Nib Insurance Company S.C (NIC) will become the second insurer in acquiring a CORE insurance solution integrating all its branches with one electronic system named Genisys Configurator for 11 million Br.
The system, developed by the Indian based company CMC Limited and supplied by Techno Brain Global FEZ is going to be implemented by the latter, CMC’s local partner for Africa, according to the agreement that was signed on Tuesday February 24, 2014, between Hailemariam Assefa, chief executive officer (CEO) of NIC, and Mekonnen Tesfaye country director of Techno Brain at the office of NIC located at Dembel City Center on Africa Avenue.
The project will automate the underwriting, claim, reinsurance, intermediaries, finance, management information system (MIS), document management system, email and SMS systems of the company, according to Mesfin Wale, information technology manager of NIC.
Insurance CORE software might become mandatory like CORE banking, so that is why we want to have it now, Hailemariam told Fortune.
Awash Insurance Company S.C. procured a fully operational software, the General Insurance Information System (GISS), branded Mithara from another Indian company called Infusion Software Development Plc in November 2014.
NIC announced the tender on March 2013 and 18 IT solution providers purchased the bid document but only six of them replied to the initial tender including Infotec through its local partner Prima, Copy Cat of Kenya, CMC, represented through its local partner Techno Brain, Infusion of India, Turnkey of Kenya, and Fadata, a Bulgarian company.
But after months of technical appraisal, Infusion and Copy Cat could not pass the technical evaluation, according to Hailemariam.
On January 2014, the four shortlisted companies presented their products, each taking three days. The result of the demonstration, which took 12 days, filtered only two bidders, Prima and Techno Brain.
Before the financial opening, officials of the insurance firm had a visit to India and Tanzania to look at the installed systems by CMC. The first, which took them to India was to visit three private and one state-owned insurance companies in which the systems were put in place by CMC. Later in May 2014, the group again travelled to Tanzania to visit the system that was under installation by Techno Brain for National Insurance Corporation of Tanzania.
The first visit was covered by NIC and the second visit was at the expense of Techno Brain, says Hailemariam.
After the visit, the financial opening for the two companies was held in June 2014 and Techno Brain offered the lower price at 550,000 dollars while Prima’s offer was 900,000 dollar.
“We finalized the installation of network infrastructure at all branches and we are now in the process of procuring hardware including router, switch, security devices, communication channels and servers,” said Mesfin.
Techno Brain will finalize the installation within a year to 14 months with its own staff with expertise along with a project manager from the insurance firm. Nib’s project is the second experience for Techno Brain after installing the system for the Tanzanian company. In addition, it had previously worked on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) for National Cement, and Adama Spinning Factory, online tracking system for Post Office and civil status registration management system for Addis Abeba City Administration (AACA), which is used to handle the data of the people in the city.
“Totally, the system, including the hardware and the software, cost the company 22 million Br,” Hailemariam told Fortune.
Established in May 2, 2002, by 818 shareholders, with a paid-up capital of 30 million Br, NIC has now reached 935 shareholders and 186 million Br paid-up capital. The company registered 62.5 million Br net profit during the 2013/14 fiscal year. It is currently operating with 27 branches across the country and planning to construct its headquarters at Addis Abeba, Dire Dawa and Hawassa.
The software developer, CMC, was founded in 1975, as IT solutions and services provider in India as a subsidiary of Tata Consultancy Services Limited (TCS Ltd), one of the information technology consulting, services and business with the capital of 100 billion dollars, both are under Tata Group, India’s well-known business corporation.
Techno Brain will start the project within a month’s time after the agreement signing, according to Mekonnen.
After the finalization of the project, the system will enable Nib to interface with National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE,) Insurance funds and Federal Transport Authority (FTA), Hailemariam told Fortune.
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