SCHAUMBURG, Ill., July 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Insurance Auto Auctions, Inc.
(Nasdaq: IAAI), a leading provider of automotive salvage and claims processing
services in the United States, today announced the signing of an agreement
with SEI Information Technology, a Chicago-based IT solution provider and
professional services firm, to develop a new enterprise-wide application to
manage the salvage and auction process. The new Web-based system will support
and streamline vehicle registration and tracking, financial reporting,
transaction settlement, vehicle title transfer, and branch/headquarters
communications. It will speed all aspects of the Company's operations, support
growth and expansion plans, provide improved reliability and maintainability,
and, ultimately, deliver increased profits.
The primary goal of the new application is to deliver better, faster
service to IAA's Insurance company clients and vehicle buyers, provide
superior tools and applications to the branch operations (currently 58
locations nationwide), speed and streamline internal operations, improve IAA's
competitive standing within the industry, and position the Company for future
growth.
"The web-based system is important not only for how it supports IAA today,
but for how it will support the Company in the future," says Tom O'Brien,
President and Chief Executive Officer of IAA. "Not only does it give us the
tools we need to do our business better, but it provides the scalability and
maintainability to support our plans for growth and expansion."
"Several factors made SEI the right choice for us," says O'Brien. "SEI has
a strong track record for the timely delivery of custom business solutions to
its clients, and the team they put together for the project reflects that
experience. Likewise, SEI has relevant business expertise and technical
expertise-particularly with Microsoft-based technologies. Finally, SEI has the
unique capacity among mid-sized IT consultants to offer a truly complete
solution. Not only can they specify, design, and develop the system, but they
can deploy it to all of our sites, and train our user community."
"We are very pleased to be working with IAA on this mission-critical
effort," says SEI CEO and President John Jasper. "The project is the kind SEI
seeks out because of its intrinsic rewards, and the type that SEI also has
historically excelled at executing. It involves working in close partnership
with a forward-looking company that is a leader in its market and in search of
competitive advantage; it addresses core business needs, issues, and
challenges; and, it touches on all aspects of SEI's full-lifecycle suite of
services-from system conception and definition, to core system development, to
deployment, and, ultimately, to ongoing support."
IAA joins a distinguished list of SEI clients in a variety of sectors,
including McDonald's Corporation, Reuters, Inc., Sony, R. R. Donnelley, Chase,
Monsanto, Ameritech, Allstate Insurance, and others. SEI has previously
developed vehicle tracking and processing applications for such clients as
Budget Rent-a-Car.
About SEI Information Technology
SEI Information Technology is a full-service technology solution provider
for leading corporate clients nationwide. SEI addresses the diverse challenges
of companies in various sectors with a comprehensive suite of services-from
concept and strategy development to application development and integration,
to application deployment and training, to ongoing user and system support.
Founded in 1969, SEI is headquartered in Chicago, has offices in New York, Los
Angeles, Oak Brook, IL, Fargo, ND, Merrillville, IN, and Irvine, CA, and
employs some 350 technology and business consulting professionals. For more
information on SEI, call 888/734-7343, or log on to: http://www.sei-it.com .
About Insurance Auto Auctions, Inc.
Insurance Auto Auctions, Inc., founded in 1982, a leader in automotive
total loss and specialty salvage services in the United States, provides
insurance companies with cost-effective, turnkey solutions to process and sell
total-loss and recovered-theft vehicles. The Company currently has 58 sites
across the United States.
This press release contains forward-looking information that is subject to
certain risks, trends and uncertainties that could cause actual results to
differ materially from those projected, expressed, or implied by such forward-
looking information. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking
statements by our use of words such as "may, will, should, anticipates,
believes, expects, plans, future, intends, could, estimate, predict,
targeting, potential or contingent," the negative of these terms or other
similar expressions. The Company's actual results could differ materially from
those discussed or implied herein. Factors that could cause or contribute to
such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed in the
Company's annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31,
2000. Among these risks are: conducting business pursuant to the purchase
agreement method of sale; fluctuations in the actual cash value of salvage
vehicles; the ability to successfully renegotiate existing purchase agreement
contracts; the quality and quantity of inventory available from suppliers; the
ability to pass through increased towing costs; that vehicle processing time
will improve; that the Company's towing business will reach forecasted levels
of profitability; legislative or regulatory acts, changes in the market value
of salvage; competition; the availability of suitable acquisition candidates;
the ability to bring new facilities to expected earnings targets and the
dependence on key insurance company suppliers; and the level of energy and
labor costs.
For additional information regarding Insurance Auto Auctions free of
charge via fax, dial 1-800-PRO-INFO and use the Company's stock symbol,
"IAAI." Additional information about Insurance Auto Auctions, Inc. is
available on the World Wide Web at http://www.iaai.com .
SOURCE Insurance Auto Auctions, Inc.
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Related links:
http://www.iaai.com
CONTACT:
Scott Pettit, Chief Financial Officer of
Insurance Auto Auctions, +1-847-839-4040; General Inquiries, Jeff
Wilhoit, +1-312-640-6757, or Media Inquiries, Tim Grace,
+1-312-274-2240, both of The Financial Relations Board
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