Unilever N.V.
UNILEVER AWARDS OUTSOURCING CONTRACT TO ACCENTURE
Corporate-news transmitted by DGAP – a company of EquityStory AG.
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
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UNILEVER AWARDS OUTSOURCING CONTRACT TO ACCENTURE
Unilever today announced that it has awarded an outsourcing contract to
Accenture to manage parts of its European IT operation. This follows the
announcement in December on outsourcing its financial transactional
services to IBM.
The outsourcing programme is part of the company’s “One Unilever”
initiatives to increase leverage of its scale, improve its marketplace
competitiveness, deliver functional excellence, and create a more
competitive cost-structure allowing it to focus on its consumers and
customers.
Under the IT contract, Unilever will outsource to Accenture, the
development, implementation and support of its European regional
applications. The intention is to start the programme from 1st July 2006.
Unilever intends to minimise the impact of people by transferring staff to
Accenture, early retirement, re-training through the Accenture Academy,
exploring alternatives roles, natural attrition and through voluntary
programmes.
Unilever has a great deal of experience of managing change issues and, as
well as dealing with people issues sensitively and professionally, it is
committed to working closely with the relevant employee representatives and
works councils.
Neil Cameron, Unilever’s chief information officer, said: “This
outsourcing deal represents a major strategic choice for Unilever. With a
significant business change agenda ahead of us, we believe that partnering
with a world class provider such as Accenture gives us greater flexibility
and more certainty on delivery of the key enabling IT system platforms.
“This deal allows us to create a simpler, more agile European IT function
to better support Unilever’s growth agenda.”
“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.”
Contacts:
Tim Johns, Vice President, Global Media Relations
Unilever, Tel: +44 20 7822 6805
Tanno Massar, Head of NV and Europe Media Relations
Unilever, Tel: +31 10 217 4844
Trevor Gorin, Head of PLC and UK Media Relations
Unilever, Tel: +44 20 7822 6010
Peter Thomas, Media and Analyst Relations
Accenture, Tel: +44 20 7844 8645
(c)DGAP 10.04.2006
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language: English
emitter: Unilever N.V.
Weena 455
3013 AL Rotterdam Niederlande
phone: +31 (0)10 217 4000
fax: +31 (0)10 217 4798
email: joanne.mcdonald@unilever.com
WWW: www.unilever.com
ISIN: NL0000009348
WKN: 860028
indexes:
stockmarkets: Amtlicher Markt in Frankfurt (General Standard); Freiverkehr
in Berlin-Bremen, Hannover, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, München,
Stuttgart
End of News DGAP News-Service
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