BT Group revealed it was working to eradicate overlap between its Global Services international cloud and security business, and Enterprise division, following media speculation claiming the two were set to be merged.

The comments came in the wake of reports in UK news publication The Telegraph, which asserted plans were being made to combine the two divisions as part of cost-saving measures.

In a statement, BT noted it had identified “some overlap” between the segments and aimed to resolve this, while highlighting wider efforts to cut costs already underway.

A representative explained BT “is making once in a generation investments in the UK’s digital infrastructure at a time when inflation is at a 40-year high and our markets have never been more competitive. We will continue to build like fury for the good of our customers and the country, but to maintain this momentum we need to make every pound and penny count.”

The staffer added BT was already over halfway towards meeting a goal of achieving £3 billion of annual cost savings by 2025, a sum raised from a previous target of £2.5 billion.

However, the representative noted additional progress required BT to “deliver further savings by simplifying our product portfolio and our internal processes and systems; driving procurement and supply chain efficiencies; and simplifying our organisational structure to remove any duplication of work”.

BT Global Services provides multinational corporations with security, cloud and network services while BT Enterprise sells business and public sector communications and related networking and IT services.

The latter’s customers are located in its home market of the UK and the Republic of Ireland.