Zone Out

Happy Birthday Innoveo!

2009-10-01T09:21:00.000+02:00

Two years old, still a baby, just started walking and a long journey ahead to go! But extremely curious, eager to learn and incredibly motivated to progress. It's great to be a member of the Innoveo team!

Innoveo Milestone!

2009-09-30T18:46:00.004+02:00

A major milestone has been reached by our young company Innoveo. And, this is an eccellent opportunity for me to "re-blog" again :-)

Based on a very successful collaboration in a customer project the two companies Adcubum and Innoveo have decided to cooperate and combine their insurance Software solutions, adcubum SYRIUS and Innoveo Skye to build a complete insurance Software package, which includes both now, back- and front-office processes.

With the publication of our press release we've also published our new corporate fact sheet, that you can download here:

Corporate Fact Sheet English

Find the complete press release below:

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ADCUBUM AND INNOVEO AGREE TO A STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP (PRESS RELEASE) /

Adcubum and Innoveo contract a strategic partnership to integrate the multi-channel distribution solution Innoveo Skye® with adcubum SYRIUS®.

St. Gallen, 30th September 2009 - Adcubum and Innoveo intensify their co-operation and agree to a product and strategic partnership. Goal of this agreement is the seamless integration of the multi-channel distribution solution Innoveo Skye® in the insurance core solution adcubum SYRIUS® as an optional module. Therewith, their customers are in a position to use the software for all lines of business and to holistically support respectively control their products and services sales. Moreover, with this co-operation Adcubum and Innoveo consolidate their complementary competences and experience in the insurance industry.

Like adcubum SYRIUS®, Innoveo Skye® is based on a state-of-the-art scalable 4-tier-architecture and is easily embedded in any portal solution. Innoveo Skye® comprises all lines of business in the insurance industry (health insurance, property and casualty insurance, life insurance) and supports various back-office systems simultaneously. Furthermore, Innoveo Skye® is capable of multi-channel operations, which enable insurance companies to quickly and consistently offer new products and services via different channels like branches, agencies, insurance brokers or via the Internet.

"The partnership with Adcubum allows to offer our complementary expertise and insurance solutions in one integrated product", says Nick Stefania, Managing Partner of Innoveo. "Customers benefit of a reduced time-to-market for their insurance products and we enable them to offer all insurance products and services for every distribution channel with one single module."

"We are already working together intensively with Innoveo in a customer project", says René Janesch, member of the executive board of Adcubum. "Insurance companies seek more and more for an end-to-end solution supporting the continuous process from the back-office management to the multi-channel distribution. Hence, the current point in time is most convenient for such a collaboration. Above all, we are able to considerably strengthen our know-how in the property and casualty insurance market."

Press release English / German

Press contact:

Adcubum AG
Fredy Haag
Rorschacherstrasse 267
CH-9016 St. Gallen
Telefon: +41 71 282 89 22
E-Mail: fredy.haag@adcubum.com

Innoveo Solutions AG
Nick Stefania
Hohlstrasse 560
CH-8048 Zürich
Telefon: +41 43 500 54 80
E-Mail: nick.stefania@innoveo.com

Adcubum AG

Adcubum is a leading Swiss software manufacturer in the international insurance business. The core solution adcubum SYRIUS® is a modularly built back-office system for health, accident and property and casualty insurances based on the Java Platform Enterprise Edition (Java EE) technology. The foundation for the successful company history was laid in St. Gallen in 1998. Since then, the product has been continuously enhanced according to customer and market requirements. At present the company employs more than 100 high qualified and specialised experts. Multiple millions of insured persons with more than 30 million claims are administrated by the core solution adcubum SYRIUS® - tendency rising.

Further information under: www.adcubum.com

Innoveo Solutions AG

Innoveo emerged as an independent software manufacturer from a spin-out of the Helvetia Group in 2007. It is characterized by a unique combination of technology expertise and insurance industry knowledge. The SOA/Java EE based agile insurance front-office system Innoveo Skye® is based on more than 12 years of experience in the implementation of flexible distribution systems for all lines of business as well as in the integration of any back-office and CRM systems as well as portals. In an increasingly diversified market a consistent, per distribution channel and insurance product configurable solution offers crucial strategic possibilities, considerable time savings as well as remarkable cost efficiency for the launch of new products.

