October 28, 2014

Accenture Introduces New Capabilities to Enhance Delivery of Pre-Integrated Duck Creek Property & Casualty Insurance Software to Clients

FirstBest and Avanade can pre-integrate insurance software product definitions, enabling insurers to provide better customer service

NEW YORK; Oct 28, 2014 – Accenture (NYSE: ACN) announced a new technology capability for its Duck Creek property & casualty software that provides global alliance partners with access to its software product definitions and the ability to pre-integrate the technology into their systems prior to deployment. FirstBest Systems and Avanade are the first alliance partners to utilize this capability within their underwriting and customer relationship management (CRM) software. The integrated solution helps insurers reduce the costs of implementation and maintenance, improve the customer experience and accelerate delivery of new and updated products to customers.

“The customer experience is a major differentiator for carriers,” said Jeff Wargin, global policy product lead for Accenture Duck Creek. “Being able to take advantage of new technologies is a key factor to improving customer satisfaction and growing the business. By enabling our alliance partners to access our product definitions, we take the complexity out of incorporating multiple systems, helping our customers build integrated solutions that can create personalized, multi-channel customer experiences at a reduced cost.”

FirstBest Systems and Avanade are the first two alliance partners to benefit from this anywhere capability:

• FirstBest Systems, a provider of underwriting workstations and agent portal software to the P&C industry, and Accenture Duck Creek have successfully delivered integrated policy and underwriting solutions for several major P&C carriers. Integration efforts continue with the FirstBest Dynamic Synchronization™ technology, which enables the FirstBest Underwriting Management System™ to utilize Accenture Duck Creek’s single point of change product definitions within its underwriting workstation, providing underwriters with the ability to rapidly submit, evaluate, collaborate and quote from one place. These integrations are specifically designed to help carriers improve underwriting speed and profitability, scale their business and achieve high service levels with agents and brokers.
• Avanade, a business technology, cloud and managed services provider as well as a leader in deploying CRM solutions, delivers a P&C-specific Microsoft Dynamics Contact Center solution. This includes new business quoting capabilities that seamlessly utilize Accenture Duck Creek’s product definitions, facilitating faster and more accurate insurance quotes for customers. In addition to time and cost savings, insurers also benefit from 360 degree customer views that allow agents and business users to better service their customers.

“We worked with the Accenture Duck Creek team to develop this new capability based on customer demand for a leading policy system and underwriting workstation that powers the front office,” said John Belizaire, founder and CEO of FirstBest Systems. “Classic point-to-point integration is not enough. Insurers want solutions that are always in sync via a single point of change and this collaboration provides that solution."

“Avanade and Accenture’s Duck Creek software are creating better ways for carriers to engage with their customers and thrive in a digital world,” said Steve Magennis, senior director of software development at Avanade. “Accenture Duck Creek integration technology enables our CRM solutions to provide P&C insurers with the latest product and policy data across all the channels they use to interact with their customers.”

The ongoing anywhere capability will continue to expand as alliance partners extend their system integrations and bring combined offerings to market.

About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 305,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$30.0 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2014. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

Accenture Duck Creek is a software suite offering comprehensive, full-featured property & casualty insurance software and SaaS solutions. Its configurable solutions are designed to work as a full end-to-end suite or as individual standalone components that adapt quickly and seamlessly to handle the unique needs of insurers of all sizes. Duck Creek software enables carriers to make better decisions in a real-time environment, streamline operations and improve their level of customer service. For more information, visit www.accenture.com/duckcreek.

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Contacts:

Julie Bennink
Accenture
+ 312 693 7301
julie.l.bennink@accenture.com

Francois Luu
Accenture
+ 33 6 60 53 84 28
francois.luu@accenture.com


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