PUBLISHER Reed Elsevier is to merge its back offices across its three operating divisions in a bid to achieve annual savings of £100m a year.

The programme, which is referred to internally as “One Company”, will be the biggest shake-up in the recent history of the 127-year-old group.

Chief executive Sir Crispin Davis said: “My ultimate vision is that the business units will be purely customer-facing activities – product development, sales and marketing. Everything else will be integrated.”

The acceleration of his plan comes after the company completed the sale of education business Harcourt last week. Some $4 billion (£1.9 billion) will be returned to shareholders in mid-January.

Reed, which owns Lexis-Nexis, the legal industry’s online search engine, medical bible The Lancet and property-trade title Estates Gazette, has already outsourced 5,000 jobs, many of them to low-cost centres in India, China and the Philippines.

Davis expects most of the new efficiencies will come from smarter working. Reed is centralising procurement under a new global head. Its biggest cost is acquiring computer hardware and software. A new IT chief will merge 140 data centres into fewer than 40.

Other departments, such as human resources and administration, will also be merged. Analysts forecast the programme could yield annual savings of £100m a year.

Explore Industry Sectors

• Banking & Finance

• Construction & Property

• Consumer Goods

• Engineering

• Health

• Industrials

• Leisure

• Media

• Natural Resources

• Retailing

• Support Services

• Technology

• Telecoms

• Transport

• Utilities

Times Recommends

• BA chief waives bonus after T5 fiasco
• Prospects of cheaper loans hit as Libor soars
• Rice price dives as US and Japan set to unlock grain pact