UNILEVER is poised to award an outsourcing deal worth an estimated £500 million to Accenture, the management consultancy firm, The Times has learnt.
The Anglo-Dutch group confirmed yesterday that Accenture was the front-runner to win the global contract, which covers back-office functions for Unilever’s “human resources, learning and procurement” operations. The two companies are currently in a period of due diligence.
It is understood that Unilever will announce the deal by mid-March, if it decides to proceed with Accenture.
Accenture recently won a ten-year global human resources outsourcing deal for BT valued at $575 million (£329 million).
Late last year Unilever asked Accenture and IBM to examine the possibility of taking on its finance, human resources, learning and IT operations and moving them to Eastern Europe and India. Unilever said in December that it had signed a seven-year contract to outsource its financial administration in Europe to IBM. IBM and Accenture both bid for the human resources outsourcing.
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An Accenture spokesman yesterday said the group has had “a long relationship with Unilever” and is “pleased to be discussing an expansion of our work”.
Outsourcing by Unilever is expected to lead to job cuts. In November, Unilever’s Europe president, Karel van der Graaf, met the chairman of the company’s European works council in Germany to discuss possible scenarios. Sources said that the move could result in the loss of up to 2,500 jobs across Europe. Unilever employs 234,000 people in about 100 countries. The review forms part of Unilever’s move to cut costs.