Amica Insurance Standardizes on Centra to Accelerate Multi-Phase Siebel Rollout With Real-Time Web Collaboration Solution

Business Wire, Dec 19, 2001

Business/Technology Editors

LEXINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 19, 2001

Convenient Access to Experts and Hands-on Training Makes Agents

More Productive; Helps Nation's Oldest Automobile Insurance Company

Maximize Investment in CRM

Centra (NASDAQ: CTRA), the leading provider of business software solutions for eLearning and real-time collaboration, today announced that Amica Mutual Insurance Company, the nation's oldest mutual automobile insurance company, has standardized on Centra to ensure the successful deployment of Siebel to thousands of employees nationwide. Amica Insurance will use Centra's real-time Web collaboration platform to support a multi-phase application rollout to more than 3,000 employees in 42 offices countrywide. Combining Centra's capabilities for effective Web collaboration with the reach of the Web to disseminate information and training to agents, Amica aims to avoid cost overruns and implementation delays that are often a direct result of inadequate training and not getting users bought in at the outset.

The use of Centra throughout each phase of the rollout will enable Amica to accelerate important deployment phases of its custom Siebel system, which will be implemented as a corporate CRM solution. Enabling end users to participate in hands-on application training and stay informed of project updates over the Web, reduces costs associated with traditional on-site training and insures maximum ROI on their CRM investment. In addition, Amica's use of Centra will dramatically reduce the amount of time employees spend in classrooms, and enable them to create an archive of training course recordings that can be viewed by users at their convenience.

According to Christina Jensen, Senior Training Supervisor for Amica, "We found that an effective and ongoing communications strategy is the key to any successful application deployment like ours. We chose Centra because it clearly provides a better way to address every aspect of the user education process. After initial users are properly trained, we are left with a powerful tool to facilitate ongoing change management initiatives, refresher courses, and continuous user support through on-demand access to our library of session recordings."

Scaleable Software Solutions for eLearning and Collaboration

Used by more than 675 companies, government agencies, and universities worldwide, Centra's scaleable software solutions are based on CentraOne(TM), a comprehensive, thin-client Web collaboration platform. Leveraging the core capabilities of CentraOne, Centra offers a suite of compatible, real-time Web collaboration products, content creation tools, and knowledge delivery systems that can be quickly installed on-site using Centra's rapid deployment methodology, or conveniently accessed through Centra's secure, full-service ASP. Centra's products -- including interactive Web meetings, virtual classrooms, and large-scale conferences -- ensure universal access to users through firewalls and proxy servers, and deliver full- performance IP audio conferencing, streaming video, application sharing, and dynamic multimedia over low-bandwidth network connections through a standard browser interface.

"Now more than ever, our customers are looking for flexible infrastructure solutions that can decrease the time it takes to deploy complex applications while allowing them to adapt easily to changing business environments," said Leon Navickas, Chairman and CEO of Centra. "Centra-powered solutions simplify the deployment and management of project-critical communication and training, enabling companies like Amica to offer a better service to their customers while containing costs."

About Amica Mutual Insurance Company

Amica Mutual Insurance Company, the nation's oldest mutual insurer of automobiles, was founded in 1907. The company, with corporate headquarters in Lincoln, Rhode Island, is a national writer of automobile, homeowners, marine, and personal excess liability insurance policies. Life coverage is available through Amica Life Insurance Company, a wholly owned subsidiary. Amica employs more than 3,500 people in 42 offices nationwide. For more information, visit www.amica.com.

About Centra

Leading with an undisputed track record of helping millions of users to increase revenue and improve overall business performance, Centra provides Web collaboration solutions that enable the delivery of information in a variety of live and self-service formats, and add value through unmatched capabilities to capture interactions and content, personalize and manage this information, and instantly re-use it across the enterprise. Today hundreds of global organizations across every industry and market sector choose Centra, including ExxonMobil, Cadbury Schweppes, Citigroup, AT&T, Procter & Gamble, McKesson, Merck, Nationwide Insurance, Sysco, and Stanford University. Centra's products are bolstered by a vital ecosystem of strategic, value-add partners, including PwC Consulting, Deloitte Consulting, EDS, KPMG iLS, Microsoft, Siebel, and Cisco. Headquartered in Boston's technology corridor, Centra has sales offices throughout North America, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.centra.com