Departmental deal could nearly triple Bristolian outfit’s annual revenue, as CEO says growth is built on solid foundations and DWP claims such engagements with smaller local players promote ‘marketplace diversity’
The Department for Work and Pensions has picked a UK-based SME firm as its core supplier partner for a potential £265m deal to modernise “one of the largest contact centres in Europe”.
On 7 May, the DWP entered into an initial five-year contract with Bristol-based cloud, telecoms and software firm Route 101 – formerly known as Unify Communications.
If it runs for its full potential seven-year term, the engagement is expected to be worth a at least £200m – and potentially as much as £265.3m.
This equates to spending of up to £38m a year – a figure that is close to double the £21.3m annual revenues posted by Route 101 in its 2024 fiscal year. The annual accounts reveal that, during FY24, the company had an average of 75 employees.
In a statement sent to PublicTechnology, Route 101 founder and chief executive Russell Attwood acknowledged the scale of the deal for his firm – but added that is represents part of an ongoing progression.
“Route 101 has been on a growth trajectory for some time and our success to date reflects the strong foundations we’ve put in place,” he said. “While this is a significant contract win, it aligns with our broader plans to take the business to the next level. We continue to look forward and are fully committed to making the right investments to ensure that we continue to deliver the highest standards to our customers.”
Route 101 was one of 17 companies to bid to become the DWP’s new main managed service provider partner for its contact centre. The Bristolian firm was among three SMEs that competed for the contract.
PublicTechnology understands that all submission were assessed by the department’s commercial team on both the price and quality of services offered, and that each company bidding for the deal was subject to a assessment against a financial viability and risk framework.
The services provided by the UK outfit will also be underpinned by the CXone Mpower technology from customer service software company NiCE – an Israel-headquartered global tech player with yearly turnover of more than $2.7bn (£2bn) in 2024.
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The DWP indicated that the deal will equip about 40,000 staff with cutting-edge tech from a vendor whose tech is deployed in 150 countries around the globe. The department added that all the new contact centre as a service system will be hosted and managed in the UK and will comply with formal security standards.
“We are determined to use the latest technology available in a way that will ultimately help us better serve the public,” a DWP spokesperson said. “To help us do this we recently awarded a contract to the technology company Route 101 following a transparent and compliant tender process. Awarding contracts to SMEs remains a government initiative, introducing more diversity in the marketplace.”
‘Enhanced capabilities’
Over the coming years, Route 101 will be tasked with providing the DWP’s new Digital Contact Centre Platform – otherwise known as DC3. This will replace an “existing contact centre [that] is the largest across all UK government departments and is one of the largest contact centres in Europe”, according to a newly published commercial notice.
“DC3 will provide enhanced capabilities including softphone inbound and outbound calls, workforce optimisation, webchat, interactive voice response, advisor skills-based call routing, call recording and call transcription,” the notice adds. “It will be cloud hosted and will integrate with existing platforms that deliver capabilities for non-geographic numbers (0800 etc), video, payment card industry compliance and automated customer experience, as well as integrations into business group CRM and call routing strategies.”
The commercial document says that the rollout of this new platform forms part of a wider “Contact Centre Modernisation Programme (CCMP) [that] is directly aligned to the DWP Strategy and departmental plans to transform our services and deliver an effective welfare system for citizens when they need it, while reducing costs and achieving value for money for taxpayers”.
The DWP’s contact centre has, for many years, been based on underlying technology from Genesys. Other key suppliers have included G4S – with which the department signed a three-year deal in late 2022, worth a potential £200m-plus and covering “the delivery of a range of telephony-based services”.
