The firm will handle everything from stationery to personalisation, fulfilment and distribution of bills. Every working day it prints 30,000 documents for Thames Water and during the four-week peak billing period handles an extra 140,000 bills a day.

Bobby Chawala, business analyst within Thames Waters sales and forecasting department, said Edotechs range of services, including same-day despatch and personalisation, had helped it to secure the deal.

Edotech financial director Andrew Frome said that investment in enough capacity to handle peak periods in-house was not an option for Thames Water.

"Those who do have in-house facilities find they lack the flexibility to cope with fluctuating demand," he added. "As a result operations are kept at a constant high level of activity, which means high overheads. While this can be justified at periods of peak production, when print volumes drop it is not cost effective."

Story by Gordon Carson