Insurance

IFFCO - TOKIO General Insurance was looking at an integrated application to address the growing needs of the rapidly developing insurance market in India. They were seeking solutions that would provide flexibility to adapt to Indian regulatory requirements, help launch innovative products, reduce time to market, enable faster claims processing, etc. They wanted their Insurance application Policy/400 to be accessible to executives on the field, through mobile computing devices from any location, especially in remote rural areas. In addition, they also wanted to enhance the efficiency of their messaging application.

IFFCO-TOKIO General Insurance uses CSC application Policy/400 for core Insurance application. The application was integrated with IBM middleware technology, Domino, to implement Workflow and to provide the insurance application with access to remote and mobile users in a secure offline mode. Domino as a platform was also used for mail, messaging and collaborative application.

IBM eServer iSeries 820 was deployed as the production server, iSeries 270 as the development server and iSeries 820 as the disaster recovery server.

IBM eServer xSeries 232 was deployed to run Checkpoint firewall and xSeries 235 running IXA with iSeries for MS application.

IBM desktop PCs were deployed to run the front end of the CSC application Policy/400 and IBM ThinkPads for access to mobile users.

Domino & Lotus Notes were deployed to implement collaborative and messaging solution.

IBM Global Services did the BRMS Implementation for ITGI.

IBM iSeries Dedicated Server for Domino (iSeries DSD) offers great price/performance targeted for Lotus workloads combined with the reliability, manageability, and low cost of ownership. This has made iSeries a highly successful Domino server.

• Run Lotus software, WebSphere, Java and unrestricted DB2.
• Realize unrestricted performance even when Domino is not active.
• Upgrade to other processors in the iSeries product line without restrictions.

With the help of a front office application (Lotus Notes based), ITGI's mobile users can now work in an off-line mode, enter the data, and then push it in the back end application on daily basis, to sync with the rest of the operations.

ITGI can now adapt IT applications to its changing business needs. Since executives outon the field, are now connected even when out of the office, the process of logging in orders has become faster, thus enhancing customer service. This has also reduced ITGI's time to market and resulted in faster claims processing.

"The IBM Sales team interacted with us effectively to help us identify our need and implement a cost effective solution. We now have in place a scalable, robust and secure platform for information sharing and connectivity. This will enable us to further bring down the response time in issuing policies to customers, reduce claims processing time, etc., which translate into better service for our customers", said Mr. S. S. Kukreja, Head - IT, IFFCO - TOKIO General Insurance, India.

He adds, "We chose IBM over other vendors due to their focused approach on providing technical as well as commercial inputs. They came up with solutions that matched our needs. We also appreciate the high degree of involvement from IBM's top management at key stages of the discussions and negotiations. This reinforced our decision to select IBM as our business partner."

Says, Ashish Jasuja, Country Manager, IBM eServer iSeries, "The IBM eServer iSeries is all about integration and flexibility. The iSeries supports a variety of operating systems such as Windows 2000, Linux and OS/400, as well as applications written for various environments like Domino and Websphere. The eServer iSeries has features like capability to run multiple operating systems, Capacity Upgrade on Demand, Capacity Switch On/Off, dynamic logical partitioning, etc, which offer customers all the tools they need to embrace IBM's e-business on demand vision."

ITGI has now in place a scalable, robust and secure IT infrastructure, highly adaptive to their changing needs.