CASE STUDIES
Allfirst Bank |
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| In a period of two years, 18 innovative components were delivered offering competitive advantage to Allfirst’s Online Retail Banking Operations. One of the solutions resulted in the Help Desk being flooded with “we love it” phone calls, something unheard of in their environment. One example we’re particularly proud of utilized best-of-breed, simple technologies. Software Consortium worked with Allfirst from concept to implementation to create a groundbreaking Secure File Transfer solution--the first offering of its kind in the marketplace. The custom solution was produced for under $100,000, saving Allfirst $2.5 million over a planned investment in a packaged solution. The just the right technology approach produced substantial savings for the client by reusing components from their legacy system. Allfirst’s Internet Home Banking enhancements reduced processing time by 75% and Allfirst realized a huge ROI in customer response, resulting in first-time recognition in the Gomez Rankings for excellence in online customer experience. |
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CareFirst |
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| Software Consortium is a preferred vendor of CareFirst. CareFirst needed specialized expertise to build and deploy its first Internet sales application, E-Sales, a first for any Blue Cross/Blue Shield Plan in the United States. The solution was awarded “Best of Blues” over 150 competitors and was a finalist for Software Consortium in IBM's national “Beacon Awards”. Software Consortium delivered the solution in 120 days, at an extremely low cost of development for a Java-based application. CareFirst recouped cost of development in 30 days through increased revenue and significantly reduced operating costs. <b>Knowledge sharing</b> ensured CareFirst’s IT department could maintain the application and reuse components, such as Smart Forms. Software Consortium has continued to partner with high impact, such as assembling a seven-member team of high-level Java programmers in less than 24 hours and delivering CareFirst's Delegated Billing application in less than eight weeks, meeting a deadline that seemed impossible. |
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Erickson Retirement Communitie |
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| Erickson needed to replace an unstable legacy system for its Residential Unit Customization process which could fulfill the needs of prospects, residents, and employees across the entire enterprise of campuses and serve the needs of an estimated 10,000 new customers in the next five years. Erickson was accustomed to using COTS solutions, which are expensive and customers often pay for 80% of costs for features they do not need. Software Consortium provided a business capability that Erickson simply did not have in custom application development. Software Consortium recommended a custom solution and reduced project development risks by managing Erickson through a proven Best Practices Software Development Framework. The new Residential Unit Customization capability realized a huge ROI by increasing revenue and reducing administrative costs. By establishing a set of principles, models, disciplines and proven practices, the team achieved repeatable success in more than a dozen annual “point solution” software development projects that followed. Through Software Consortium’s knowledge transfer and mentoring services, the Erickson team now successfully supports the deployed systems. |
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eSylvan |
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| In 2000, Sylvan Learning Systems, a leading provider of education services worldwide, launched eSylvan, an online provider of tutoring services. As a result of their mutual success in working together, Software Consortium was chosen as eSylvan’s exclusive partner for developing new applications. eSylvan’s challenge was to develop a best-of-breed e-Learning Solution. Sylvan chose Software Consortium to lead the integration effort for this mission-critical solution. Working in close collaboration with eSylvan’s development team, Software Consortium’s team of system architects, project managers and developers used the Partner to Win model to listen, analyze and marshal eSylvan’s ideas into a cohesive plan, then executed that plan with proven development techniques and best practices. The resulting solution, the Learning Environment, is a low-cost, interactive, highly scalable collaborative e-Learning Solution that is capable of supporting thousands of students and teachers. Software Consortium developed the user screens as well as server-side software for the application, which included developing the system requirements, writing the code, integration and deployment. The solution was easy to use and maintain, using the just the right technology approach, it integrated the latest Java-based technologies with existing technology to keep the total cost of development to a minimum. The entire project was completed in four months and provided a quick return on investment while establishing eSylvan as the leader in e-Learning Systems. Software Consortium continues to work with eSylvan, now four years later, taking e-Learning systems to the next level of competitiveness in the marketplace. |
