eJiva (an iGate co) Signs Major Services Contract With Country Companies Insurance Group
Major e-Commerce Initiative to Drive New Revenue Opportunities, Cut Claims-Response Time
PITTSBURGH, March 9 /PRNewswire/ -- eJiva, Inc. (pronounced ``ed-jeeva'), the recently launched, business-to-business e-services firm, will begin work immediately on a major, multi-phase initiative for Country Companies Insurance Group in Bloomington, IL.
An operating company of iGATE Capital (Nasdaq: IGTE - news), eJiva will use its engage Workshop to assist in the design, development and launch of a Web-based application system that will automate the distribution of life and health insurance sales illustrations. eJiva's Commerce Technology Management (eCTM) group is handling the project.
Country Companies, a 75-year-old Midwest financial services firm, is seeking to enhance customer service efforts through several projects focused on call center operations. In 1999, eJiva helped to design and develop a Siebel implementation for the insurance company's Customer Acquisition Center, a cutting-edge marketing call center.
``Service is the benchmark by which we, as an insurer, are measured and by which we measure our own vendors,' states Dan LeSeure, senior manager of Internet development for Country Companies. ``We want our IT players to share tasks across projects. This makes it easier to maintain systems during their construction and to build systems faster. However, many solutions providers don't have the skills of adapting into a corporate culture such as ours. We require it, actually. Our strategy is that an outside team such as eJiva should work directly within our own group. This requires superior communication skills for it all to work right. eJiva has exceeded our expectations each time we have worked together.'
``We helped build the front-end user interface and part of the back-end structure,' says Ric Sadler, eJiva's eCRM engagement manager. ``When completed, Country Companies will have the most advanced, responsive Siebel-based call center in the mid-tier of insurance companies.'
Intense industry competition is driving Country Companies to improve its claims service. ``We want to shorten the time it takes to make a customer `whole' on their claim, which will make for a happier, more loyal client,' adds LeSeure. ``With our new eJiva-designed claims call center, we expect to settle 100% of our smaller auto claims within 48 hours and 100% of our smaller property claims in 72 hours. Our Siebel system will alert each of our adjustors automatically if a claim is not going to be processed in those timeframes.'
The Country Companies Customer Acquisition Center, which eJiva helped implement in 1999, provides insurance quotes to prospective customers within eight to ten minutes, a 30% to 40% reduction, compared to the system it had been using.
eJiva is also working with Country Companies on its e-commerce implementation. eJiva will conduct its successful, proven eNgage Workshops with Country Companies to address Web architecture.
``One of our goals is to move more applications onto the Web,' says LeSeure. ``This will allow us to respond faster to a wide variety of business changes.'
Sadler points out that one new system, Illustrations Anywhere, will give Country Companies a tool to reach a wider audience. ``The thin-client architecture of this system will be so much more efficient than their current system, which requires a cumbersome process of manually loading software and updates on individual agents' laptops. By putting illustration capabilities in a Web-based architecture with the proper security measures, new software and updates can be loaded remotely and automatically via the Web. It's a quick, accurate and cost-efficient pipeline. We're helping Country Companies to make their products available faster.
eJiva works with manufacturing and insurance service firms to create and implement business web applications that seamlessly connect customers, partners, suppliers, distributors and employees for improved communications, increased customer retention, lower operational costs, and faster response to market changes. Typically, eJiva deals with all phases of client operations, including customer relationship management (eCRM), supply chain management (eSCM) and commerce technology management (eCTM). Unlike other consulting firms, eJiva remains ``technology neutral', allowing customers to select from all available solutions to create a business-to-business system to meet their unique needs. Additionally, eJiva offers fixed time/fix price commitment for all projects, sharing risk with its clients.
Earlier this year, the company was spun off from Mastech, which on Tuesday (3/7/00) announced both a name change to iGATE Capital Corporation (Nasdaq: IGTE - news) and a shift in business focus to create, acquire and build leading eServices companies around the world. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, eJiva has offices in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, St. Louis, Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles. For more information on this release or eJiva services, please contact Susan Constant, director of corporate communications, at 412-249-2371; via e-mail, at susanc@ejiva.com; or via the web, www.ejiva.com
SOURCE: eJiva, Inc. |
