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Why does my health insurance cost so much?
It’s that time of the year again. No, I am not talking about the holidays. It’s the time of the year, when you figure out how much more money you need to make, in order to afford the rise in your healthcare costs. It’s Annual Enrollment time! But as most folks have already realized, there probably won’t be any raises, bonuses, etc., this year to help off-set the rise in healthcare premiums. The economy is experiencing its biggest downturn since the Great Depression and yet our quoted health insurance cost for next year is rising at a double-digit pace. How is that possible?
“Over the last decade, employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have increased 131 percent”.
My wife and I calculated that pre-tax, she would need to earn another $ 1,200 a year this year to off-set the rise in the monthly premiums being charged for an HMO plan with family coverage. Currently, we belong to the #1 ranked Health Plan in the country, which is increasing its rates to the tune of $100 a month for the same level of coverage as last year. Unfortunately, we have been experiencing this trend for more than the past 20 years.
I realize its not a simple answer, and there are several external factors including rising pharmacy costs, inflation, etc. However, one could argue that since the economy is in a tail-spin, unemployment is sitting just under 10%, and the federal government is wasting time and my tax dollars trying to create a new public option for health coverage, that the best option for insurers is to hold premiums steady and to finally get a handle on what are the true drivers of cost and utilization. Thus, they would not risk losing its most important constituents, their employer groups and members, who every year are now faced with the idea of reducing their level of healthcare coverage just to make ends meet.
If the #1 health plan in the country is raising their premiums by $100 a month for a basic HMO plan, can you imagine what the lower ranking health plans will charge to their members? There are no quick-fix-it solutions for the healthcare industry. However, with so many inefficient processes, fraud, overhead, flawed reimbursement methodologies, expensive compliance and technology projects, etc., the industry is ripe for opportunities to become more analytics focused. With today’s business intelligence and data warehousing technologies available, health plans now have the ability to create high-value metrics that involve integration of disparate data sources from key areas such as: sales & marketing, operations (ex. Claims processing), and cost and utilization across members, providers, and employer groups.
Despite the quoted savings achieved by health plans from a variety of medical management programs, disease management, formularies, network discounts, etc., why is it never passed onto a subscriber’s premium? Are health plans not evaluating the right metrics? Pushing the boundaries for increasing the use of payer analytics will allow health plans to truly understand the drivers of cost and utilization and thus to migrate their business model to become more predictive in nature. Maybe this is wishful thinking, but a health plan could actually reduce their monthly premiums if they can drive out the unknown costs and inefficiencies. A futuristic but intriguing thought would be to have benefit plans that are created and priced for each member, which is based on both historical utilization and predictive analytics to determine the monthly premiums.
At a minimum, can we stop the double-digit price increases?
You’ve worked hard developing your Company Public site and Agency site. You’ve added all the right features and functionality while utilizing the latest technology. You’ve been successful — the public is driven to your site to “check you out” and your agents/agencies are trained and using their site. All the benefits you had hoped for are being measured and realized. Now you’re in maintenance mode for both sites. Additional features and functionality are being added to keep the sites aligned with your business. You’re moving along the maintenance cycle without any obstacles.
Then it happens! You get a call from the Executive Vice President of Product Development who happens to have a Universal Life policy with the company. She asks “Do I use the public site or the agency site to check the cash value on my UL policy?” You’re stumped, so answer “NEITHER”. She is stumped as well and states “I have an annuity product with AnnuityGeneric Insurance Company and I just went out to their Policyholder site and reviewed my cash value and changed my mailing address – all within a matter of minutes. Where is our Policyholder site?”
This situation is not unique. I find that a majority of my clients have awesome Public and Agency sites, yet few have Policyholder sites. Of course I always ask “WHY?” Why not have a Policyholder site? Are your Policyholders not as important to you as the general public?
As we know, Consumers today (all of us) are technology savvy. We use our computers and laptops to shop, communicate, BLOG, read newspapers, etc. Basically, we use our computers to do almost everything except maybe check our insurance policies. It’s not that we choose not to, it’s that we don’t have the opportunity because your company does not have the site in place. What a lost opportunity this is for both your customers and, most importantly, your company.
Over the last 3-5 years larger insurance carriers have started to develop very sophisticated Policyholder sites. Yet I still see many middle tier carriers who have not made the investment. Again let me ask –
“Are your Policyholders not as important to you as the public or your agents?”
If you’ve answered, “YES they are just as important” – then where is their site?
Prior to starting analysis and design, I sit with my clients and we decide on the functions/services that can be provided via the web that are most important to policyholders. Figure 1 below depicts some of the common yet most important functions.
