Slovnaft and Accenture Announce Outsourcing Agreement for Accounting and Document Management Functions
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia; Oct. 17, 2002 – Slovnaft, one of the largest Central European refinery and petrochemical companies, announced today that it will outsource its accounting and document management services in Slovakia to Accenture (NYSE: ACN).
The six-year contract agreement seeks to improve Slovnaft’s business efficiency by allowing the company to focus on its core activities while saving costs on support functions. A key to the agreement is the transfer of more than 100 accounting, document management and archiving professionals to Accenture.
"In implementing our strategy, it was vital for us to be able to focus on our core business, said Vratko Kassovic, chief executive officer of Slovnaft. “By outsourcing non-core transactional functions and allowing Accenture to manage these, we are achieving this objective. This arrangement will also enable us to save on costs, control the services delivered to us and, as a knock on effect, foster a service mentality within our organisation as a whole.”
Slovnaft operates its refinery in Bratislava, extensive wholesale activities and 320 service stations in Slovakia. Under the agreement, Accenture will take responsibility for accounting, reporting, invoicing and document management services for all of Slovnaft’s business units in Slovakia.
"Our approach and extensive global experience in operating finance and accounting services for many leading companies, especially in the energy industry, was found to be the most suitable for Slovnaft,” said Fausto Roda, a partner at Accenture. “While the cost savings and operational effectiveness are the obvious benefits of outsourcing, inducing change throughout the business is also a very powerful proposition.”
As part of the agreement, Slovnaft’s existing facilities, assets, Intellectual Property and sites will be leveraged as a multi-client service centre. Accenture will use the centre to provide finance and accounting services to third parties.
“Under our agreement, Accenture will transform the key processes to align them with proven industry practices and allow this new unit to be run as a Multi-client Service Centre operation,” said Peter Skodny, country managing director for Accenture in Slovakia. Bratislava is the third location where Accenture Finance Solutions provides finance and accounting services to its clients in the Central European region. The others are Budapest and Prague.
“This agreement further underscores our commitment to delivering innovative solutions to our clients’ business challenges across the enterprise,” Mr. Skodny said. “It also provides evidence of our leadership in the business process outsourcing.”
Heimo Tomann, Slovnaft’s chief finance officer, added, “the outsourcing arrangement was necessary to achieve higher efficiency and transformation of a daily routine work to a defined service for internal Slovnaft customers”.
About Accenture
Accenture is the world’s leading management consulting and technology services organization. Through its network of businesses approach – in which the company enhances its consulting and outsourcing expertise through alliances, affiliated companies and other capabilities – Accenture delivers innovations that help clients across all industries quickly realize their visions. With more than 75,000 people in 47 countries, the company generated net revenues of $11.57 billion for the fiscal year ended August 31, 2002. Its home page is www.accenture.com.
About Slovnaft
Slovnaft is one of the leading edge refineries in Europe with petrochemical production and its own retail network of more than 300 service stations in Slovak Republic. Processing 5 million tons of crude oil yearly enables production of complete range of high quality motor oils, other refinery and petrochemical products, plastics and grease. More than 60% of Slovnaft’s production is exported mainly to surrounding countries. MOL, which currently owns 36.2% shares, became Slovnaft’s strategic partner as of 2000. Its homepage is www.slovnaft.sk
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