CHICAGO - R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Pearson, a leading company in education, business, and consumer publishing. RR Donnelley will provide complete supply chain management of 100% of Pearson's printed and other learning materials to include procurement and manufacturing, warehousing and distribution, and inventory management for Pearson's North American operations.

Pearson operates with 40,000 employees in more than 80 countries focused on helping people make progress in their lives through learning. The two companies have enjoyed a relationship for more than 30 years.

This agreement will expand the relationship to combine print, warehousing, fulfillment and supply chain management into a single workflow designed to increase speed to market and improve efficiencies across the distribution process. RR Donnelley will utilize its extensive asset base and its proprietary CustomBuy^® e-procurement tool to efficiently source materials.

"We look forward to supporting Pearson with this work and to welcoming these talented employees into our organization. Our ongoing investments in our broad-based infrastructure are designed to enable exactly this kind of innovative and scalable supply chain solution," commented Dan Knotts, Chief Operating Officer of RR Donnelley. "By optimizing Pearson's strategic supply chain, we are leveraging our comprehensive platform of products and services in support of their growth strategy.  Working together we can create significant strategic synergies between our two organizations."