Pauline Wilson, procurement manager at NAB, told ProPrint that the Wellcom team were "very collaborative people to work with and are aligned with our strategy going forward".
Details of the major print management deal, which could be worth more than $10 million per year, are being worked through, with the contract expected to be signed next month.
Wilson said NAB had previous experience with Wellcom as the supplier of its digital asset management (DAM) services. While she expected efficiencies from adding print management alongside the DAM arrangement, the prior contract "was not a huge factor in them winning the business".
"There was another bidder in the final running [for the print management contract] and either way it had fallen we would have been equally happy… the bid was scored equally over a number of [categories] and Wellcom came out on top."
She revealed that previous supplier Corporate Express had tendered for the contract, though it is unclear whether the firm made it to the final stages.
"I don't think it is any secret that Corporate Express have been managing our print for several years now and they are still the incumbent until they transition out to Wellcom," she said.
Another print manager, Ergo Asia, had been sub-contracted by Corporate Express to supply systems to NAB, but Wilson said "once everything is bedded in, there will be no relationship with Corporate Express or Ergo as far as print management is concerned".
"We are hoping it will be a long-term relationship [with Wellcom] and that is what we are expecting. We don’t want to go though this expensive and painful transition period to put in a partner who will only be here for the short term… we are looking for a long-term partner," she said.
Wellcom does not have quite the same print management credentials as established players such as Stream Solutions, which holds print management contracts with Westpac and ANZ, but Wilson said NAB had done its due diligence and was "entirety satisfied" with the Port Melbourne-based company's offering.
Wellcom has been a long-term supplier of print management services to Australia Post, first as part of the iPrint joint venture established with the postal agency in 2001, and then independently since taking full ownership of iPrint in July 2011. It also supplies carmaker Ford.
The NAB print contract covers marketing and promotional material, including point-of-sale and product disclosure statements, but not banking statements, which come under its essential mail contract.
Wilson said: "The print volumes have been relatively stable over the past few years. We are not sure the direction we will go – we are hoping to move more into soft channel and split channel communication – but it is hard to determine. The spend comes from the marketing people, they run the campaigns and they don’t always want to do anything other than print."
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