Unilever Extends Partnership With BT To Help It Grow Sustainably

DALLAS, Aug. 8, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- BT today announced that it has been awarded a three year extension to its IT outsourcing contract with Unilever, one of the world's largest consumer goods companies. This is the third time it has been extended since BT first won its first contract with the Anglo-Dutch company in November 2002.

Unilever operates on a global level with its world-leading brands, including Wall's Ice Cream, Dove beauty products, Lipton and Knorr, consumed by two billion people daily. BT has worked with the company for more than a decade, providing innovative and sustainable network services and solutions which are helping the company grow its business more efficiently and sustainably.

The new deal reaffirms Unilever's commitment to using BT's portfolio and managed services around the world to help it achieve its ambitious plans to grow its business, while reducing its environmental footprint and increasing its social impact.

As well as delivering a fully integrated network providing voice, data, video and mobility services to the company's 173,000 employees across nearly 100 countries, BT is also delivering collaborative services such as audio-conferencing and video-conferencing. These services are helping Unilever become an increasingly more agile business and introduce more sustainable ways of working.

Enabling its employees to work more flexibly and increasing the use of audio and video conferencing is helping Unilever reduce travel spend, increase productivity and efficiency and drive down costs. It also reduces its CO2 emissions and its overall impact on the environment, a key objective of the company's sustainability ambitions. 

Luis Alvarez, chief executive officer, BT Global Services, said: "Unilever is a fast moving and dynamic company whose world-famous brands are bought by millions of customers across the globe, every day. The consumer goods market is extremely competitive and we understand the important role technology can play in helping them stay ahead of the game.

"Unilever's commitment to being a responsible, sustainable business is commendable and it is something that is very close to BT's heart.  We are delighted to continue our partnership with them to help them growth their business sustainably. This will also help us deliver BT's Net Good goal to help our customers save three times as much carbon as the end-to-end impact of our business by 2020, a key part of our Better Future program."

Paulo De Sa, VP Infrastructure Services, Unilever, said: "Few companies can offer such world-class, global, innovative and sustainable solutions to help us achieve our ambitious vision and, in this context, we are delighted to be able to continue our partnership with BT.

"The continued innovative use of technology is helping us increase productivity by making our workforce more connected. We are becoming a more agile business and introducing more sustainable ways of working for our employees, customers and suppliers, as well as the two billion consumers who rely on our products every day."

The original contract, announced in November 2002, was the first comprehensive global telecommunications outsource contract ever undertaken by BT and remains one of its largest global deals. By working in partnership, BT has helped transform Unilever's infrastructure into one of the most modern corporate networks in the world.

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About BT

BT is one of the world's leading providers of communications services and solutions, serving customers in more than 170 countries. Its principal activities include the provision of networked IT services globally; local, national and international telecommunications services to its customers for use at home, at work and on the move; broadband and internet products and services and converged fixed/mobile products and services. BT consists principally of four lines of business: BT Global Services, BT Retail, BT Wholesale and Openreach.

For the year ended 31 March 2013, BT Group's reported revenue was £18,103m with reported profit before taxation of £2,315m.

British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York. 

For more information, visit www.btplc.com

About Unilever

Unilever is one of the world's leading suppliers of Food, Home and Personal Care products with sales in over 190 countries. Our products are present in 7 out of 10 homes globally and are used by over 2 billion people on a daily basis. We work with 173,000 colleagues around the world and generated annual sales of over €50 billion in 2012. Over half of our company's footprint is in the faster growing developing and emerging markets (55% in 2012). Working to create a better future every day, we help people feel good, look good and get more out of life.  Our portfolio includes some of the world's best known brands such as Knorr, Persil / Omo, Dove, Sunsilk, Hellmann's, Lipton, Rexona / Sure, Wall's, Lux, Rama, Ponds and Axe, 14 of which now generate a turnover of €1 billion or more.

Our ambition is to double the size of our business, whilst reducing our overall environmental footprint  (including sourcing, consumer use and disposal) and increasing our positive social impact. We are committed to helping more than a billion people take action to improve their health and well-being, sourcing all our agricultural raw materials sustainably by 2020, and decoupling our growth from our environmental impact. Supporting our three big goals, we have defined seven pillars, underpinned by targets encompassing social, environmental and economic areas. See more on the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan at www.unilever.com/sustainable-living/.

Unilever has been recognised in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Indexes for 14 consecutive years. We are included in the FTSE4Good Index Series and attained a top environmental score of 5, leading to inclusion in the FTSE4Good Environmental Leaders Europe 40 Index. In 2012 Unilever led the Climate Counts Company Scorecard for the second year running and the list of Global Corporate Sustainability Leaders in the GlobeScan /Sustainability latest annual survey - for the third year running. The company is an employer of choice in many of the countries in which it operates and is seen as a symbol for innovation and leadership development.

For more information about Unilever and its brands, please visit www.unilever.com.

SOURCE BT