Standard Bank contract a "monster job" for BMC

Banner Managed Communication (BMC) has scooped a five-year multiservice document management and presentation service contract with Standard Bank.

The South Africa-based bank chose the London-based company in a competitive tender and has charged BMC with completely overhauling document management based on a "next-generation" storage and archiving facility.

This will be a huge job, said a spokesman for BMC, although the value of the contract was not disclosed. Standard Bank Group claims to be the largest African bank in assets and earnings, operating in 17 countries on the African continent and 13 countries outside Africa. Total assets are worth $203bn.

BMC said with the remit of the bank growing, the contract would "be on a grand scale."

The new system will encompass the complete document life cycle; from physical management, capture of content, indexing, secure storage and easy retrieval, right through to secure destruction.

BMC will provide an onsite librarian to manage the archive. It will also provide three on-site DTP operators to help produce presentation documents and look after digital assets. The service is due to be rolled out across the whole bank.

BMC managing director Catherine Burke said: "We’ll be putting in place systems and processes, across the whole document life-cycle, which will be truly state-of-the-art, including presentation services and storage and archiving."

She added: "It's a monster job and a big challenge, bringing together different service lines, which will involve a little bit of inspiration and no doubt perspiration. I can't disclose its worth, but the deal makes Standard Bank one of our most significant customers. It's a very important piece of business.

"All organisations like ours use similar types of scanning and storage technology, although we will tailor elements to the client's needs. It's about combining the right software and hardware with the right people that have the right processes."

Standard Bank head of corporate services Ruth Hansen said: "The project is on a large scale, quality is at a premium, and it is essential new solutions don’t compromise continuity. We therefore needed a supplier to bring us bang up-to-date.

"It must deliver against stringent industry compliance standards and best practices. BMC will ensure seamless implementation of new systems and transform our document management and DTP processes in terms of speed, accuracy and efficiency."

This is the latest in a series of high-profile, lucrative wins for BMC. Last October is signed a three-year contract for marketing print and warehouse services for pension firm Friends Life and a year ago it won a £10m document-management deal from insurer Hastings Direct.

BMC, which was born out of AccessPlus and the former BPO arm of The Print Factory, was acquired by Office2office five years ago.