Unilever have chosen IBM to support the transformation and ongoing management of procurement operations for Unilever Europe's non-production items (NPI).

The agreement builds on similar IBM procurement implementations for other Unilever regions and the current finance business services agreement in Europe.

IBM will service the routine elements of NPI procurement operations from Budapest. The IBM hosted global procurement system will be rolled-out to Europe with maintenance services performed out of Bangalore, India. The contract was signed in December 2008 and implementation will be completed as a phased programme over the next two years.