The two parties originally signed a 670m pound ($1.26bn), seven-year, deal in November 2002 that saw BT take responsibility for Unilever’s voice, data, and mobile communications networks. Neil Cameron, Unilever’s CIO, said the contract had delivered in both cost and service in the first three years.
Unilever has adopted one of the most aggressive outsourcing policies of companies in its industry, as it aims to streamline its operating structure under the One Unilever program, which is aimed at delivering annual cost savings of 700m euros ($897m).
Unilever signed a seven-year applications development and support deal with Accenture last month, and outsourced significant parts of its financial transactional services across 20 countries to IBM last December, and also signed up the services giant to transform its procurement functions in North America. It is also negotiating an agreement with Accenture to outsource its human resources functions in a deal that could be worth $1bn.
