Health insurance industry traditionally has been 5 years behind in technology from industries like banking and I could see it in the processes, work culture etc. In banking everything was ONLINE whrere as in health care majority of processes were batch barring few exceptions. WOW!!!!! A super oppotunity to change and challenge the status quo was on cards. My task at BTeB involved streamlining the ASO/Shared advantage line of business which was on the radar of our COO.( Google is an ASO Client :-)) Sudddenly all the business cases of success/faliures that I did in my Tech Management class were echoing all over. Our unit head is one dynamic guy who is bent upon changing the way people percieve technology in the company. He wants technology to be the driver of the business and has support from the higher ups. Was wonderful working with him.
So one course that I thought will not be used in my business transformation internship was Operations Management. How can Op. Mgmnt. be of any use here. Well I was completely baffled by the excessive use of the principles of Operations I had to use. Prof woodruff's practical exercises in the class were the basis of the models my team proposed. A healthy mix of courses helped.
Next task that i was entrusted upon was to help in evaluating a proposal from one of the vendors. From the very begining, we knew that the project will ahve negative NPV and professor barber reminding us of implications beyond numbers flashed. We had to delve in to the organization, get numbers from various departments, build NPV models , argue on hurdle rates, bring forward strategic significance and finally present the findings to the managment. It was like revisiting what I had done over the past one year at school. For sure my confidence in GSM curriculum was reinforced.
