Unilever NV has signed a seven-year contract with IBM Corp. to outsource major portions of its financial transactional services, the consumer goods company announced Friday. The deal will cover Unilever's operations in more than 20 European countries and will affect around 750 staff.

Under the terms of the deal, IBM Business consulting services will provide financial services for Unilever from its units in Portugal, Poland and India, according to a Unilever release. The services will include purchase-to-pay, general accounting and bill-to-cash. Unilever hopes to realize significant cost savings over the life of the contract.

The deal is part of the consumer goods firm's One Unilever program designed to trim the fat from its operations and enable the company to boost its growth. In all, Unilever hopes to realize �700 million (US$830.4 million) in cost savings through the program

"This change will affect quite a number of our employees in Europe," said Kees van der Graaf, president of Unilever Europe. "When jobs are affected we will do our best to find alternative employment," he added in a statement.

"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 optimise our business process performance, and deliver additional savings in support of our core business; offering consumers excellent brands and products," says Kees van der Graaf, president Unilever Europe

Prashanth RaiTag(s):Offshoring, IT+Services,IBM