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Post Acquisition Operations Integration

Client Situation: When our client was acquired by an industry leader, part of the integration plan called for the parent company to administer more insurance-funded contracts for our client. In addition, the parent company was planned for transfer–tripling the number of contracts to be processed and serviced. To scale up quickly to handle this increased volume, Endeavor Management was brought in to (1) assess the operations, (2) identify high-potential improvement areas and (3) offer an approach for very quick scalability.

Endeavor Management Solution: Given the short time frame for improvement, Endeavor Management used a 2-day assessment and 3-day "jump start" framework for work that included:

• On-site current process analysis and assessment, some of it independent of the client work team
• Management team just-in-time training and support in defining goals and challenges and creating meaningful measurement of performance and the means to measure them)
• Work team just-in-time training on process mapping and how to assess resource requirements for key steps in the current processes
• Collecting, challenging, documenting and scoping good ideas and problem/opportunity areas
• Charter a work team of representatives from customer operations plus a few reps from the front end and back end of the workflow
• Map the current process in sufficient detail to begin to identify implementable quick fixes plus longer-term improvements for handling increased volumes
• Charter an action implementation team responsible, under the guidance and approval of project leaders and a steering committee to plan and implement their quick fix mini-projects
• Support electronically the process improvement team project leaders as they developed and oversaw quick fix action plans that include testing, tweaking, implementation and impact analysis of their approved mini-projects

Results and Benefits: The team set some impressive stretch goals to meet, such as…

• 100% 24-hour turnaround of clean apps…at all volumes
• 100% meeting commission cut off times…at all volumes
• Same day claim processing (non-reviewable)
• Clear backlog (approximately 4-6 weeks of backlog in various teams; one team cleared theirs in one week)

The team calculated that every minute reduced from processing contracts was equivalent to 1 FTE; the 10 mini-projects will produce savings of several minutes at a minimum. At the end of the 3-day jump start, the team hosted an Open House for all managers and employees to showcase the map of the current process and the first collection of Quick Fix and Longer-term projects. Guests were all encouraged to add good ideas of their own (and did). Over 50 good ideas for improvement were suggested. These were categorized and prioritized to produce a starting list of 10 mini-projects that the team is tasked with testing, measuring and implementing. The organization was energized and believes in their capabilities to make improvement happen.