Associated Mediabase supports the main titles which include the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard, Metro, Ireland on Sunday and Loot.

Marshall explained that like most publishers, Associated initially took what was there manually and made it digital. There were over a hundred systems across the group.

His mission is to consolidate and harmonise systems across the group, creating best of breed solutions by capturing the best the world can offer and to fill the gaps where appropriate.

From the outset explored how they could automate and move data around the organisation and were one of the first adopters of XML and have been engaged in the transition to ‘smart data’ since 1998.

“We’re about two thirds the way through implementing our new inhouse advertising solution…it will be the largest advertising system in the world when it’s finished, with more than a thousand seats, not only individually within the titles but also cross selling.”

The scale of Marshall’s operation is staggering. He revealed that their computer room houses over 400 servers and that the group has spent more than £40-million over the last ten years on developing its IT infrastructure.

“We have a primary and a back-up because we can’t have any downtime. If we lose a single edition it can be worth several million pounds. So our investment sounds an awful lot of money until you look at the risks you take if you lose that sort of production.”

Marshall also revealed Associated is assessing InDesign as part of a copy fit solution with a number of vendors. He also voiced a preference with PDF formats for moving with Adobe’s current release.

Another intriguing insight is that Associated runs Lotus Notes on over 1100 editorial seats where they are able to ‘take advantage of out of the box technology’. A new XML based publishing system is being developed in conjunction with Agfa and Marshall promised to ‘reveal a lot more’ in the next year or so when it comes to completion.

The Archive system is from Picdar, which he described as ‘one of the best digital asset management system providers in the world’ providing systems that are ‘very rich in terms of functionality, and work within the standards’.

They’ve already started to deploy an operational CRM system with a view to going to an enterprise wide solution in the next 12-18 months. They also have an XML browser based circulation system. In fact, they can run both the circulation and editorial systems on a Blackberry device: “Our editorial and circulation systems can be accessed from anywhere in the world the Blackberry device functions,” explained Marshall.

But the real benefits are in productivity: “You can go a lot later with deadlines…you can take advertising copy a lot later…and management have real information in real time. So despite some opportunities for head-count reduction, business productivity is increased dramatically and that’s what’s important.”