Contract

Unilever PLC
Unilever NV
22 August 2000

 
UNILEVER CHOOSES COMPAQ AND IBM 
AS GLOBAL BACK OFFICE COMPUTING PARTNERS

Unilever has reached a global agreement with Compaq and IBM for the supply
and service of all its back office computing requirements. The deal --
expected to save Unilever more than euro25m per annum -- significantly
simplifies the existing systems and will enable faster adoption of global
e-commerce opportunities.
 
This agreement, part of Unilever's global buying initiative, reduces the
number of suppliers from five. Compaq and IBM will compete to provide global
supply, service and maintenance provision for more than 5,000 Unilever
servers and related equipment world-wide.
 
Peter Slator, Unilever's head of information technology, said: 'A key element
of our strategy is the further simplification of business processes. Both
Compaq and IBM have the global reach and technical expertise to help us
achieve our aim of a world-class IT infrastructure. This is essential to our
drive towards a world class Supply Chain, and is crucial for enabling us to
respond quickly to changes in consumer needs. It will allow us to take
advantage of all global application and e-commerce possibilities.'
 
Bill Heil, vice president and general manager business critical servers,
Compaq commented: 'Unilever's decision to award us 'Global Preferred Vendor
Status' demonstrates how we are working with the world's largest corporates,
enabling them to concentrate on their business, not the underlying
technology. Unilever's decision pays testimony to the relationship and mutual
understanding which has built up over the many years our two companies have
worked together.'
 
'IBM is delighted to enter this commercial partnership with Unilever,' said
Erich Clementi, vice president of IBM's server group for Europe, Middle East
and Africa. 'We want to establish a 'total-cost-of-computing' model that is
world class and considers every aspect of Unilever's IT costs --
hardware, software, maintenance and services.'

Unilever has been consolidating its global IT services since 1997, focusing
down from more than 300 locations to just four Infrastructure Management
Centres (IMCs) located in Singapore, Sao Paulo, Trumbull, USA, and Port
Sunlight, UK.
 
Additionally, last March, Unilever signed an agreement with Ariba Inc., the
leader in business-to-business e-commerce solutions, to use its platform to
create global economies of scale and supply chain efficiencies with its
suppliers via the Internet.