Fireman's Fund Selects IBM for On Demand Business Transformation; $94 Million Contract Can Reduce Applications by 70 Percent Whi
11 Maio 2005 - 1:01PM
Business Wire
Fireman's Fund Insurance Company(R) has taken a third major step in
its total IT transformation by awarding IBM a ten-year $94 million
contract to modernize a major portion of the property casualty
insurer's application, development and maintenance software into an
On Demand infrastructure that could reduce the number of major
applications by 70 percent while improving customer service. When
completed, the work could save Fireman's Fund $200 million, more
than double the project's actual cost. With IBM's assistance,
Fireman's Fund will shift its IT operations to an Internet-based
computing model known as a "service-oriented architecture" (SOA)
that enables consolidation of costly, redundant applications. Under
Fireman's Fund direction, IBM will sift through mission-critical
applications using a unique IBM Business Consulting process called
Component Business Modeling to determine which applications deliver
the most value to the business and which processes can be refined,
consolidated or eliminated. For example, Fireman's Fund currently
has multiple legacy systems for policy administration and billing,
many with areas of functional overlap. Fireman's Fund estimates the
modernization could consolidate as many as 70 percent of
applications, reducing costs and making resources available for new
IT projects that generate new revenue. The underpinnings of
Fireman's Fund's On Demand infrastructure will be built on the
Insurance Application Architecture (IAA), IBM's insurance industry
expertise and best practices that will integrate with industry
standards delivered in an SOA. IBM worked with the world's top
insurance companies to create IAA -- a transformative IT
architecture that allows the business of insurance to be expressed
in formats that are easily usable by IT professionals. Newly
available resources and a flexible architecture allow Fireman's
Fund to link new IT investments directly to business objectives,
such as quickly improving, simplifying and releasing new products
to independent agents nationwide. "Insurers are increasingly taking
measures to improve speed-to-value through improved strategic
flexibility and operating adaptability. They are taking a hard look
at how IT can help enable this increased level of flexibility and
adaptability while simultaneously reducing expenses," said William
Pieroni, general manager of IBM's global insurance practice.
"Fireman's Fund is clearly leading this trend by recognizing that
there are no IT projects but rather business initiatives that rely
upon IT for enablement. They are rapidly aligning strategic intent
with IT capabilities." "This move to SOA will directly match our IT
resources to our real business needs," said Fred Matteson, chief
information officer for Fireman's Fund. "We will reduce the size
and cost of our existing infrastructure, giving us the resources to
partner with our line-of-business colleagues to implement new
technologies that can directly impact our bottom line. Our new
operating model will differentiate us in the marketplace by making
our technological connection with customers the smoothest in the
industry." The first step in Fireman's Fund's IT transformation
happened over the past four months when the company transferred its
IT hardware network infrastructure to IBM. The second step, taken
simultaneously with the first, was a modernization and
consolidation of Fireman's Fund's telecommunications functions
through a contract with AT&T. "This SOA contract is the vital
third step in re-tooling our application development and
maintenance capabilities to achieve better performance, higher
quality products and reduced time to production in everything from
claims processing to billing and financial programs," Matteson
said. "Our IT managers will use IBM's advantages of scale and
technological preeminence to simplify our architecture and save us
$200 million dollars over the life of the contract. Just as
important as cost savings, the contract will transform our IT
support into a best-of-class delivery model for our agents and
policyholders." Insurance software provider Webify Solutions played
a critical role in helping Fireman's Fund achieve its business
goals. "SOA allows businesses to become more agile while avoiding
rip and replace of legacy IT systems," said Manoj Saxena, chief
executive officer of Webify Solutions. "As an IBM On Demand
Optimized partner, Webify Solutions is delighted to provide
Fireman's Fund with our WebSphere optimized suite of products that
simplify agency collaboration, enable process transformation, and
improve SOA governance." Industry standards connections in the SOA
and IBM's insurance industry semantics in an IAA create common
interfaces to access data in legacy and custom applications. This
allows Fireman's Fund to speed the deployment of new solutions and
provides a viable ecosystem for independent software vendors to
more easily integrate their software. IBM software used at
Fireman's Fund includes WebSphere, Rational and Tivoli. About
Fireman's Fund Founded in 1863, Fireman's Fund is a premier
property and casualty insurer providing commercial, personal,
marine, excess and agribusiness insurance products nationwide.
Fireman's Fund is a member of the Allianz Group, one of the world's
largest providers of insurance and other financial services. More
information is available at www.firemansfund.com About IBM Global
Services IBM Global Services is the world's largest information
technology services and consulting provider. Some 190,000
professionals in more than 160 countries help clients integrate
information technology with business value -- from the business
transformation and industry expertise of IBM Business Consulting
Services to hosting, infrastructure, technology design and training
services. IBM Global Services delivers integrated, flexible and
resilient processes across companies and through business partners,
enabling clients to save money and transform their businesses to be
more competitive. For more information, visit www.ibm.com/services.
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