UK insurer Norwich Union has contracted with Williams Lea on a £225 million, ten-year document outsourcing deal.
Under the agreement, Williams Lea will be responsible for document exchange between Norwich Union with its internal and external audiences, including customer communications such as statements, direct mail, marketing campaigns, policy and renewal documentation.
As part of the deal, Norwich Union will transfer its entire document services operation to Williams Lea. This comprises the insurer's laser print, mailing, archiving, postal, micrographics, reprographics and warehousing facilities, together with part of its scanning capability.
The transaction also includes a specialist laser print and fulfilment business called Printopost, which works with a large number of high profile clients in the financial services sector including Virgin Money and The One Account.
The 500 staff within Norwich Union's document services division - who are situated across 12 locations in the UK, including Norwich, York and Perth, Scotland - will also transfer to Williams Lea.
Williams Lea has also agreed to embark upon a two-year, multi-million pound investment programme to develop 'centres of excellence' in Norwich, York and Perth.
Following the recently announced acquisition of US-based Bowne Business Solutions, Williams Lea employs over 5200 people across Europe, North America and Asia, and has a projected turnover of approximately £450m for financial year 2004/05. Its clients include BMW, Microsoft and Prudential.