Allianz Group renews Equant IP VPN contract
The Allianz Group will continue entrusting its IP VPN to Equant. A new three-year contract worth $7 million underlines the two multinationals' successful cooperation, which began in 1999.
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The Allianz Group, headquartered in Munich, is one of the largest and most renowned financial service organizations with an international network in the world. The company is active in over 70 countries with around 174,000 employees and provides approximately 60 million customers worldwide with comprehensive service in the areas of insurance, providential cover (life and medical insurance) and assets (asset management and banking). In 2003, Allianz achieved a premium income of €85 billion and assets under management of €996 billion.
The Allianz Group recently decided to adopt a new IT strategy and to work with only a few strategic partners. Equant was chosen as one of three strategic network service providers. Equant offers the insurer optimal geographic coverage. Altogether 70 locations worldwide are linked via Equant's MPLS-based IP VPN. With Equant as a partner, the Allianz Group benefits from the following advantages:
Cost efficiency: Through the use of IP infrastructure, economies of scale are achieved, which enable the Allianz Group to optimize its telecoms budget and improve its service. Flexibility: The "plug and play" concept of Equant's IP VPN facilitates the effortless integration of additional locations and the adaptation of communications infrastructure when the organization expands.
"The Allianz Group will obtain considerable advantages from the use of Equant's IP VPN, including an increase in efficiency through the optimization of our communications infrastructure, enhanced security and significant cost savings," said Dr. Franz Vojik of the Allianz Group. "The Equant Professional Services team has assisted us with help and advice from day one. Thanks to this team’s commitment and its tremendous efforts, we are in a position to exploit all the benefits of a tailor-made IP VPN solution and thereby improve our service."
"We are delighted to have cemented our relationship with the Allianz Group through renewed cooperation," said Frank Sommerfeld, general manager of Equant. "The Allianz Group can in the future profit from the solution implemented, just like our 1,300 other IP VPN clients."