Further information under: www.innoveo.com

What's next?

2008-07-01T23:10:00.007+02:00

INNOVEO LAUNCHES ITS NEW CORPORATE IDENTITY

Find our company's official communication mail below.

Dear customers, partners and friends,

After 9 exciting and successful months on the market, we are proud to introduce our new corporate identity. It now represents our personality, culture, spirit and soul in a more appropriate way, as it has been built on our company’s...

VALUES /
-> INNOVATION

-> QUALITY, PROFESSIONALISM AND TRANSPARENCY

-> TRUST AND RESPECT

-> DYNAMISM AND FUN

MISSION /
ENABLING BUSINESS INNOVATION

VISION /
BE RESPECTED LEADERS IN CONNECTING THE INSURANCE BUSINESS WITH TECHNOLOGY

Find below our new Logo and get additional information about our consulting services andour insurance framework INNOVEO SKYE by visiting our new company WEBSITE.

We are looking forward to a continuous successful co-operation and collaboration with you under our new brand.

Yours sincerely, your Innoveo Team

Changeover by October 1st, 2007

2007-09-30T16:57:00.000+02:00

Many many nights, weekends and several vacation days spent for an idea and a belief during the last eight months. The belief that people count more than organizations, processes and tasks do. If you ever have the fortune to find professionals, friends you like to work with, a team standing firmly behind a vision and withstanding all the turbulences of a changing organization and the uncertainty of the future, well, then do all the humanly possible to build an environment where you can grow and successfully progress together. First find who is going to participate to the endeavor (first who then what, as Jim Collins stated some years ago) and then (together) decide how to organize and move.

It has been amazing to see how every single team member has taken his responsibility in making sure that the customer obligations are fulfilled without reductions in quality and quantity, while preparing for the future. A good portion of self-organization has emerged, which has been a prerequisite to reach the outstanding results of the last months, despite the heavy burden of multiple roles covered by every individual.

I simply and lowly want to thank all my old an new colleagues, who spent the last couple of years working with me at Helvetia and "ecenter solutions" and now joining our new company innoveo solutions, which is privately held by the team itself. There is nothing like the feeling of being a part of such a great team. I'm honored and proud to be with this team and I'm looking forward to interesting, challenging, successful times. A special thank goes to Didier Beck. Seven years of collaboration. have shown that there is a very high level of trust and a deep friendship, which is the base of our company. Here also: excellent teamwork and complementary skills!

I wish US, the old, new team all the best, satisfaction and success in the new setup at:

The final countdown...

2007-09-09T21:55:00.000+02:00

www.innoveo.com

Trice

2007-02-09T22:13:00.000+01:00

[via tricemusic.com]

Well, OK, of course, you may say that I'm not neutral - and you're totally right. Nevertheless I'd like to introduce a newcomer Swiss band playing Pop music. These guys are creative like crazy and even though the band is very young, they are doing nice progresses day by day.

Luca (lead vocal), Ivan (guitars - my son ;-), Thomas (keyboard) and Dave (drums) are working on some dozens of songs that they'd like to perfect and select for their second CD. As they have a financing issue, you may support them by buying their demo CD including three new songs. With your gently contribution you help these young people cultivating their hobby and live their dream.

Listen to their newest demo song: Spring of my Life

...find more songs on their website

...and contribute by buying their Demo CD "It takes two to tango" which will be available soon!

30 IT Trends 2007 according to CIO Insight

2006-11-21T22:27:00.000+01:00

[via CIO Insight]

Based on 13 surveys conducted in 2006 CIO Insight has identified and projected 30 major IT trends for 2007. The result is categorized in Strategy, Management, Security and Technology and can be found here. For every category there is a short description and a slideshow available.

