Unilever has signed a seven-year contract to outsource key parts of its financial transactional services to IBM.

Under the agreement, IBM will provide financial services such as Purchase to Pay, General Accounting and Bill to Cash. These services will be delivered from IBM centers in Portugal, Poland and India.

The outsourcing deal covers over 20 European countries and will be implemented over two years beginning 2006. Cost savings from this agreement will be part of the �700 million annual savings of the One Unilever programme

Kees van der Graaf, president of Unilever Europe, said, "IBM brings strong business process knowledge, deep technical expertise and a flexible, responsive business model to finance shared services. As a specialist in this area, IBM will be able to help us optimize our business process performance, and deliver additional savings in support of our core business; offering consumers excellent brands and products."

Tony Cronin, GM of business transformation outsourcing at IBM said, "IBM will apply business insight within our global network of operations to optimize business performance. This relationship is a strong example of the new on-demand business IBM is targeting in the marketplace for Business Performance Transformation Services."

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