Research & Insight

Monthly archives: November, 2000

Curing Health Plan Ills

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

Health plans can get very, very sick if they continually hear the check’s in the mail. Too many experience financial difficulties because they don’t receive timely payments from employers and members. Outsourcing their back office processes is one way they can get paid on time, says Brenda Smoker, vice president of customer support service for Synertech, a health care outsourcing provider in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Watertight Plan

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Plainfield’s Town Council decided to use Competitive Government Strategies, Inc. as its consultant for the procurement process. They had seen its president’s success when he had implemented in earlier years the privatization of the operation and maintenance of the Indianapolis sewer utility and the utility billings. Plainfield wanted to take a similar approach…

Scaling the Hurdle of Trust

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Been there, done that is not a trite phrase to Skip Stitt, founder and president of Competitive Government Strategies, Inc. His consulting firm assists cities, counties, states and private-sector not-for-profit organizations on outsourcing and privatization. From experience, he knows it’s vital that government entities base their strategic decisions on best practices, for he was once a buyer. As chief operating officer and senior deputy mayor for the City of Indianapoli…

The Numbers On The Blackboard Add Up For ASPs

Raymond Angus

Research on the Deployment/Hosting and Integration of Business Critical Information Systems through Applications Service Providers (ASPs) by Professor Wendy Currie has borne out well the value of numbers. The focus of her study covers essentially Europe and the famed Silicon Valley in the U.S., but soon the research will expand into Australia. She defines her work as an overall view of the development of the ASP industry…

An Outsourcing Relationship In Motion

Raymond Angus

In the everyday world of Ecommerce, selective awareness can be a disconcerting challenge to businesses presenting themselves, or their wares, via a website on the Internet. BUT…the truth of it is, this affords any company the opportunity to distance itself from the legions of other sites on the Internet! This is the belief of Jon Pierre Francia, CEO of Mov’n Pictures, Inc. based in Pleasant Grove, Utah. His company (MPI) specializes in animation, film and video for a client list that includes some of the largest advertising agencies in the world…

What Web (Sites) We Weave

Raymond Angus

Innovation, creativity and individualism are the siren songs of this strapping birth child of the marketplace, appropriately dubbed ecommerce. Capturing attention on the Internet, and translating that curiosity into positive action, is the role played by a new breed of creative, outsourcing professionals; they are the web site developers. The manner in which a company presents itself on the World Wide Web can be a make or break decision. According to Mike McFarlane of Kiora, it’s not a decision that should be made hastily. He adds, it can lead the unwary into uncharted waters with a lot of hidden rocks! Professional web design help should be sought.

Invasion of Privacy

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

The commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the president of the union representing IRS employees (NTEU) are on record as being opposed to outsourcing. Even Malcolm S. Forbes in the October 1995 edition of his magazine stated, This idea is a bad one. Sure, enforcers outside the federal government might be more ‘efficient’ and cheaper, but any such savings are not worth the price of this gross invasion of privacy. Negative Trust Flow Beliefs such as these gave birth to a nationwide study to determine if the public perceives a difference in trust where the collection of taxes is handled by a U.S. government official versus outsourcing the process to a private collector.

A Ship Shape Outsourcing Relationship

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

Long before the Internet, the travel industry has been in the forefront of computer automation. As far back as the 1970s, airlines that couldn’t harness technology effectively crashed and burned. (Pan Am and Eastern, for example.) But because of the complex nature of booking ocean liners, cruising has been the last bastion for manual bookings, according to David Anderson, vice president of technology for GoCruiseDirect.com, a Miami, Florida company.

Giving IT Capabilities Some Real Structure

Steve Gust

As a vendor, (i)Structure is gaining some real momentum in the information technology field. Lots of companies are starting to put faith, and more importantly contracts with the business, a subsidiary of Level 3 communication. Its services are being used by the Bradford Exchange, Vlassic Foods Int. and most recently Corporate Express Inc., a world office supplier with 400 facilities and 15,000 employees…….(outsourcing)

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