BearingPoint and Teradata Partner to Promote Data Consolidation

In an effort to address the demand for data consolidation in the insurance industry, BearingPoint (McLean, Va.) has formed a marketing and sales alliance with NCR Corp. (Dayton, Ohio). Both parties will lend their intellectual property to the deal intended to help BearingPoint and NCR customers converge their data by leveraging NCRs Teradata tools.

"When we first got together, both companies were approaching the same set of issues from different viewpoints," explains Chris Formant, executive vice president and head of the financial services business for BearingPoint. "There isnt an insurer that isnt managing the client information in silos. The industry is in dire need of data consolidation."

As part of their combined effort, BearingPoint and NCR will aim to simplify regulatory compliance, promote cross-sell/up-sell opportunities and drive down costs associated with managing siloed information.

Management of client information in silos is not consistent with Sarbanes-Oxley and some of the other regulations that help govern the industry," stresses Formant. Insurers need the industrial-strength type of solution that Teradata can bring because the thinner application solutions just arent going to cut it when it comes to governance."

In addition, the two companies hope to add value to clients by granting easier data access, which will in turn enable greater marketing opportunities and help reduce information management expenses, according to the vendors. Teradata and BearingPoint have concluded that there is a tremendous cost issue surrounding the quality and consistency of information for insurers that have data in pockets throughout the organization, says Formant. There is a ton of money on the table for companies that can consolidate information in a safe and professional way.

In an effort to promote these opportunities, Teradata will bring a blueprint for putting data together on a scalable platform that will enable robust analytics, loss ratio management, customer profitability and better outreach to agents, asserts Linda Eaves, vice president of new business development for Teradata.

The new relationship will also target businesses within the financial services, communications, healthcare, public services, manufacturing and retail industries. Although BearingPoint and Teradata have partnered in the past on government and commercial projects, this deal is much more strategically focused on financial services, relates Kristina Robinson, vice president of the financial services and insurance vertical for Teradata.