Unilever - creating a global business services organisation

Unilever is a global business with a turnover of some €40 billion, 175,000 employees, and more than 400 brands such as Hellmans, Flora, Dove, Lynx, Domestos and Persil.

Developing, marketing and distributing these products demands significant support services to manage finance and information, administer HR and provide IT and workplace services. Support services were optimised within each business function, but to win in the market Unilever needed better integration across the company. To overcome this, Unilever decided to set up a single global unit to deliver end-to-end services and improve efficiency.

PA worked with Unilever to achieve this objective leading to the successful launch of its new global shared services organisation, providing finance, IT, HR, information management services and workplace services. The project was delivered in eight months without any increase in headcount and with no detrimental impact on service delivery.