The contract, which essentially covers all of BT’s print requirements outside of billing and PoS, was secured by Go Inspire just before Christmas and went live last week (1 March).
“It’s a fantastic win for us and gives a great opportunity to grow as a business and we’re really looking forward to working with the team at BT,” said Go Inspire Group CEO Patrick Headley.
BT marketing communications director Pete Jeavons said: “Go Inspire Group have an award-winning track record of combining large scale, complex customer communications with innovation and speed to market, which makes them a great strategic fit for us.
“The teams’ expertise and passion shown throughout the tender process made them the standout partner and we look forward to working together to deliver top notch communications to our customers.”
Prior to this latest re-tender, BT’s print requirements had been under print management for more than two decades, most recently with Williams Lea.
While the contract details were not disclosed, Printweek understands the multi-year contract is worth in the region of £6m-£10m per year.
It covers a wide range of below the line customer communications including acquisition, retention, regulatory communications and customer communication management. Around 80% of the contract will be produced inhouse by Go Inspire, predominantly across its Go Inspire and Eclipse divisions, with the remainder produced by partners via strategic outsourcing arrangements.
As a result of the win, the £71.5m turnover group will be investing in re-reeling facilities at Eclipse and an offline web finishing line from Global Web Finishing that was previously in operation at Howard Hunt.
Go Inspire Group’s winning tender was led by group sales & commercial director Ben Snutch.
“BT is an iconic brand and a British Institution. We are extremely proud to be partnering them on their next chapter in which collaboration, agility and innovation will all be key,” he said.
Go Inspire has worked with BT since the early 1990s, initially client direct and then from around 1998 onwards as a third-party provider to various print management companies.
Snutch said that by working direct with the BT teams he was confident Go Inspire would “prove ourselves as a forward-thinking strategic partner who understands the broader trading position and play a key role in helping BT to meet strategic objectives for customer comms.”
As a result of the win, a small number of Williams Lea staff were TUPEd across to Go Inspire, and these will be supported by a number of recent and new hires as well as former John Brown Media production director Matt Jolly.
CEO Headley said that while the group remained happy to support print managers, there were times when contracts were up for renewal and it was duty bound to pitch when invited, with the proviso it was open and transparent.
“A lot more of our model is going into lead supply contracts. This is the way the industry is going at the moment,” he said.
He cited the evolving landscape where previously contracts might move between print management vendors, but with little impact on the supply chain as the work tended to stay with the incumbent production partners.
“But the problem now is that it might go to say Paragon or Communisis and then the work disappears [from the market], we can’t afford that so we have had to evolve and take them on in some senses.”
