HP signs seven-year $675 million outsourcing services contract with Unilever

HP and Unilever today announced an extension of their relationship with the signing of a seven-year outsourcing contract for the management of Unilevers technology infrastructure in the Americas, Asia, Africa, Turkey and Middle East.

HP will provide an infrastructure designed to quickly adapt to the changing needs of Unilevers business by standardizing, virtualising and optimising Unilever's enterprise computing environment in the regions above as well as its client services environment in Asia Pacific, Africa, Turkey and the Middle East.

As part of this agreement, approximately 250 Unilever employees will transfer to HP.

Operating as a single point of contact for Unilever's enterprise computing environment, HP will work with Unilever's strategic partners, including SAP, Microsoft and BT, to help reduce costs and ease the integration of new applications. HP also will manage the third-party contracts within Unilevers technology environment in the Americas, Asia Pacific, Africa, Turkey and Middle East.

Through this agreement, HP will provide management of Unilever's IT processes and services, including: corporate data centres, messaging and directory services, Internet and intranet systems hosting, disaster recovery services, and the outsourcing of 4,500 multi-vendor UNIX and Windows servers and storage environments.

"In this space, HP has demonstrated a distinctive collaborative approach combined with a clear expertise in the delivery of global services," said Neil Cameron, chief information officer, Unilever. "This agreement is a natural extension of our current relationship. The intention between both parties is to leverage HPs scale, expertise and industry leadership to ensure Unilever has access to world-class technology at substantially lower costs.

Pablo Sanchez-Lozano, senior vice president and general manager, HP Services EMEA, said, "We look forward to helping Unilever further transform its technology environment to better align with the business. This will improve performance and lower operational costs. While HP delivers consistent and predictable service all over the globe for Unilever, they can focus their energies and resources on growing their business.
About Unilever

Unilever is one of the worlds leading suppliers of fast moving consumer goods with a portfolio of brand such as Knorr, Lipton, Flora, Dove, Lynx, Persil, Domestos, Marmite and Kecap Bango.