Chola MS in pact with TCS, CMS for IT

Cholamandalam MS General Insurance Co has entered into a agreement with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and CMC Ltd to revamp its IT infrastructure for an undisclosed sum.

The initiative comes on the back of the company's business expansion plan and the changing requirements of the market in the insurance detariff regime. The new system is aimed at enabling the company's customers to do all e-commerce transactions.

While the software is a proprietry general insurance system of CMC, TCS will manage the customisation and successful deployment over the web. The contract will be of five-year duration including the annual maintenance contract, a company statement said.

In the first phase, it will be deployed at 100 Cholamandalam MS offices across the country in April 2008. The company, a joint venture between Murugappa Group and Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance of Japan, expects to bring down the cost of tranaction by about 20 per cent once the deployment is completed across all its offices in 150 locations.

The new system envisages delivery of policies at remote locations, facilitation of alternate modes of payment such as credit card, mobile telephony and web and improved speed of interaction such as issuance of policies and settlement of claims.

"In the changing market scenario, the need to minimise time to market is the biggest driving force behind the project. The software will help to speed up customer interaction, minimise waiting period for any transaction and thereby help us service our customers better," S S Gopalarathnam, president - operations, Cholamandalam MS General Insurance, said.