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Situation
The Blue Shield of California Commercial Business Unit Collateral Team manages the creation, production, and distribution of more than 2,000 pieces of collateral marketing materials for the company's key audiences, which include: brokers, employers and members.
These collateral pieces range in size from single-page flyers to 90-page booklets; which can have as many as 40 stakeholders responsible for reviewing these documents numerous times during the company's bi-annual publishing cycles. The Collateral Department, which originally consisted of three (3) full-time employees and one consultant, found themselves without a manager due to a maternity leave. Compounding this particular scenario was the fact that the department had fewer project management resources to handle the writing, editing, tracking, proofreading, inventory management, budget management, and distribution of these critical pieces.
Excel in Marketing, LLC, Solution
In winter of 2003, Blue Shield contracted with Excel in Marketing for a six-month period to provide a manager for the team, as well as a project manager. The manager supervised this team through one of its most grueling production cycles to date, while also providing project management leadership in a company-wide, cross-functional initiative. This initiative called for reducing the pieces in member kits and increasing the usability of the kits. It also required new production technology to streamline manual processes and convert much of the inventory to Print On Demand (POD), bound booklets, which are customized and relevant to the user. It required intensive project management skills, such as: the collection of business requirements from many areas of the company, documenting workflow, coordinating and running meetings, problem-solving, posting reports, communicating throughout the company, and working with external partners to optimize the process and ensure benefits realization.
Outcome
Excel in Marketing partnered with Blue Shield through a critical business cycle to ensure that the pieces were on the market for its Sales Department to utilize in the launch of new and renewing products. Excel in Marketing helped to identify key issues in operational processes and workflow, and provided cost-effective solutions for short-term and long-term implementation. Excel in Marketing conducted many outreach efforts to heighten the knowledge of the Collateral team, and worked with them to develop sound communication processes and tools. The team at Excel in Marketing seamlessly blended into the organization and adopted Blue Shield's practices to better assimilate into the existing culture, while providing thought leadership in project management, direct marketing, and operations processes. |
