Computer Business Review revealed Accenture was the front-runner for the contract back in November last year, while in February Unilever said that the deal had entered final negotiations.
Under the terms of the contract, which is estimated to be worth over $1bn, Accenture will provide HR services including recruitment, payroll administration, performance management, workforce reporting and third-party provider management, as well as a range of learning services such as content sourcing and development, program planning and delivery and learning system hosting.
Accenture will provide these services to approximately 200,000 Unilever employees worldwide from delivery centers in India, the Philippines, China, Romania, the Czech Republic and Brazil. Accenture said that fewer than half of Unilever’s 3,300 global HR staff would be affected by the transition to Accenture.
Belgian HR outsourcing vendor Arinso International NV has been selected by Accenture as subcontractor, and will provide payroll processing and payroll systems maintenance to all geographies covered by the deal, with the exception of the Americas. Arinso valued its share of the contract at close to 90m euros ($115.6m).
The HR outsourcing deal with Accenture is the latest development in Unilever’s aggressive cost-cutting drive. In July last year, the company announced that it was aiming to achieve annual cost savings of 700m euros ($900m) by the end of 2006 under its ‘One Unilever’ program.
In April this year, Accenture won a separate outsourcing contract with Unilever to provide application development, implementation and maintenance services in Europe. Unilever has also brought in IBM Global Services to manage its procurement operation in North America and significant parts of its financial transactional services across 20 countries, and extended its network management contract with BT Group for a further three years.
Accenture has announced two other business process outsourcing deals in the last month, including a deal to provide HR and finance and accounting services to Crestline Hotels and Resorts, and a seven-year contract with New Century Financial Corp covering HR and procurement services.
Accenture is one of the frontrunners in the HR outsourcing market alongside Hewitt Associates, ACS and Convergys. In February 2005, Accenture renewed its HRO contract with BT Group for a further 10 years in a deal worth 306m pounds ($570m), claiming that it represented the largest HR renewal in the world.
