British American Tobacco has signed a five-year application co-sourcing contract with Accenture to help it improve the design, development and implementation of its information technology systems for its business operations.

Under the agreement, Accenture and British American Tobacco will jointly design a wide range of applications for British American Tobacco’s functions, including finance, supply chain, sales and marketing, with Accenture developing these applications for global, regional and local use. The program will help British American Tobacco transform its solution delivery function into a global, simplified and standardised operation.

Accenture will deliver the co-sourced services through a joint application development centre with British American Tobacco in Spain and through the Accenture Global Delivery Network, including the use of delivery centres in the Philippines and India.

“We believe that this co-sourced program will make us considerably more effective across our global enterprise,” said Craig Wallace, head of solution delivery at British American Tobacco. “Collaborating with Accenture on this program will greatly enhance our knowledge, skills and capabilities and enable us to more quickly reshape and transform solution delivery within our business. Accenture is arguably the leader in this field and brings world-class people, tools and assets, combined with a deep understanding of and close relationships with SAP and Siebel.”

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.