In an interview with PrintWeek, Mike Gordon, managing director of UK and Ireland, RR Donnelley Global Document Solutions (RRDGDS), said the company had experienced an upturn in demand for its outsourcing products over the past three months.

He said the company saw the current climate as an opportunity because a lot of current and potential clients are looking at what they can outsource.

"Businesses are also aggregating different services that traditionally would have been tendered separately, resulting in large, multi-service bids," he said.

"Clients also want closed loop solutions that manage both inbound and outbound communication with their customers. Suppliers will need to be able to manage and integrate both of these components."

Interest in transactional mail services, traditionally confined to banks and utilities, is also being expanded, he claimed, as markets such as the pharmaceuticals sector explore options for outsourcing and personalised printing services.

Echoing market sentiment that the traditional model of print management is in decline, Gordon agreed this model was becoming unsustainable.

"We bought the company that invented print management and we are continuing to evolve that service. The traditional model of basing the service on getting three quotes and choosing the cheapest is no longer sustainable. More strategic sourcing practices are required and additional services must also be offered," he said.

RRDGDS, which was formed following the acquisition of Astron, has won a number of large contracts in the past few months, Gordon said, but would not be drawn on specifics.