EquaTerra completes year-long assignment to achieve global Unilever HR outsourcing deal with Accenture

LONDON AND HOUSTON (14 June, 2006) – One of the world’s largest ever Human Resources outsourcing contracts was announced on June 6th, 2006, following 12 months of advisory work by multi-national outsourcing and insourcing advisors, EquaTerra.

The deal sees fast-moving consumer goods company, Unilever, award a seven-year contract to provide human resources and learning services to Accenture, one of the leading management and technology outsourcing firms.

EquaTerra was initially hired by Unilever in January 2005 to advise on sourcing strategies, as part of the company’s ‘One Unilever’ initiatives. ‘One Unilever’ is designed to increase the business’s ability to leverage scale, improve marketplace competitiveness, deliver functional excellence and create a more competitive cost structure to allow the company to focus more fully on consumers and customers.

EquaTerra’s role developed into advising Unilever on an HR outsourcing solution of exceptional scope and complexity. It also called for providing parallel advice on separate Finance and Accounting and Procurement outsourcing contracts.

Commenting on EquaTerra’s role, Tim Palmer, HR Practice Lead for EquaTerra Europe said, "A deal on this scale is truly market making - it has many elements that push the boundaries of our industry. We’ve gained even deeper insights about the level of maturity of the multinational HR outsourcing market, and we are especially pleased to have helped Unilever and Accenture agree a balanced commercial deal that is optimal, both from a risk and reward perspective.  Given the scale of the contract, we are delighted to have fulfilled our role within 12 months while remaining true to the initial intent of the deal, which is often the hardest challenge in contracts of this size.”

Speaking about their reasons for choosing EquaTerra, Guy-Joel de Lhoneux, Vice President of Global HR Shared Services for Unilever said, "We researched the sourcing advisory market thoroughly and chose EquaTerra because they had the deepest experience, particularly in HR and Finance and Administration.  It was also important that their team showed a real understanding of the European environment. We would certainly work with them again.”