In what is possibly the largest business process outsourcing(BPO) contract to date, PricewaterhouseCoopers and BP Amoco agreedto expand their existing BPO relationship to the United States. Thedeal is valued at $1.1 billion.

“We have worked successfully with PricewaterhouseCoopers overthe last three years in Europe, North America and South America,said Dennis Roemmich, BP Amoco’s Houston region vice president forShared Services. “It makes strategic sense to replicate theoutsourcing model we have created with them in the United States.”

BP Amoco will outsource to PricewaterhouseCoopers affiliatePricewaterhouseCoopers BPO Midwest LLC its Accounting andApplication Systems Shared Services Group, largely based in Tulsa,OK, and with employees in Chicago and Houston. The group supportsthe company’s upstream and chemical operations in the UnitedStates. Approximately 1,200 employees will joinPricewaterhouseCoopers in these locations, with about 900 going toTulsa and the remainder split between Chicago and Houston.Negotiations are proceeding for a similar outsourcing of BP Amocoservices to PricewaterhouseCoopers in Calgary. The firm intends toactively market and create multi-client service centers in each ofthese locations.

“For multinational companies such as BP Amoco, we can offerunmatched process expertise, industry knowledge and the ability tomanage large-scale transitions,” said John Barnsley, global leaderof the Business Process Outsourcing group atPricewaterhouseCoopers. “We believe business process outsourcing isthe most significant tool for enhancing shareholder value to emergein years.”

Since 1996, when PricewaterhouseCoopers began its relationshipwith BP Amoco, the organization has helped the company achievesignificant operating efficiencies and cost reductions through itsCentres of Excellence in Bogota, Caracas, Krakow and Rotterdam. Thetransition of BP Amoco’s finance, accounting and applicationssupport group in the United States will form the nucleus of a newPricewaterhouseCoopers Centre of Excellence. This service centerwill provide business process and IT applications support on an SAPplatform to BP Amoco-creating the first large-scale accounting andIT applications platform that other multinational client companiescan leverage.

Joe Fisher, Houston

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