Williams Lea reflects on five-year successful partnership with Canon

Williams Lea began as a print shop in London, growing to become a global market-leading provider of business-critical support services. Working onsite, onshore or offshore across four continents, Williams Lea helps firms in the financial, legal and professional services industries to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of document management and back-office functions.

The business stays true to its print house roots, now delivering printing as an outsourced service along with reprographics, creative design, mail room management, offsite large mailing and more. Its key objective is to support its customers through periods of change.

Williams Lea chose to work with Canon because: 

• Product quality: Canon had a reputation for providing some of the most reliable and robust technology on the market, giving Williams Lea trust and assurance in the brand
• Global reach: Canon’s national sales offices across the globe gave Williams Lea the ability to secure deals with customers in countries where they have no direct presence, as Canon can manage fleets for them in these locations
• Transparent approach: It was impressed by Canon’s transparent pricing and good communication

2015: Williams Lea approached Canon to achieve a roll-out of global MPS for a specific legal client. The agreement provided a clear, standardised governance structure for all future global transactions, including agreed payment terms

2016: Williams Lea and Canon entered into an extended partnership that allowed Williams Lea to offer Canon technology easily to any of its existing global customers

2017-2020: Canon and Williams Lea refined the model:

• Streamlining William Lea’s communications by providing them with a single, centralised point of contact for Canon, across Europe, enabling faster response times
• Improved collaboration between Canon’s national sales offices and William Lea’s local teams on global deals, thanks to the single point of contact

Enhanced reach
Williams Lea can take advantage of Canon’s expertise and portfolio to secure more cross-sell and up-sell opportunities with existing customers. The partnership also allowed the companies to create flexible combinations of technology and services to attract interest from new prospects beyond their individual reach.

Enhanced share of business
Through access to Canon’s portfolio, Williams Lea was able to elevate its reputation, from supplier to a one-stop-shop for all document and information-related business processes. It could now manage everything from mail and print rooms to MPS. In turn, this allowed Williams Lea to encourage customers to consolidate suppliers, taking greater overall share of business.

Expert consultancy
Canon provides expert consultancy during customer assessments, enabling Williams Lea to get a more accurate picture of their customers’ needs, including device requirements, fleet optimisation and potential TCO savings.

Faster time to market
Canon and Williams Lea have ‘off-the-shelf’ business transaction templates and standardised paperwork in place, which allow Williams Lea to calculate pricing and provide customer quotes more quickly. Meanwhile, the standardised governance structure for the EMEA region also allows Williams Lea to speed up the deployment and time-to-market once the offer is agreed.

Reliable and transparent
Williams Lea’s operational leads were able to trust Canon to provide a seamless experience during bids. Thanks to Canon’s good communication throughout, Williams Lea was able to focus on delivery instead of chasing up third parties.

Access to Canon’s portfolio
Williams Lea was able to harness Canon’s MPS services internally, supporting better business outcomes for the organisation itself.

Williams Lea and Canon recently extended their partnership for another three years. So, what’s next for the collaboration?

Canon’s Digital Transformation Services are a complete ecosystem of hardware, software and services which improve paper and digital integration and bring digital and manual processes together seamlessly.

As Canon’s partner, Williams Lea has access to this ecosystem, allowing it to support the digital transformation journey of any customer, creating a bespoke, scalable approach to fit their business.

Thanks to the range of support that Canon can offer, Williams Lea’s partnership will continue to have room to grow in future, including plans to collaborate to provide customers with:

• Outsourcing services
• Business process optimisation
• Software solutions including uniFLOW and PRISMA
• Large Format devices