Czech Republic’s Largest Insurance Company Taps IBM to Preempt IT Issues

PRAGUE, Dec 29, 2011  /PRNewswire/ --  IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that the largest insurance company in the Czech Republic, Ceska pojistovna a.s., relies on IBM smarter computing to help prevent IT issues before they occur and to support its core business functions, such as claims processing and customer management.

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The IBM technology has led to the reduction of annual IT maintenance costs by US$500,000, while allowing the insurance company to provide better online reporting for business users and the best experience for its clients.

Since the reintroduction of the competitive marketplace in the Czech Republic in 1991, Ceska pojistovna has grown into the largest insurance provider in the country with 3,900 employees, 5,600 agents and more than 4,500 business locations. That growth, however, led to system sprawl, the creation of independent and disparate IT operations, and a lack of integration. As a result, costs and the risk of system failures were rising. 

To deal with this situation, Ceska pojistovna worked with IBM Premier Business Partner GC System, a.s. to add a suite of IBM software and systems to better manage its IT infrastructure, including monitoring, event assessment and predictive analysis.

Now performance data is collected and streamed through a central console that provides a consolidated view of information across the IT environment, where it is monitored and reported on in real-time. Historical and predictive analysis tools alert the IT department to potential fluctuations in resource use and performance issues.  This allows administrators to rebalance workloads or fix other root causes to avoid problems before they affect the business. By embedding predictive analytics into the infrastructure, Ceska pojistovna can respond more quickly and accurately to customer needs, better anticipate and prevent outages, and deliver fact-driven metrics.

"This IT service management deployment is one of the largest and most modern of its kind within Europe's insurance market," said Miroslav Lhotsky of Ceska pojistovna's Competence Center. "Through the IBM solution and its preventive approach to IT, we can better ensure that everything from contracts to SLA assessment runs reliably, minimizing impact on productivity."

Among the IBM Tivoli software being used, IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager plays a critical role in capturing and correlating service events from multiple sources in a central database running on two IBM Power 550 Express servers.

"When it comes to the daily operations of a large insurance provider, any risk of IT downtime is unacceptable," said Pavel Siska, sales manager, Sectors, IBM Czech Republic. "Having an IT infrastructure that is integrated and intelligent allows Ceska pojistovna to keep its focus on serving the needs of its customers."

About Ceska pojistovna
Ceska pojistovna is a universal insurance company with a long and rich tradition. It has maintained its leading position after the reintroduction of the competitive marketplace in 1991, with marketshare of approximately 25 percent at the end of 2010. The total premium, according to the method prescribed by the Czech Association of Insurance Companies, amounted to CZK 38.4 billion. Ceska pojistovna manages nearly 9 million insurance contacts, providing both individual life and non-life insurance, and also insurance for small, medium and large clients in the industrial and business areas.

To learn more about IBM Integrated Service Management, visit http://www.ibm.com/ibm/servicemanagement/us/en/

Contact:

Miroslav Hazer
IBM Media Relations -- Czech Republic
+420-272 132 174
[email protected]

Colleen Haikes
IBM Media Relations
415-545-4003
[email protected]

SOURCE IBM