Figure 1
Some of these functions help to alleviate the number of calls coming into your call centers. This frees up your Customer Service Reps (“CSR”) to concentrate on the more complex and challenging transactions and calls. Other benefits as noted:
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As the analysis and design of the site starts, the game plan begins with identifying the most important features and functions for site. From there, development and deployment is completed in iterations. This gets the initial site up and running with the most critical features and functionality, while maintaining the ability to add and deploy additional features later. Figure 2 below depicts this strategic approach (“play”).
Figure 2
What is preventing you from developing that much needed Policyholder site? Realize one thing – not having one places you behind your competitors. Jump on board now. Wait too long and you eventually miss the “Policyholder” game.
Part 1
The focus of this three part series is for the reader to gain insight into and knowledge about managing a smooth and seamless transition for outsourcing claims business processes. Part 1 concentrates on the upfront gathering of current and future requirements, the Request For Information (“RFI”) and Request For Proposal (“RFP”) process, the selection of the “right” vendor, and a brief on contract negotiation. Part two will focus on the development, testing, and conversion that takes place between both organizations, and some of the pitfalls to avoid. Part three will focus on maintaining the long term partnership relationship with your vendor.
Outsourcing for many Insurance and Financial Services organizations is viewed as a strategic tool for bringing about a more productive, cost effective, and profitable business. The key benefit to outsourcing a segment of a business or an entire business unit is to enable the organization to focus on their core competencies and deploy resources with regard to these core competencies.
When the strategic decision to outsource has been made, there are plans and best practices organizations must follow in order to guarantee a successful, smooth and seamless transition. Foregoing any of these steps could lead to a potential disaster and often times a long, drawn out process.
Detailed Business, Functional, and Technical Requirement
All too often I’ve seen organizations fail at one of the most important steps in the process, creating a complete set of claims business and functional requirements, documenting well defined workflows, and detailing technical and infrastructure reviews and requirements. Organizations need to allocate the right amount of time and resources upfront to gather and document these requirements and workflows. Unwilling to do so or short-changing the process will lead to a long and expensive outsourcing transition.
You maybe asking yourself, “Why is this step so important?”
The answer — the detailed documentation sets a strong foundation for all activities and processes that follow, both within your organization and eventually with the outsourcing organization you select. The goal here is to achieve a clear, detailed, and descriptive understanding of your claims business. As daunting as this may be the benefits of having your claims processes and workflows clearly defined outweighs the many pitfalls you will encounter should you not execute this step.
Selection of the Outsourcing Organization That Fits Your Needs
Finding the right organization to administer your claims business is critical to the success of your outsourcing strategy. But how does one find which organization is the “RIGHT” fit for their business? By creating a high level Request For Information (“RFI”) followed by a detailed Request For Proposal (“RFP”).
If your organization takes the time upfront to detail the business, functional and technical requirements, then your RFI and RFP are nearly complete. Generating the RFI and RFP is a matter of taking the information documented and formatting it apprpriately. The RFI is then used to narrow your search from a long list of possible outsourcing organizations to a handful of potentially qualified options. Once you have narrowed your search, the RFP becomes your driver. It helps to further narrow the selection process to 2 or 3 organizations. 
Figure 1 — RFI / RFP Process
Contract Negotiations
Once the outsourcing organization is selected the contract negotiations begin. The outcome of this step is to finalize a contract that both organizations can agree to. The focus here is to define who is responsible for what, and when. Items that are imperative to the contract are:
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Service Level Agreements (“SLA”)
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Vendor modifications and who pays for them
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Escalation procedures for disputes and interpretation of the contract
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Cost basis per transaction
Contract negotiations are difficult and time consuming. If done right this will set the stage for a successful transition of business and for a long term arrangement between your company and the organization you selected to handle your business.
Figure 2 – Phase 1 Tactical Roadmap
Hard times are definitely here. By this time everybody in IT-land has done the obvious: frozen maintenance where possible, put off hardware and software upgrades, outsourced where possible, trimmed heads (contractors, consultants, staff), pushed BI/CPM/EPM analytics projects forward, and tuned up data and web resources.
Now is the time to think outside the bunker!
IT needs to consider what will need to be done to nurture the green shoots poking through the nuclear fallout. All of the talking heads and pundits see them ( glowing with radiation or whatever) and the utmost must be done to make sure they survive and grow or we shall all sink into the abyss!
This is the time to double down in IT (poker speak). It is not about heavily hyped Cloud Computing or the latest must-have tech gadget, but about something much more mundane and boring: improving the business process. There, I’ve said it, what could possibly be more boring? It doesn’t even plug-in. In fact (shudder!), it may be partially manual.
