Farmers Insurance Group Selects and Implements Planview for Project Management

Farmers achieves improved project execution and avoids unnecessary costs with Planview

AUSTIN, Texas — June 3, 2003 — Planview, Inc., the world leader in integrated portfolio, resource and project management software and processes, has been selected and implemented to provide comprehensive project management software for Farmers Insurance Group, the nation's third-largest consumer insurance carrier. All of Farmers' Information Technology units are using Planview for project planning and time tracking. This allows for active project management on traditional and eBusiness projects as well as structuring the time capture and reporting of the "light-on" organization. The ability to capture where time is being spent, at an enterprise level, has made the justification of resource allocation much simpler at budgeting time.

"Farmers product selection team looked at many other products and vendors, and Planview came out ahead in terms of features, functions and cost," said Claude Trincale, manager of Farmers' Program Management Office. "Planview provides the tools that our project managers and directors need to be able to understand and plan projects. This is also an opportunity for our organization to examine our portfolio of projects and determine if effort and cost are being managed properly," Trincale said. Planview will also help Farmers standardize its project models. "With v7.2 ability to build project models, our project managers will be able to select pre-determined models, customize them, set up projects correctly the first time thereby saving significant time and effort. This all leads to enabling consistency across the IT organization," he said.

This efficiency helps Farmers maintain its competitive advantage in an increasingly crowded market of insurance providers. "Planview improves how we manage project effort and duration, which translates into quality products (application, infrastructure, release etc) developed in a systematic manner. Having access to actual effort and baselines allows the project managers to analyze the project as it progresses, manage scope changes and make adjustments to resources and schedule as needed. This is critical in a world where regulatory changes are the norm, not the exception. The project teams provide our business units with applications and infrastructure that helps Farmers provide better service to the consumers as well as comply with regulations."

The addition of Farmers to Planview's growing list of customers is a significant win for the company, according to Planview CEO Pat Durbin. "Working with the nation's third-largest consumer insurance carrier is exciting for us as a company," Durbin said. "This is a strong statement of our experience and expertise in servicing major companies in the insurance and financial services industries." Farmers has deployed over 1,400 Planview users. "We're looking forward to the opportunity to grow our relationship with Farmers Insurance Group into other business units," Durbin added.

Currently, Farmers is using Planview to plan projects, manage ongoing maintenance work, and track the time of its employees and contractors. Since Planview 7.2 allows guest users, external vendors working on projects with Farmers, and on the Farmers' intranet, will be able to view project plans, artifacts and communicate with the project team at large. This is accomplished by the project team and external consultants collaborating via Planview's real-time Project Portals. Farmers also uses Planview to track the time of its contractors, which means project managers are always aware of project progress by looking at Planview. A comprehensive view of all the resources is available for individual projects and a resource view showing all projects, activities and task that the resource is assigned to is also available, In addition, Farmers has invested in Planview's Scoreboard, a "business intelligence" module that lets users easily create ad hoc reports using intuitive drag-and-drop interfaces to address its portfolio management needs.

About Planview

Planview Web Software is unique in that it allows an organization to manage its work based on the availability and skills of its people, both present and projected, including contractors and other outsourced staff. Founded in 1989, Planview is the world leader in integrated portfolio, resource and project management software and processes to Global 3000 organizations. Allianz, Baltimore Life, State of Connecticut DOIT, National City Insurance, Pfizer, Reuters, Volkswagen America, Zurich North America, and others make up the over 350 clients who have licensed more than 225,000 copies of Planview software. The company has headquarters in Austin, Texas, with field offices across the US, in Germany, the UK, Italy, Benelux and France. Planview is privately held, financially conservative, and has enjoyed ten straight years of profitability and increasing revenue. For more information, contact Planview at www.Planview.com.

About Farmers Insurance Group

Farmers Insurance Group of Companies is the nation's third-largest Personal Lines Property & Casualty insurance group. Headquartered in Los Angeles and doing business in 41 states, the insurers comprising the Farmers Insurance Group of Companies provide home, auto, business, life insurance and financial services to more than 10 million households through 17,000 exclusive and independent agents and district managers. For more information, contact Farmers at www.farmers.com.

Planview is a registered trademark of Planview, Inc. Farmers Insurance Group of Companies is a registered trademark of Farmers. All other product and company names may or may not be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.