Accenture and Whirlpool Corporation Sign Global Application Outsourcing Contract

June 12, 2006

NEW YORK; – Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE:WHR) and Accenture (NYSE: ACN) have entered into a five-year application outsourcing agreement in which Accenture will provide maintenance and support services for SAP applications related to demand chain, supply chain, HR and finance at Whirlpool’s operations in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia.

Whirlpool has been implementing SAP in various regions for the past several years. Accenture helped Whirlpool implement SAP in its Latin America operation and has been providing support for those applications on an outsourced basis since 1998. This new contract extends Accenture’s support to provide consolidated global application management services for SAP for all regions where Whirlpool operates.

“Our contract with Accenture is part of our plan to transform our global information systems,” said Esat Sezer, corporate vice president and CIO, Whirlpool Corporation. “It is an important element, which should help enable our strategic vision to develop a single global application management model, to focus Whirlpool resources on strategic capabilities and to maximize the return on application management investments.”

“Our mandate is to help provide Whirlpool achieve a higher degree of flexibility and lower its costs for SAP application support,” said Kevin Dooley, senior executive, Accenture Industrial Equipment practice. “As companies prepare for future growth, they are smart to consider outsourcing as a way to achieve greater standardization, increased efficiencies, reduced costs and better tools to maximize their return on IT investments.”

Financial terms of the contract were not disclosed.

About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Committed to delivering innovation, Accenture collaborates with its clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. With deep industry and business process expertise, broad global resources and a proven track record, Accenture can mobilize the right people, skills and technologies to help clients improve their performance. With more than 129,000 people in 48 countries, the company generated net revenues of US$15.55 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2005. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

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Caitlin Storhaug
Accenture
+1 (415) 537 5458
caitlin.storhaug@accenture.com

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Caitlin Storhaug

Accenture

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