Accenture has been chosen by Unilever to be in charge of global Human Resources outsourcing. Unilever's outsourcing is part of its One Unilever initiatives to intensify the competitiveness in the market, allowing it to focus on consumers.
"By outsourcing functions such as human resources to Accenture, Unilever should benefit from increased efficiencies, decreased costs and greater global standardization," said John Zealley, managing partner of Accenture's European Consumer Goods & Services Practice.
The human resources contract follows a European IT outsourcing contract with Accenture in April 2006 and a European financial transactional services contract with IBM in December 2005.
Accenture will now be responsible for the transactional and administrative parts of Unilever's Human Resource department. Recruitment, training, and performance management will all be part of the contract. Unilever has reported that it intends to impact its employees as little as possible by transferring them to Accenture, early retirement, exploring alternative roles, natural attrition and through voluntary programs.
Accenture is a worldwide management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company.
