About Shimano
Founded in Japan in 1921, Shimano is a global manufacturing and distribution company that has grown into a leading supplier of bicycle components, fishing gear, and rowing equipment worldwide.
With over 12,000 employees and annual revenues exceeding US$2.5 billion, Shimano serves customers across Europe, the United States, and the Asia-Pacific region. In Australia, its subsidiary—Shimano Oceania Holdings—is headquartered in Sydney and employs around 100 staff.
The Challenge
As a company actively delivering products directly to end users, Shimano faced increasing challenges in managing its warranty claim processes. With a vast array of products in the market, ensuring that every claim was handled quickly and efficiently became critical.
About a year before implementing the solution, Shimano’s Australian subsidiary recognized that their warranty handling process needed improvement. The volume of claims continued to rise, and the internal team was beginning to struggle with the growing workload..
🗨️ “At the time, the warranty process handled by dealers was still very manual. Dealer staff had to print out forms, fill them in by hand, and then record the data into Excel spreadsheets.
— Tim Clarke, IT Manager di Shimano Oceania Holdings.
A lack of visibility into the status of claims was also a major issue. Dealers and distributors couldn’t track the progress of their claims, leading to an increase in customer service calls. Additionally, Shimano’s internal team struggled to ensure stock availability for timely warranty fulfillment.
🗨️ “We also had reporting obligations to our headquarters in Japan, which required detailed claim data. This process could take up to two hours a day and often forced our technicians to perform repetitive data entry.
— Tim Clarke, IT Manager di Shimano Oceania Holdings.
Ricoh’s Solution:
After evaluating various alternatives, Shimano chose to implement Laserfiche Avante with Forms and Forms Portal, delivered by Ricoh, in mid-2016.
“As soon as we saw Ricoh’s solution in action, we realized it didn’t just solve our warranty process issues—it had the potential to be applied across many other business processes as well,” said Clarke..
“The flexibility of the workflow system, along with the expertise and confidence of the local reseller, simply couldn’t be matched by other vendors.”
The solution was jointly implemented by Shimano’s internal IT team and Ricoh’s experts, and was successfully completed within just 12 weeks.
The Results
With the new workflow platform in place, Shimano successfully transformed its entire warranty claim process. Dealers can now submit claims directly through a web-based self-service portal, eliminating the need for complex physical documentation.
The portal is integrated with Shimano’s e-commerce site and ERP system, so key data—such as dealer codes and shipping addresses—are automatically populated. Dealers only need to add customer name, phone number, and email.
When a customer experiences an issue with a Shimano product, they simply return it to the dealer or distributor where it was purchased. The claim is then submitted electronically through the portal. Proof of purchase, a problem description, and photos of the faulty product are uploaded into the system, and all data is automatically stored in the document repository.
The dealer then prints the form and sends it along with the faulty product to Shimano’s head office, where it is processed by the warranty team. The dealer also receives real-time claim status notifications, which can be passed on to the customer.
🗨️ “Ricoh’s solution allows our dealers to fully monitor the warranty claim process through the customer portal. They can also track return shipments thanks to integration with our logistics partners.”
— Tim Clarke, IT Manager at Shimano Oceania Holdings
In addition, dealers can now fill out web forms directly from their partner portal to submit new claims—eliminating the need for manual data re-entry and reducing the risk of errors.
Clarke also noted that all claim data is now digitally stored, making document access and search significantly faster and more efficient.
Key Benefits:
- Significant reduction in customer service call volume
- Drastically improved visibility into the claim process
- Reporting time reduced by up to 30 hours per month
- Overall improvements in process efficiency and accuracy
Looking Ahead
Following the success of this project, Shimano plans to expand Ricoh’s solution to other areas, including bicycle warranty processes in New Zealand and the fishing gear division in both Australia and New Zealand.
“We’re also exploring warehouse processes that could be automated, such as customer goods pick-up and delivery,” Clarke said.
“Even within the IT department, we’re considering using the solution to automate user account creation and company asset inventory“
“I truly believe Ricoh’s solution has the potential to improve at least 80% of our current processes. By thinking beyond conventional methods, we’ve realized just how flexible and powerful this solution really is“
