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SMR, Inc. Computer Technology Remediation Assignments

Representative Assignments- Technology Dispute Remediation

Software from Hell

The Software Package from Hell

Situation

Our client was a large insurance agency (MGA) that used a mainframe software package to administer the policies it sold. Due to several factors the software was malfunctioning in a very serious way. It was damaging master policy and billing records without any indications of error. The affect of this on the MGA's operations was severe. The MGA's CFO had been "beating" on the software vendor for months, to no avail, before we were hired. The software vendor denied fault and attributed the problems to user error. The president of the software company had a long list of complaints about the MGA and was ready to "walk away". The next step would have been a flurry of litigation.

Actions Taken

SMR technical specialists analyzed the problems and isolated the causes, which were predominantly related to bad custom modifications to the software by the vendor. A SMR partner analyzed the license and support agreements to determine the rights and obligations of both parties. The SMR partner discovered wording in the software license agreement that substantially strengthened the client's negotiation position and gave the vendor good reasons to resolve the dispute. After developing a remediation and negotiation plan and obtaining the client's approval, several negotiations were held with the vendor's president.

Results Obtained

The software license and support agreement were restructured to incorporate a recovery plan and to support the MGA's DP staff to become self sufficient on the system.. SMR monitored the recovery and the system was stabilized. As a footnote to this story, 18 months later a major insurance company bought the software vendor and turned them into an in-house support organization. The self sufficiency obtained for the MGA's DP staff enabled them to continue to run the software successfully.

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