15 September 2006 | Paul Snell

The UK's biggest insurer, Norwich Union, is planning to make efficiency savings of £250 million by 2008.

Savings will come partly from an increased focus on procurement, the company said. In a statement, it said it would be "applying a single approach to procurement and supplier management".

A spokesman added: "We are a major purchaser of products and services in the UK. And we are reviewing our policy towards procurement." The company was unable to give supplymanagement.com specific details of what changes would be made, or a deadline for the completion of the review.

The company said the majority of savings would be made through cost efficiencies, however, it would also be done through cutting jobs. The head count will be reduced by 4,000, from a workforce of 36,000. A thousand of these will be outsourced to India and 500 jobs are being outsourced to third party IT providers.

SMsep2006