The global leader in digital business solutions Ricoh entered the Bulgarian market by becoming a shareholder in Nemetschek Bulgaria. The change is the result of Ricoh’s acquisition of DocuWare – a leader in business information and process management technologies and a long-standing minority partner in Nemetschek Bulgaria. The deal was finalized on the eve of the 20th anniversary of Nemetschek Bulgaria.
DocuWare is a German-based provider of cloud and on-premise document management and workflow automation software to organizations of any size and across all major industries. The company was established in 1988 and currently serves 12,000 companies across 90 countries through a global network of over 600 partners. In 2002 DocuWare acquired 20% of the Bulgarian software development company Nemetschek.
Nemetschek Bulgaria is a software development & consulting services company that operates in the USA, Germany, UK, Norway, Italy, France, Belgium, Middle East, and South East Europe. The company was established in 1998 as part of the German Nemetschek Group and later became independently owned by the Bulgarian GB Soft, which held the majority stake of 60% while the remaining 40% were split between DocuWare and Nemetschek Group. Commenting on the deal, Georgi Brashnarov, founder of Nemetschek Bulgaria, stated: “We expect the cooperation with Ricoh to open new horizons, and to further strengthen our participation in projects on a global level potentially leading to the expansion of our team”.
Ricoh is a Japanese multinational imaging and electronics company. The company produces primarily cameras and office equipment such as printers, photocopiers, fax machines, and also offers software services and document management applications. The acquisition of DocuWare is part of Ricoh’s strategy to grow its digital workplace transformation offering.
“We are intent on building a thriving business that meets the growing need of companies around the world to digitize their businesses and workplaces. We see a strong demand from our customers to maximize the value of their documents and business content to support their growth. 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.”, stated David Mills, Corporate Senior Vice President of Ricoh Company Ltd.
