Kimberly-Clark outsources to India

Kleenex and Huggies manufacturer Kimberly-Clark has outsourced parts of its IT operations to India in two separate five-year deals aimed at cutting costs and improving performance.

The first deal will see India's Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) provide service desk and data centre operational support, security, networking, desktop, voice, messaging and videoconferencing services to Kimberly-Clark's global operations. The value of the deal was not disclosed.

The second applications outsourcing deal with India's Cognizant covers SAP and custom software for strategic planning, sourcing, sales and marketing, compliance, enterprise management and customer management. The value of that deal was not disclosed either.

Ian Maginnis, VP of business support delivery at Kimberly-Clark, said in a statement: "We were looking for a partnership that would deliver cost savings via worldwide sourcing and would transform how we deliver IT applications in support of our global business plan."

Maginnis added that the outsourcing deals will help Kimberly-Clark streamline the way it does business globally and get better value out of its IT investments so that the company can direct more resources on "innovation, brand-building and other capabilities that will drive long-term sustainable growth".