``Five Market Mandates For Open Systems'' For Auto Claims Industry
4 December 2000
Ensera Identifies ``Five Market Mandates For Open Systems'' For Automotive Claims Industry
REDWOOD SHORES, Calif.--Dec. 4, 2000--Ensera, a leading provider of Internet-based end-to-end solutions for the automotive claims industry, today formally reinforced its commitment to open standards and free exchange of data.
The automotive insurance and collision repair industries have worked for more than seven years now to develop open standards for communication through an organization known as the Collision Industry Electronic Commerce Association, or CIECA. In spite of these efforts, some information providers continue to restrict customer access to data and to impede their customer's ability to communicate information over open third-party networks.
Tony Aquila, CEO and founder, Ensera; "We are a completely open systems provider. The days of proprietary data formats that lock customers into a closed system are over. Collision repairers and insurers will no longer tolerate having two or three applications to do the same job and we are committed to giving them the tools that allow free choice and a better business process.
"The market has clearly defined what they want, and we promise to live by these five mandates in all of our products and services."
The use of proprietary data formats and communications networks results in an estimated $100 million of redundant software subscription costs annually for the collision repair industry and an even larger cost in workflow inefficiency. As part of a growing industry movement that is demanding open systems and free exchange of data, Ensera announces its commitment to the "Five Market Mandates For Open Systems":
1. "The customers own their data." Ensera supports open access by
customers to their data, including the ability to move data
produced by Ensera applications to other applications.
2. "All technology providers should utilize open standards." All
Ensera products use all available CIECA standards to the fullest
extent possible, and where CIECA standards do not exist other
technology standard such as XML are used.
3. "Technology providers should never encrypt nor otherwise
restrict the customers' access to their data." Ensera applications
use databases that are built on published standards that allow
customers easy access to data. Encryption would never be used
unless desired by the customer.
4. "Technology providers should pass data to and from all others."
Ensera strives to streamline the entire claims process and will
work with all major industry participants to facilitate free flow
of data between systems, including those supplied by competitors.
5. "Technology providers should support free customer choice in
communication." Ensera will never restrict its customer's ability
to communicate via any network they choose, through the use of
proprietary data formats, data encryption, disabling of export
features.
Jack Rozint, SVP Marketing & Product Management, Ensera, said; "As a founding member of the Board of Directors of CIECA, I am extremely disappointed by recent developments by some CIECA members to restrict their customer's access to data -- we're talking about data created by the customer, the estimate that he or she wrote. This is contrary to the CIECA mission to 'develop and maintain objective, unbiased, and uniform Electronic Commerce standards and guidelines that encourage open competition and free choice.' These efforts threaten the progress made in more than seven years of CIECA development, and to continue to require repairers to purchase, learn, and maintain two or three estimating systems. We hear the industry saying loudly and clearly that this is unacceptable and we at Ensera are listening and have solutions available today that solve these problems."