Project Turnaround - Case Study 2:

The Client Need: Integrating the infrastructure for separate health insurance companies into a single entity

Divisions of five companies that had been handling processing for a federal government contractor were merged to form a single entity. Each of those divisions had its own infrastructure for processing, as well as its own applications that were integrated with those of the legacy parent companies, making it impossible to share the data and operations that would allow the merger to attain the desired economies.

An internal team was given the assignment to decouple all five divisions' systems from the legacy parent companies and integrate them into a single, consistent environment. Those systems included hardware and other technology, applications, extensive data, security components, and all of the associated infrastructure. Understandably, the effort was a top-three strategic project for the company, and success was critical to continued operation.

After nearly six months, management recognized that the project was not progressing at a rate that would allow for completion in the desired timeframe. They brought is in to restructure, reorganize, and restart the effort, with a goal of completion in 15 months. Almost immediately, changing priorities within the company trimmed 90 days from that timeline.

Our overall objective was to first create a separate and secure technical environment housing the five divisions, so they could be separated from the private side of the business. That environment would protect personal health and other personally identifiable information. Then, we had to develop the technology to integrate the operations of the divisions, providing streamlined functionality and greater efficiency for the employees who depended upon the system.

We developed a separate technical environment around a secure network that was isolated from the legacy parents and that was protected by security. Next, we created a Windows domain to which we migrated (and converted) all of the existing data, servers, workstations, users, and applications. Supporting this integration also involved upgrading and converted extensive telephony so that call centers would be better able to shift workload to match call volume. To ensure that the new environment was secure, we performed a network access recertification for all of the existing sites.

From the beginning of our involvement to delivery of a fully integrated, functional system took just 12 months - so we were able to guide all involved to a successful completion in the required timeframe. That accomplishment is even more significant when you consider that it required coordinating staff and activities at all five companies and their geographically widespread facilities, as well as at their legacy parents, IT vendors, telephone and telecom vendors, and other external team members. We took the client's vision of "one, company, one team" and turned it into a practical reality.