Williams Lea has won another massive outsourcing deal with a major insurer, signing a five-year 75m deal with Royal & SunAlliance.


Last year Williams Lea, which now bills itself as a "business process outsourcing" company, bagged a seven-year deal with financier Axa. It also stopped printing itself to focus solely on print management and outsourcing.


The new R&SA deal will see Williams Lea take on the management of all marketing print production for R&SAs UK activities. The insurer recently launched its new More Th>n service with a huge marketing campaign, and hopes to reach 400,000 new customers.


E-procurement formed a crucial part of the deal, and Williams Lea will integrate its service with R&SA, which uses the Ariba business-to-business network.


Anthony Doyle, R&SAs head of UK purchasing, said the firm had re-engineered its supply chain, and described Williams Lea as a strategic business partner.


"Substantial" reductions in costs, workflow efficiencies and faster production of marketing materials were cited as key benefits.


Williams Lea will put its account management personnel into some of R&SAs offices, and an unspecified number of R&SA staff will transfer to Williams Lea.


Williams Leas accounts show a big jump in sales and profitability. For the year to 30 September 2000, sales increased 12.3% to 100.6m, while pre-tax profit margins rose from 3.5% to 5.3%.


Story by Jo Francis