In the first deal since the partnership between Express KCS and Press Association (PA) was announced in November 2011, Johnston Press has appointed Express KCS as the sole vendor to produce advertisements across its portfolio of printed and digital newspapers.

The work will be produced at Express KCS’ three production centres in India, which produce thousands of print and digital advertisements daily for brand owners and publications around the world.

As part of the contract, StudioOnline, Express KCS’s cloud-hosted production workflow system, will be integrated with the Miles33 advertising databases used by Johnston Press.

Robert Berkeley, chief executive officer, Express KCS said, “The newspaper industry is in the process of transition. Express KCS’s world-class advertisement experience enables publishers to benefit from the economies of outsourcing at a time when cost reduction is high on the agenda.”

Clarifying the role of Express KCS and Press Association in the deal, Berkeley said, “Express KCS will be creating a dedicated JP team across two of their centres in India. PA have been of invaluable help with the evaluation and planning - especially some of the local legal aspects of the transition.”

Johnston Press publishes around 13 daily newspapers and more than 230 weeklies. The deal has come through despite several sections of the UK media being apprehensive about the decision to move the job to India. Johnston Press had offered a week’s period to its employees who were willing to shift their base to India, but said that the remunerations would be paid in Indian Rupees.

Commenting on the trend to outsource the work to India, Berkeley said, “In many cases the industries in which we work need to strip out costs in order to transform their business. Outsourcing to firms like Express KCS allows them to do that while improving their product quality.

I believe that in many cases, pure labour arbitrage might be the sole factor, though not with EKCS's client. We've worked hard to being automation and technology to play in our service offering. The result is sustainable value to the client in all aspects of our relationship.”