Insigma: Give Full Play to Global Collaborative Service Advantage and Achieve Success with a Major Order Related to the U.S. Health Care Reform

In November 2012, Barack Obama was re-elected as President of the United States for a second term, which means the continuation of the health care reform in the U.S. By virtue of its prowess, Insigma has already taken its share in the profits relating to the health care reform.


In 2010, Insigma Technology (Insigma) undertook the software outsourcing project, worth USD 21.4 million, to develop a core IT system for Security Health Plan (SHP), a health insurance company owned by Marshfield Clinic which is one of the biggest private health care systems in U.S. The tasks included system integration, R&D, implementation, and management in compliance with the new healthcare reform. The project was successfully put into operation in September 2012. After a month of trial operation, it passed the rigorous Customer Acceptance by virtue of its powerful yet stable performance and convenient personalized customer experience.


It is worth mentioning that Insigma has become the first and only service outsourcing provider in China which has undertaken and completed a global large-scale software integration project in the U.S.

Won the bidding against American and Indian software enterprises


Since its inception, it has always been the goal for Insigma to become a global leader in IT collaborative services. In 2010, Insigma US was awarded the SHP project, signaling a major breakthrough for Insigma's years of efforts to forge an overseas marketing and project handover team in order to tap into the U.S. software outsourcing market with its own team.


The needs of system upgrades at various medical insurance organizations followed on the heels of the health care reform proposal announced by the U.S. President Barack Obama. In Wisconsin, in view of the existing system's insufficiency to deal with a huge amount of data and information processing, SHP decided to build a new system integrating payment and settlement for medical insurance; management relating to hospitals, doctors, insured companies and their members; commercial insurance organization cooperation and management; and statistical analysis etc. Furthermore, the new system took into consideration the connection and smooth transition from the existing system.


In the past, contracts for projects of this nature had been awarded to American enterprises or Indian enterprises. Service outsourcing providers around the world had set their sights on this major order. Insigma had to compete for this contract in the face of world-renowned outsourcing enterprises, including the top three enterprises in India, one of the top three American consulting and IT services providers which had previously undertaken SHP projects and had rich specialized experience and wide network relations, and professional system software providers specialized in the medical industry etc. Prior to this, no precedent existed for Chinese outsourcing providers to independently complete the project of this scale.


Insigma is renowned for its professional management of large-scale, multi-system implementation plan in the industry. Well prepared, Insigma formulated the competitive strategy of taking advantage of local human resources and giving full play to its rich industry and project implementation experience. Moreover, Insigma assessed the future business process for SHP and formulated a well thought out implementation roadmap, with the purpose of curtailing project costs and pro-actively implementing risk management for project implementation without incurring extra administrative expenses.


SHP required flexibility on the part of its system integration partner to cope with variant requirements and changes in the process of project implementation, and sound communication skills to promptly provide feedback to project stakeholders, so as to ensure the integrity of project knowledge transfer. Overall, a key factor to the success of this project was for the two parties to assume joint responsibility by means of transparent management, resources sharing and joint management strategies.


Insigma ultimately won the bidding by dint of its own advantages in the fierce competition.


"Insigma has amassed over 10 years' experience in the global outsourcing industry. The SHP project involves data exchange, analysis and management between the two major industries, i.e. health care and medical insurance, where Insigma already has rich industry experience and is able to effectively combine knowledge. Compared to American enterprises, Insigma is at an advantage in terms of costs. Compared to Indian enterprises, Insigma's advantage lies in its transparent communications and we are pro-active in contacting with our clients to meet their various needs," analyzed Mr. Mingbo Zhong, executive president of Insigma and president of Outsourcing Services Group (OSG).

Quick integration of global resources and the first general contract for a large system integration project in the U.S.


In the past, Chinese service outsourcing providers usually adopted the "staff dispatch" or subcontract method when undertaking large oversea projects. The term "staff dispatch" means dispatching Chinese technical staffs to foreign countries for work under the other party's supervision. The term "subcontract" means the other party subcontracts the low-end part of a large project to the Chinese party. The "general contract" for this system integration project means Insigma is in charge of the whole process, ranging from consultancy, design, R&D, handover to operations and maintenance.


Well prepared with an Onshore/Offshore model to enter this kind of major contracts, Insigma immediately integrated its resources of experts and development teams in such vertical areas as medical care, finance and IT to form a strong technical and consultative group. The development, integration, delivery and dry run of the project were successfully completed within only 2 years.


Insigma has established the onshore/offshore model. The Insigma US team was at the forefront maintaining direct contact with SHP's senior management, project leaders, and its team members. The US team focused on customer relations, business opportunities, business and IT solutions, quality project handover and budget planning. The Shanghai team took responsibilities of project management, business requirements, technology issues, and test design principles in its role as the link between the onshore team and offshore teams. The Beijing team was in charge of technical details and delivery, as well as test design, encoding and implantation.


Insigma not only completed the project with high quality and efficiency but also saved SHP 50% on cost and time, as compared to similar projects around the world. The SHP management team highly acclaimed Insigma's commitment, the courage of suiting actions to words and positive spirits, as well as its perseverance and the esprit de corps of preparing to face new challenges.


The successful delivery of the SHP project is made possible by taking full advantage of global delivery platform for Insigma's collaborative services. Thus, Insigma has become the first and the only service outsourcing provider in China which has undertaken and completed a global large-scale software integration project in the U.S.  More importantly, the SHP project is of great significance for its demonstration effect, and Insigma has also amassed rich experience in the general contract field, and cultivated excellent teams and talents at various fields. Looking ahead, Insigma aims to make new breakthrough in the high-end and general contract sector in the three major markets in the U.S., Japan, and China.

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