Global Professional Services Firm Pioneers Creative Business Process Outsourcing and Hires John Sheridan as Director to Lead the Charge

Boston, MA (June 3, 2002) - Following its successful launch in the U.S., Aquent has expanded its professional services offerings in Europe with the formation of its creative outsourcing organisation, Aquent Solutions, and the hiring of John Sheridan as its Director. Aquent Solutions is unique in its ability to offer creative business process outsourcing (BPO), meeting client demand for cost-effective creative services which complement clients' existing internal and external resources. Aquent provides custom tailored creative services BPO solutions, on or offsite, for Print, Design, Content, and Web needs on a local, national, or global basis.

As an outsourcing partner, Aquent has a worldwide talent base of 12,000 creative professionals, giving clients the flexibility to quickly scale up or down, depending on production cycles and workload. And, with talent available from Singapore to the United Kingdom, resources can be deployed virtually to near-shore or offshore production centers, with work performed in different time zones when overnight production is required.

By outsourcing their creative business processes, clients additionally benefit from customised creative services technology solutions including digital asset management, brand identity management, project management, timekeeping, and charge-back solutions. Service delivery models are tailored to each client and are based on best BPO practices, including quality initiatives, and contractual incentives and penalties tied to results. Aquent provides companies with a free diagnostic to evaluate their potential for added value. The analysis includes: human capital and associated costs, work flow processes and production information, deliverables and work product, technology/facilities and associated costs, and quality metrics and current performance.

Since the launch of Aquent Solutions last summer in North America, Aquent has already developed customised creative business processes for clients who are global leaders in a wide variety of industries including information technology, financial services, agriculture, and biotechnology. Processes provided by Aquent Solutions have allowed clients to focus 100 percent of their energy on core business, lower expenses, and increase production capacity. For one client, Aquent cut its writing expenses by 50 percent, for another client the company provides offsite presentation services resulting in $500,000 in annual savings. As the onsite creative services vendor for a major credit card company, Aquent has lowered expenses and increased production capacity by 20 percent.

Industry analysts, Gartner Dataquest and Nelson Hall, continue to predict dramatic growth in BPO over the next few years. Morgan Chambers has also reported that in the UK, alone, BPO services account for over £5.9bn of revenue in the FTSE100 and this is likely to grow between 22 and 30 percent per year (source: www.cw360.com/outsourcingreport),

"Traditionally, the focus for BPO has been on back-office functions such as accounting, payroll, and HR processes," says Sheridan. "Through the persistence of challenging market conditions, more and more companies, large and small, are focusing on the need to restructure and increase cost effectiveness to enable strategic re-investment and are now outsourcing in non-traditional areas, such as creative services."

Sheridan is one of 15 sales staff joining Aquent as part of its worldwide launch of new creative outsourcing initiatives. His career experience brings a unique understanding of business process outsourcing and marketing management to his clients.

Most recently, Sheridan served as European Director of Learning Services for PricewaterhouseCoopers' (PwC) BPO group. He started with PwC as Senior Manager for BPO and, in 2000, was promoted to European Programme Director for the company's Nortel Networks Global Outsourcing contract. Prior to that he was a Business Development Manager for three years with Andersen Consulting's Integrated Marketing Group.

Sheridan began his professional career in 1984 with Hewlett-Packard Limited. During his ten years with the company he held several management positions including Area Commercial Manager for the company's Business Systems Division in the United Kingdom. A graduate of the University of Bradford in West Yorkshire, Sheridan earned his bachelor's degree in Industrial Technology and Management.

Sheridan is responsible for developing Aquent's creative outsourcing initiatives throughout Aquent's European operations including London, Reading, Manchester, Paris, Dublin, Amsterdam, and Stockholm. He will be based at the company's London office.

"Many organisations still confuse 'outsourcing' of creative functions with 'out-tasking' and suffer, as a consequence, through escalating costs, loss of quality, and, ultimately, loss of process control," says Sheridan. "That is why companies in all market segments are partnering with Aquent to outsource discrete creative processes such as PowerPoint presentation design, production and print, through to full-service design studios. We are uniquely positioned to design, build, and manage a multi-disciplinary team of creative talent including Art Directors, Senior Designers, Artworkers, Web Designers, and the like."

About Aquent:
Aquent (aquent.com) is a privately held professional services company with nearly 70 offices in 15 countries. Aquent focuses on IT and Creative Services, and provides a wide range of consulting, outsourcing, and staffing solutions for Global 1000 companies. Aquent was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in Boston, MA.