Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina has selected the Callidus Monaco Suite to manage its sales performance and compensation programs, the San Jose, Calif.-based software vendor announced recently. Under the enterprise software-as-a-service agreement, the health plan will use Monaco for its 4,000 brokers.
"We continue to see strong momentum in all our lines of business," said Jeff Saling, senior vice president of global sales at Callidus. "The adoption of Callidus Software's SaaS solutions at the large enterprise level shows that the on-demand revolution is on fire and no longer a mid-market phenomenon."
Callidus officials defined the on-demand revolution as "the idea that more companies prefer using hosted on-demand SaaS services over the traditional legacy solutions" and that customers want to use these services because they are "typically fast, cut costs, deliver quick time to value and are easy to use."
A BCBSNC spokesperson said it is still too early in the deployment to offer any details about anticipated outcomes from the new technology.
From an industry perspective, the increasing number of automated sales and compensation programs signal a shift in focus toward the consumer sector, said Janice Young, program manager for healthcare payer research at Framingham, Mass.-based IDC Health Insights.
"Although incentive programs for brokers are nothing new in the insurance industry, this represents an evolution toward individual coverage," she said. "Health plans are investing more in improving, automating and providing more customization for sales and quote card tools. It is a very competitive marketplace and getting more so all the time."
Because Callidus hosts the on-demand delivery system, it is more cost effective for BCBSNC because the company does not have to pay maintenance or hosting costs, said Saling.
"In our experience, customers can gain full return on investment within the first year of implementation," he said. "From an operations standpoint, data processing time will immediately be reduced substantially. Once the implementation is completed, the business processes take a fraction of the time helping our customers reclaim precious selling time."