Transcript

The genesis of Harvard Pilgrim today was a series of mergers, and it’s no secret that those mergers didn’t work particularly well.

In 1999 in the final days of the year we discovered that we were $227 million in debt and we’d just signed the outsourcing contract with Perot in October of that year.  And, you know, there were real questions in early January as we went into state receivership as to whether the company was gonna survive or not.

Ross Perot came up to Boston and told us this was a difficult time, and that we’d all get through it.  And we worked the health plans inventory down by redesigning the business process, by unifying the systems, by straightening out the architecture.

Months later the state receivers came in and said, “Your plan seems to be working.  We’re gonna let you go.”  And lo-and-behold the company did survive and come back to become number one.

When you think about the work that we’ve had to do through the years, consolidation of systems, changing a BPO shop, going from one of the worst, almost being shut down by the state, to the number one payor in the country for four years.

The real unique part about the relationship is it’s a relationship first.  You talk to a lot of people and their outsources, and they talk about the battles that they’ve been through.  And it turns out when you talk to them they’re talking about the battles they’ve been through with their outsourcer.

It’s a strategic partnership, it’s not a vendor relationship.

The battles that we talk about are battles that we’ve been in together, that we’ve won to help the company survive, to help recover from hardware crisis, to work through what a national relationship is with other strategic partners and make the appropriate adjustments.

We come into a contract together to go save $160 million, that relationship is really in a way to help Harvard Pilgrim make investments back into their infrastructure, to help them grow in the regional areas of their business.

It is very important that we be able to say to our constituents and our accounts.  We are delivering value to you by investing our dollars in medical coverage for your employees, or for you as an individual and we are minimizing our administrative expenses.

This evolutionary relationship has become known as one of the best transformation stories in healthcare.  In 2008, Harvard Pilgrim and Perot Systems were recognized by Forbes and Everest Group with the Outstanding Partnership of the Year award.

I think the secret of Harvard Pilgrim’s long-term success with Perot has been something that Ross Perot actually said to me one of the first times I ever met him which was, “You know, Charlie, there’s no I in TEAM, it’s just T-E-A-M.  We are all one team.” 

And I say that with a little bit of the smirk on my face, but the truth of the matter is that’s the culture that Perot brings to this relationship.  We think that’s the culture that we bring to this relationship.  People just want to solve problems and get the job done, and I think that’s had a lot to do with it.

And there is no better partner, in my opinion, than Perot Systems.