Accenture has signed a seven-year application outsourcing contract with Germany-based consumer goods company Henkel to provide application development and maintenance services in Europe and North America. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Under the terms of the agreement, Henkel will outsource to Accenture its application development and maintenance activities, including all SAP applications, business intelligence applications, customer relationship management programs and web applications.

Accenture claims that the program is designed to provide Henkel with a proactive information technology function, enabling it to reduce technology costs and improve customer service levels.

Accenture will deliver the services through its global delivery network using one of its delivery centres in Bangalore, India.

Mathias Metzger, senior executive of consumer goods and services practice at Accenture, said: “Accenture’s role in supporting Henkel’s development as a business will be to deliver streamlined and responsive IT services. This engagement is designed to help Henkel achieve further growth and greater competitiveness by providing technology services that enable the company to deliver improved service to suppliers, retailers and consumers.”

Peter Wroblowski, chief information officer of Henkel, said: “We are delighted to have reached a solution with Accenture that is based on state-of-the-art technologies and work methods and allows us to satisfy the demands of our IT users even more efficiently and cost-effectively.”