Deloittes wins # 6m contract from Unilever
Deloitte & Touche’s outsourcing arm has made its first major foray into the private sector with a four-year deal to run the back-office accounting function of a $2.4bn Unilever subsidiary. CSL Managed Services beat off Andersen Consulting to win the # 6m deal to centre all of National Starch and Chemical’s European financial transaction processing and reporting functions into a single UK operation. The contract involves consolidation of NS&C’s operations in eight European countries at CSL’s Reading office.
CSL business development manager Andy Knott described the two-pronged deal, which involves contracting out and the setting up of a pan-European service centre, as ‘ground-breaking’.
A total of 36 finance and accounting staff will transfer under the deal with NS&C, one of the world’s largest speciality natural and synthetic polymer makers. The numbers are not huge, according to CSL’s business development managing director, David Bowles, but the deal marks a departure from the company’s roots in the public sector.
Outsourcing expert Leslie Willcocks, professor of information management at Templeton College, Oxford, described the deal as risky. He added: ‘I don’t know that it is such a radical deal, but I’m fairly certain there will be difficulties in managing the transition.’
