Williams Lea Wins Massive Readers Digest Contract

Outsourced print procurement and marketing services will be provided to The Reader's Digest Association by Williams Lea in an exclusive deal.

The agreement with Readers Digest Association (RDA) represents a managed cost base of more than US$1 billion over the contract duration and will see Williams Lea provide services to RDA's operations in 19 countries, including the United States and Canada, Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific and Latin America.

In what Williams Lea described as one of the most complex process re-engineering projects of its kind, the company said that the global business process outsourcing deal has set an industry first in terms of scale.

In creating the Print Utility, Williams Lea said it will assume the promotional printing operations of RDA's direct-mail business, providing RDA with increased purchasing power via Williams Lea's expertise and global scale.

The Print Utility programme is expected to help RDA improve its business processes worldwide, as well as reduce its costs by approximately US$130 million over the first three years.

Williams Lea said it was selected after RDA conducted a global review of suppliers and outsourcing firms.

The implementation programme will involve the transfer of 100 RDA employees, augmented by 70 new staff from Williams Lea.

The implementation process is now proceeding with six of the 19 locations due to go live this month.

Full implementation is planned by next March.

Tim Griffiths, Williams Lea's chief executive officer, said: "From our perspective, being awarded this contract reaffirms the considerable cost and operational benefits that a global organisation can achieve by managing its promotional printing within a truly integrated process." Mary Berner, president and chief executive officer of Readers Digest Association, commented: "The Print Utility project with Williams Lea is an innovative partnership on a global scale in the handling of print promotion.

The project reflects RDA's firm commitment to reduce costs and improve our business processes worldwide in support of our plan for sustainable, long-term growth." Albert L Perruzza, senior vice president of global operations and business re-design at RDA, added: "We are very pleased to be working with Williams Lea, which throughout our discussions showed strong interest in our company and sensitivity to our business and employees.

We are approaching this relationship in the spirit of a partnership, with a shared goal of creating services that ultimately are best for our company, our customers and our employees.".

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