Good stuff ;-)

Amazing Zoomable 360 Degree Pictures

2006-09-29T00:15:00.000+02:00

More than 160 pictures shown on the world heritage tour. Zoom in and out and try the 360° tour. It's a very nice amusement. Check it out and go for a virtual visit to the Taj Mahal, Ground Zero, and many other places. Quick Time Player required!

ecenter solutions launches company blog

2006-09-19T20:36:00.000+02:00

Yes, we still have to launch our ecenter solutions company website...
...to bridge the waiting period pls. visit our brand new

ecenter solutions blog

Enjoy and reply to our posts, we'd like to interact with you.

Top 10 Project Pitfalls You Can Avoid

2006-09-05T21:35:00.000+02:00

[via Baseline]

A very nice list of project pitfalls has been compiled and published by the Baseline magazine. Every single point is underlined by real case (see links in parenthesis).

A project's scope is too monolithic and gargantuan
(McDonald's: McBusted)
Processes and technology aren't synched up
(How BearingPoint Lost Its Way)
Poor data quality leads to increased costs
(ChoicePoint: Blur)
A project is slowed down because it requires
approval across multiple divisions
(Nestlé Pieces Together Its Global Supply Chain)
Managers don't take advantage of information
systems to make quick business decisions
(Mattel: How Barbie Lost Her Groove)
Poor design results in data-entry errors
(Cincinnati Children's Hospital: shots in the Dark)
Aging, disparate systems can become impossible
to keep fully integrated
(The Armys Pay Misstep)
A system is rushed into production too quickly,
resulting in duplication of effort and bugs
(FBI: cold Case Files)
Access rights to existing systems are undocumented
(NASA Struggles to Fix Network Security Holes)
A system's interface is hard to use
(Bank of America Seeks Anti-Fraud Anodyne)

Find the full article including the links to the exmples here.

Back in Ten Minutes

2006-08-20T20:54:00.000+02:00

On our way down to our vacation in the southern part of Italy we had a stop over in Piedmont, one of the well known wine producing regions in the north of Italy. We enjoyed three days of relax, marvelous food and great wines beeing guests in a typical "agriturismo" (farm holidays) near Alba, in the province of Cuneo. I would like to recommend the agriturismo Cascina Baràc to everybody, who wants to have a "Ten Minutes" break, away from work, troubles and noise. Thanks to our host Albino for his friendliness and his excellent support in selecting good restaurants in the surroundings of the !

We had a fantastic meal at a restaurant in Treiso called La Ciau del Tornavento.

Don't miss that one!

What will be gooooogled next?

2006-07-21T21:29:00.000+02:00

[via pronetadvertising.com]

Google is augmenting its list of reserved domains. It currently contains more than 500 entries! Take a few minutes to go throught it. Besides the expected and really not expected name combinations including the company name, there are several names without any link to the company. We all may construct our own ideas on what the purpose behind the names could be...

A small selection of the most curious ones as "food for our thoughts":

allevil.org (ouch)
globalgamerscenter.net (!)
googleprint (!)
googleporn (ouch)
googlewifi.org (!)
googlegalactic.com (!)
googlesucks.org (ouch)
issamghanwi.com (?)
jennifer-wanderer.com (?)
keyholecorp.com (ouch)
mainechaos.com (?)
smartprogrammer.com (!)

...well, it could also be that they simply want to prevent others using these domains. ;-)

To license, not to license or how to license

2006-07-19T21:09:00.000+02:00

Yesterday Didier, CEO ecenter solutions, and I had a very nice and fruitful conversation with Stephen Walli, VP Open Source Development Strategy at Optaros.

ecenter solutions is the spin-off company of the Helvetia Patria Group, managed by Didier and myself.

In the past 6 years we have developed a flexible, J2EE based e-insurance platform, which today includes 26 productive applications in four countries, with another 14 applications currently planned or in the implementation phase. The productized version of this group wide e-insurance Software will be distributed together with suitable services to the European insurance market. Intensive contacts with first potential customers in Switzerland, Denmark and Russia are really promising. So we have to hurry up with the definition of our terms and conditions and license model. And here, believe it or not, the headache begins...