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F&G Life |
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| Using just the right technology, Software Consortium developed an e-commerce solution for F&G Life’s catalogue of approximately 1000 products, delivering on the president’s vision of an easy means to connect with their 53,000 agents. After failed attempts to produce the solution on their own, F&G Life contracted with Software Consortium to make the vision real. Software Consortium’s solution included a dynamic content administration engine, allowing business owner customers to manage their data on the web, and an integrated workflow engine for content editing, approval, and production. The system was set up to send daily email reports to the 15,000 agents that signed up for the system, thereby reducing phone calls and giving agent's a snapshot of their policies they need to manage. Administrators for the site were non-technical, so the application process was simplified for customer ease. Product orders transfer to an order fulfillment company via XML stream over the Internet and reports are sent back the same way. F&G Life realized a savings of $2 million dollars in two areas alone: processing requests for marketing material and providing downloads of illustration software, making the solution pay for itself in a matter of months. The VP of Marketing for F&G commented repeatedly to the our Managing Partner on the leadership difference Software Consortium made in their ability to deliver on their promises to field agents. |
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John Hopkins Hospital |
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| Highly leveraged decision-making was needed on a mission critical application, Electronic Patient Records. Industry research cites a 64:1 payback on top-level project management decisions. Software Consortium provided expert advice, facilitated Joint Application Development (JAD) sessions with the Hopkins team, delivered a high-level project plan for the Hopkins team to implement and followed up with a design review. This approach dramatically shortened the project timeline, ensured buy-in by key decision makers, and assured that recommendations met new scalability demands for the critical system. Johns Hopkins was so impressed, they called Software Consortium to implement the plan and teach their team through Software Consortium’s knowledge sharing process. |
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MedStar Health |
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| MedStar wanted to roll out a Mobile Physician Referral System application that its large network of physicians could use immediately. Software Consortium facilitated a Joint Application Development (JAD) session and managed the project to deliver a working Palm Pilot application in less than a month--on time and on budget. Software Consortium also provided security audit to secure Web server and ensured HIPAA privacy guidelines were met, along with help on several other key strategic projects. |
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Performax |
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| The desire to focus on their core strategies and partner with a technology firm who could guarantee success led the Performax CEO and CFO to outsource all of their application development to Software Consortium. The flexibility of the <b>Partner to Win</b> model assured success in every project by bringing exactly the services and expertise needed throughout the client's changing business goals and strategies. Projects over the years have included MyPerformax.com, a sophisticated web portal for clients and end users, a robust Online Enrollment application, and an Electronic Data Exchange system, which transfers sensitive healthcare data between Performax's various business partners—payers, providers, and regulatory agencies. As a result of the partnership, Performax realized significantly greater business returns from its technology investments. As completed projects automated the business, manual errors were eliminated, staff resources were decreased, services were delivered to customers in a fraction of the time, and databases of information were generated to make better management decisions. High quality, <b>just the right technology</b> implementations led to lower long-term maintenance costs. The CEO still compliments Software Consortium on our ability to <b>Partner to Win</b>, as Performax continues to expand and merge other businesses into their business. |
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Sylvan Prometric |
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| Software Consortium developed a prototype application that proved the concept of an online proctor-less testing environment for Sylvan Prometric’s full-time and working adult students around the world. Using the just the right technology approach, Software Consortium integrated 12 technologies to provide a solution that allows testing candidates to remotely register for and take exams online in one location while a proctor residing in a geographically-distant location validates the candidate’s identity and supervises the exam. The project met the following key requirements: validation of business concept; working prototype for business conference developed in less than four weeks; automated full motion video capture of the candidate taking the exam to support test security requirements; online candidate registration and internet delivery of exams; storage and playback of exam videos; real time chat capability to support required communications between candidate and proctor; real time “peek” capability that allows proctor to view candidate while taking the exam. Software Consortium’s Partner to Win model provided the concentrated expertise that Sylvan Prometric needed to implement a first-to-market capability within budget, within a very short time period and with all the required features. |
