Unilever Looking at Offshoring F&A, HR to India

According to press reports, Unilever, in an effort to lower its operating cost, is considering to offshore a portion of its Western European jobs.

According to a company spokesperson, the personal care conglomerate is in discussions with both US-headquartered Accenture and IBM before considering any such move.
Both Accenture and IBM have significant presence in India and are looking at developing the local operations as a support base for IT and BPO contracts.

Unilever is said to be considering the relocation of HR, finance and computer services positions. Although, the company spokesperson did not confirm the exact location or the number of jobs to be offshored, as per a Financial Times Deutschland report, the company might move around 2,500 jobs to India and some Eastern European countries.

The newspaper further added that the company might enact its offshore plans for the IT departments as early as 2006, while the remaining may be implemented between mid-2006 and 2007.