March 01, 2010 10:15 ET

Ci&T Provides Critical Insurance Policy Workflow Application for MetLife

New Tool Automates Underwriting Flow and Policies for Global Insurance and Financial Services Organization

KING OF PRUSSIA, PA--(Marketwire - March 1, 2010) - Ci&T (http://bit.ly/4eWfYK), a consulting and technology outsourcing services company, today announced that it has developed a vital new workflow application for leading insurance and financial services provider MetLife. The new application automates critical processes involved in the sales and processing of new insurance policies for MetLife's individual, SMB and corporate clients, making it one of the company's most important systems.

As one of the largest providers of insurance policies to individuals, SMBs and corporations in the world, MetLife must issue policies with the utmost efficiency and ensure that these policies are processed in a way that generates the maximum possible revenue for the company. Recognizing this need, MetLife first approached Ci&T to develop an application that would provide the efficiency and speed necessary to process individual policies -- from the initial sale to the analysis of the proposal to the implementation of the policy. Once Ci&T had successfully developed the new application to address this need, the company then extended the application to address critical processes for SMB clients and, ultimately, the corporate customers MetLife services.

"When we invested in the implementation of a new application by Ci&T, MetLife sought an innovative tool that would allow the issuance of policies with significantly greater efficiency," said Fatima Primati, chief information officer, MetLife Brazil. "Once successfully in use for our individual and SMB customers, we decided that our corporate clients would benefit from the tool as well. What began as an isolated support tool is now critical to the daily operation of our business."

When deployed, the application developed by Ci&T demonstrated immediate benefits in standardizing the flow of information and fostering greater collaboration within MetLife. Previously, processes were performed manually and lacked the documentation capabilities critical to ensure compliance with industry regulations. With the Ci&T application, these functions were now completely automated, reducing the time for analysis of individual proposals and electronically documenting the history of each proposal. The project also resulted in improved relations between MetLife's brokers and its customers, reducing dependence on manual processes for proposal analysis and enabling a greater focus on customer service.

Ci&T is committed to leveraging Lean IT principles in the development projects it performs for its valued clients, which focus on delivering value for customers by eliminating waste in the value chain.

"The methodology that Ci&T used in this particular project, based on the concepts of Agile and Lean IT, helped us to understand the vision of the project both as a whole at the outset and incrementally during its respective stages," emphasized Primati. "In this approach, what is intended is made and, with this new application, Ci&T has delivered a solution designed to grow. At MetLife, we consider high-quality service to be a differentiator in selecting those professional organizations with which we partner. For four years MetLife has considered Ci&T just such a partner, and we will work with them on additional major initiatives in 2010."

"Our Lean approach to application development enables us to deliver greater value to our clients' businesses at an incredibly fast pace," said Leonardo Mattiazzi, vice president, international business at Ci&T. "The principles employed in this approach are designed to do nothing but add value in each engagement. In this way our customers benefit by receiving the features most critical to their businesses in every project, delivered faster than they previously thought possible."

About MetLife

MetLife, Inc. is a leading provider of insurance, employee benefits and financial services with operations throughout the United States and the Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific regions. Through its subsidiaries and affiliates, MetLife, Inc. reaches more than 70 million customers around the world and MetLife is the largest life insurer in the United States (based on life insurance in-force). The MetLife companies offer life insurance, annuities, auto and home insurance, retail banking and other financial services to individuals, as well as group insurance and retirement & savings products and services to corporations and other institutions. For more information, visit www.metlife.com.

About Ci&T:

Ci&T (http://bit.ly/4eWfYK) delivers consulting, application outsourcing and digital marketing services in a unique way. Its "best-of-all-worlds" model combines the efficiency of offshore development with the convenience of a Western Hemisphere partner. Development centers in Brazil put creative marketing and technology expertise in near-local time zones, saving clients time and money and helping them to gain competitive advantages with a proven, real-time development partner. Ci&T specializes in customized application development, business intelligence, SAP consulting, digital marketing and Web 2.0 applications. Its clients include a diverse array of large and global Fortune 500 customers in the United States, Brazil and Europe. For more information, please visit www.ciandt.com.