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Tissue Banks International |
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| TBI needed to automate their core business functions. The major effort was focused on improving how their core business function of Donor Tissue Management was processed. This solution was shared among TBI’s 33 US and 44 international affiliates. To minimize risk in this complex and difficult implementation, they teamed with Software Consortium to help make the technology selection, provide staffing and manage the project. The <b>just the right technology approach</b> realized a substantial savings for the client with a solution that was a combination custom-built tissue management system with off-the-shelf software for distribution. The result was an integrated system that impacted all aspects of the business, from tissue recovery to distribution to financials, with a robust reporting capability. |
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U.S. Department of Energy |
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| When a new public website was needed by the Department (www.energy.gov), the Brook Group partnered with Software Consortium to develop a sophisticated content management system for the project. The Software Consortium team managed the application development and delivered the right solution at the right cost. The Tacklebox Content Management System provides a complete web-based publishing platform for managing content for the Department’s many intranets, extranets and websites, and allows for easy migration of the Department’s many other sites onto a common platform. Software Consortium developed the solution using IBM’s Websphere for its central publishing engine, which facilitates decentralized management of a massive amount of content by many departments, makes branding consistency easier to enforce, while lowering web publishing costs overall. Written in Java, Tacklebox runs on a variety of HTTP servers and operating platforms and provides server-side Java capabilities, from servlets to JavaServer Pages to Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs). Software Consortium's expertise in building scalable solutions, along with its IBM Premier partnership, helped ensure that the heavy volume that DOE encounters could be handled through the use of Websphere and the architectural approaches that Software Consortium recommended. |
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CLIENT LIST
| Aegon Agency Group |
| Aegon Special Markets |
| Air Conditioning Contractors o |
| Allfirst Bank |
| American Chemical Society |
| Amerix |
| Aon (Alexander & Alexander) |
| APS Healthcare |
| Arbitron |
| Atradius Trade Credit Insuranc |
| Babington Technology |
| Baltimore Electric Services |
| Baltimore Gas & Electric |
| Bean Creative |
| Becton Dickinson |
| Bethlehem Steel |
| BGE Home Products |
| Black & Decker |
| Blackboard, Inc. |
| Brook Group |
| CareFirst |
| CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shie |
| Carey International |
| Central Maryland Multiple List |
| CheckFree |
| Chemonics |
| Chesapeake Bay Trust |
| Ciena |
| CitiFinancial |
| Constellation Energy Source |
| Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown |
| EDI Technologies Corporation |
| Educate, Inc. |
| Energy Controls, Inc. |
| eOriginal |
| Erickson Retirement Communitie |
| eSylvan |
| F&G Life |
| Fidelity & Deposit Insurance |
| First USA Bank |
| Fusion |
| GEICO |
| Greater Baltimore Medical Cent |
| Hanger Orthopedic Group |
| Harbor City Research |
| Howard County Health Dept. |
| Infinity |
| J. M. Huber |
| Job Force One |
| John Hopkins Hospital |
| Johns Hopkins Health Systems |
| Johns Hopkins International |
| Johns Hopkins University Appli |
| Laureate Education |
| Legg Mason |
| Life Technologies |
| Lippincott Williams & Wilkens |
| M&T Bank (Allfirst Bank) |
| Marriott International, Inc. |
| Maryland Motor Vehicle Adminis |
| Maryland State Retirement Agen |
| Mattress Discounters |
| McCormick & Company |
| MedStar Health |
| MedStar Research Institute |
| Millennium Chemicals (SCM) |
| Monumental Life Insurance |
| NationsBank |
| Neuristics |
| Northrop Grumman |
| Performax |
| PHH Fleet America |
| Procter & Gamble |
| Prometric Thomson Learning |
| Quick Systems |
| Random House |
| Rouse Company |
| RTKL Associates, Inc. |
| Ryland Group |
| St. Paul Companies (USF&G) |
| Sweetheart Cup |
| Sylvan Learning Centers |
| Sylvan Prometric |
| Symphony Health Service / Reha |
| T. Rowe Price |
| TechnologyNet.com |
| TIG Global |
| Tissue Banks International |
| U.S. Army Environment Center |
| U.S. Department of Energy |
| United Parcel Service (UPS) |
| University of Maryland Medical |
| Versar |
| VIPS |
| Visicu |
| Zurich Insurance |
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