We are convinced users of (mature and field tested) Open Source Software (OSS) products. An important and continuously increasing part of our solution stack is based on Open Source Software. Therefore we will offer our own solution based on a brand new licensing model, which will be very close to the open source license models. The main principles of OSS communities will be adopted within our Open Customer Community. Thus our customers will benefit from the principles and characteristics that make OSS so attractive.

Stephen showed to be an excellent support and consultant for the definition of our unique licensing model. Therefore we agreed to collaborate with him and we are glad to benefit from his expertise.

Thank you, Stephen for your precious help. And thanks to Bruno von Rotz (Optaros VP, Country Manager, Switzerland) for having introduced Stephen in our license development process.

Have also a look at those interesting blogs regarding OSS, licensing models, patents, etc.

Dabbawala

2006-07-11T21:18:00.000+02:00

Where big oganizations can learn about excellence...

My new colleague, Roy Varghese, an Indian Software engineer has travelled around the world working for important Technology companies, such as HP and Oracle. Now I'm glad that he shares his expertise working in our very young company ecenter solutions in Zurich, Switzerland. Today Roy told me about dabbawala.

A dabbawala, (one who carries the box is a person in Mumbai (Bombay), India, whose job is to carry and deliver freshly made food from home in lunch boxes (dabba) to office workers. For efficiency of their supply chain they are awarded Six Sigma performance rating by Forbes.
More than 175,000-200,000 lunches get moved every day by an estimated 4,500-5,000 dabbawalas, all with an extremely small nominal fee and with utmost punctuality. According to a recent survey, there is only one mistake in every 6,000,000 deliveries.

The Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association is a streamlined 120-year-old organisation providing a quality door-to-door service to a large and loyal customer base. A twin process combines competitive collaboration between team members with a high level of technical efficiency in logistics management.

AMAZING :-)

1934 - 1938 - 1982 - 2006 !!!

2006-07-10T00:10:00.000+02:00

Well, even though I was born and grew up in Switzerland, my Italian blood boils for the Italian football team. After 1934, 1938, 1982 (which at least I remember), now the fourth world cup title for Italy. On Monday some teams of the Italian major league (Serie A), will be relegated to a minor league due to the bet scandal. Winning this cup is what the Italians need to overcome this shame and pain.

Italy has not been able to score a second goal in the first half, when they were playing better. I must admit that the French team did better in the second half and the final result could have been different. After having lost against France both the quarterfinal of the worldcup 1998 (penalty kicks!) and the final of the European cup 2000, this is a small "Italian revenge" - sorry France...

Forza Italia and vive la France!

My dear French colleagues. I know that Zidane had deserved a glorious finish of his career. It's a pity that he had to leave in the way he did. Zinedines expulsion was justified, no doubts about this. It should however not give the impression that the game was unfair. Both teams played a physically hard but always fair game. Zidane will remain amongst the big football players in the world and still is one of my favorite sportsmans. He played a great final up to his raptus.

Tourist Remover

2006-07-09T17:36:00.000+02:00

[via snapmania.com]

How many of your pictures and snapshots taken during your vacation and travels are disturbed by tourists covering the subjects that you wanted to immortalize?

The Swiss company Futurelab has solved this problem now. Their online program Tourist Remover is able to remove all disturbing picture parts. To do so you need to take a series of pictures (at least three) from the same angle but with some time delays in between (good results with 15 seconds delays). All objects and persons that have moved from one pic to the other will be removed. Amazing, isn't it? Find an example below:

Hello World

2006-07-07T17:45:00.000+02:00

Yes, I know I will not be remembered as an early adopter of the blog technology...

Nevertheless "something" tells me that it's time right now for me to start informing, commenting and documenting some of my personal and professional thoughts. It's time to "zone out" and share! So I hope that what I'm going to publish may be useful, funny, interesting, amusing, confusing, disturbing for some of you and I'm looking foreward to answer to your comments as well.

More to come soon...