Accenture and Unilever Sign European Application Outsourcing Contract
LONDON; 10 April 2006 – Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has signed a seven-year contract to provide application outsourcing including applications development, implementation and support for Unilever across Europe. Financial terms of the contracts were not disclosed.
The contract is part of Unilever’s “One Unilever” program, which is designed to deliver annual savings of €700 million through the implementation of a unified and streamlined operating model for the company.
The deal builds on an existing relationship between the two companies under which Accenture has been providing business consulting and IT services to Unilever for more than 10 years.
The contract covers the provision of IT services to Unilever’s operations in 25 European countries. As part of this, the team will deploy a unified European IT platform. Accenture expects to deliver the services from six countries: the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Spain and Hungary.
“This deal allows us to create a simpler, more agile European IT function to better support Unilever’s growth agenda,” said Neil Cameron, Unilever’s chief information officer.
It is anticipated that a number of staff will transfer from Unilever to Accenture, in accordance with local laws. Unilever and Accenture will work together to minimize the impact on staff wherever possible.
“This contract should help provide Unilever with a higher degree of certainty around the cost and timing necessary to create its new European business IT platform, which is expected to drive improved business results including increased efficiencies, reduced costs and greater standardization,” said John Zealley, managing partner of Accenture’s Consumer Goods & Services Practice in Europe. “Accenture’s experience in delivering cross border IT programs should enable us to deliver consistently in Unilever’s key markets, providing Unilever with the flexibility it needs to meet its goal of becoming ever more competitive and high-performing.”
About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Committed to delivering innovation, Accenture collaborates with its clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. With deep industry and business process expertise, broad global resources and a proven track record, Accenture can mobilize the right people, skills and technologies to help clients improve their performance. With more than 129,000 people in 48 countries, the company generated net revenues of US$15.55 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2005. Its home page is www.accenture.com.
Note to Editors
The IT contract takes the form of a ‘master services agreement’ under which local contracts will be drawn up subject to successful consultation.
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