” is to me, a word that has taken on even more meaning in recent days, in which I had the opportunity to see Ricoh's most impressive success stories from the last year in Latin America and I reaffirmed Once again, the importance of being in the “place of action” with our clients.
