BUNCH
Business to Business Integration Strategy: A Microsoft® BizTalk Server Customer
Solution Case Study
Bunch was founded by Cynthia Bunch in 1988 with the goal of helping people with work-related
injuries. After obtaining a few accounts, the company grew from her home to an office
building, where several more clients joined each year. Bunch is now a nationally
recognized partner in the risk management industry and their clientele are household
names. Bunch now has several offices in different states so they can reach farther
each day to touch more lives.
“Microsoft® BizTalk allowed Bunch to trade data with internal and external
parties faster, and for less money.”
– Rich McCraw, Innovative Architects
“Prior to Bunch implementing the BizTalk technology, adding new partners to
trade information with required custom development each time. Post-integration,
they'll see a significant increase in organizational efficiencies, and a reduction
in maintenance costs.”
– Ryan Zaffer, Innovative Architects
Overview
- County or Region: United States
- Industry: Medical
- Customer Profile:
Bunch is a care management company that handles worker’s compensation claims
for third party administrators. Bunch’s licensed nurses proactively manage
and customize the medical care process. By optimizing the recovery process, employers
save millions of dollars from reduced indemnity payments, reduced litigation and
improved morale.
- Business Situation:
With their growth in clientele, Bunch sought to improve their organization to stay
on top. They needed to update all external interfaces, lower the cost and lead time
for on-boarding new external partners and increase the quality and accuracy of data
while easing the management of their partner interaces.
- Solution:
Innovative Architects developed a business to business integration strategy using
Microsoft BizTalk technology. The new system reduced the time it took to onboard
a new external partner and lowered cost.
- Benefits:
• Reduced time and effort to onboard new partners
• Increased cost savings as new partners are brought onboard
• Lower maintenance costs
• Eliminated organizational inefficiencies
• A process that can be easily duplicated with additional formats and protocols
• Provides a single solution for business process management
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Case Study
- Situation
Bunch had a strong year in 2008 adding several new trading partners, and expanding
their care management business. As always, with growth comes new and unique challenges
that Bunch was ready to take on to ensure organizational success.
Some of the challenges that Bunch faced were:
• A need to update all external interfaces due to a significant
upgrade to their back-end systems
• A need to lower the cost and lead time for on-boarding new external
partners
•A need to increase the quality and accuracy of data, while easing
the management of their partner interfaces
Whenever changes were made to the back-end system, Bunch would have to update interfaces
to all the individual clients. This made maintaining their interfaces tedious, time-consuming
and an expense to the organization. Adding new clients was an even bigger obstacle
often taking weeks to set-up. Every partner that Bunch wanted to trade information
with was a custom application requiring custom development.
- Solution
Bunch, along with the expertise of the Innovative Architects team and Microsoft
BizTalk technology, developed a business to business integration strategy that allowed
Bunch to easily trade data (medical invoices, nurses' notes, and check images) with
their vendors. The new system reduced the time it took to onboard a new external
partner, while lowering cost. By utilizing BizTalk Server, Bunch developed a process
that maximized code reuse and gives Bunch the ability to interface with their external
partners over a wide variety of protocols and transfer. This flexibility gives Bunch
the ablilty to maximize the benefit they gain from common clearinghouses. while
eliminating the cost of the "middle man" and interfacing directly with their clients
in the future.
- Benefits
• Reduced time and effort to onboard new partners
• Increased cost savings as new partners are brought onboard
• Lower maintenance costs
• Eliminated organizational inefficiencies
• A process that can be easily duplicated with additional formats and protocols
• Provides a single solution for business process management
- Software and Services
• Microsoft Office
• Microsoft Windows Server
• Microsoft SQL Server
• Microsoft BizTalk Server
• Microsoft Visual Studio
• Microsoft .Net Framework
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