Business process is what gets the job done (feeding our paychecks!). Recessions are historically the perfect time to revise and streamline (supercharge ‘em!) existing business processes because it allows the company to accelerate ahead of the pack coming out of the recession. In addition, recession acts as something of a time-out for everybody (I only got beatings, no time-outs for me), like the yellow flag during a NASCAR race. When the yellow flag is out, time to hit the pits for gas and tires. Double down when it is slow to go faster when things speed up again, obviously the only thing to do.
How? is usually the question. The best first step is to have existing business processes documented and reviewed. Neither the staff involved driving the process at the moment nor the business analysts (internal or consultants) are that busy at the moment. That means any economic or dollar cost of doubling will be minimized under the economic yellow flag. The second step is to look for best practice, then glance ouside-the-box to maximize improvement. The third step is to look for supporting technology to supercharge the newly streamlined business process (I knew I could get some IT in there to justify my miserable existance!).
Small and medium businesses get the biggest bang for the buck (just picture trying to gas and change the tires on the Exxon Valdez at Daytona) with this strategy. This process allows SMBs to leapfrog the best practice and technology research the Global 2000 have done and cut to the chase without the pioneer’s cost (damn those arrows in the backside hurt!). Plus implementation is cheaper during recession ( I love to be on the buy-side). The hardware, software, and integration guys have to keep busy so they cut prices to the bone.
The way forward is clear, IT only needs to lead the way, following is kind of boring anyway.
In times like this every PMP needs a healthy dose of a new and improved PMP, that is, project management practicality. As the recession lingers, those of us who drive the success of projects, programs, and any corporate initiative are going to have to find new ways of doing more with less. Here are seven practical tips for cutting corners without sacrificing project success.
1. Curtail time-consuming interviews for requirements-gathering. There are several easy ways to cut the effort required to gather information from subject matter experts:
- Group them by functional area (when appropriate) and avoid interviewing single stakeholders.
- Use structured information gathering templates and require that they take a pass through them and begin filling in the required information before the meeting. The keyword here is structured. I prefer Excel templates with restricted ranges of responses, rigidly enforced with data validation limiting those responses to list. STructure the information you need into columns, apply data validation, and put explanatory notes as a cell comment in the column headers.
2. Make your meetings more productive.
- Know your goals. Have an agenda and be ruthless about sticking to it.
- Limit the attendees to those people with decision-making authority
and real subject matter expertise. Bigger meetings cost more and waste more time. - Appoint a live note-taker. The note-taker should type the notes live during the meeting and send them out before the end of the day. Transcribing from written notes is wasted effort.
3. Restructure your project team. Combine roles and responsibilities, because fewer roles mean fewer handoffs. It’s better to have a smaller team running above 100% utilization than a larger team at or under 100% utilization.
4. Carefully define the scope of your analysis/requirements gathering effort. Don’t waste time documenting standard business processes in excessive detail; concentrate on the areas that have unique and/or critical requirements.
5. Hold the line on customizations. They add cost to the current project, and will complicate upgrade and migration projects down the road.
6. Request a mini-business case for custom reports. Every custom report should have a place in the spec that describes the business action that the report enables, as well as a list of alternative sources for the requested information if the custom report is not available. This will help the project sponsor make an informed decision when approving the custom report request.
7. Make project status more transparent. To reiterate an earlier post on PMOs: A well-defined, user-friendly, and well-maintained project portal site can cut down on the need for lengthy status meetings. Milestone status, next week’s key tasks, and open action items can be posted to the portal site. A weekly meeting can be used for exception-based reporting on lagging milestones and critical issues, allowing the project sponsor and key stakeholders to participate in resolution during the meeting.
Image courtesy of Flickr
While inexpensively built and operated mom and pop e-commerce websites are as common as snow in New England in January, is it possible to build and operate an enterprise grade e-commerce site on a shoe string budget? E-commerce at an enterprise level is not simply slapping a shopping cart to your website and calling it e-commerce enabled. The demands of an enterprise solution may require:
- Integration with legacy systems
- Integration with supply-chain systems
- Support for multiple currencies and tax codes
- Multiple store-fronts
- Profile and history driven offer management
- Integration with a content management system
- Business user control over promotions and pricing
- …and more
Challenges of integration with existing systems alone are daunting enough never mind the fancy e-commerce functionality that is often considered vital for competitive differentiation. No wonder why starting an e-commerce venture or an upgrade is considered a seven figure expense. The cost of an enterprise grade e-commerce product alone can easily account for twenty to forty percent of the budget. The other option is to go with a hosted or SaaS based approach and avoid capital expense for software and infrastructure – not a bad approach for testing the waters but in the long run, charges and fees can really add up.
A well executed e-commerce site can provide great returns on the investment by generating new revenue streams, enhancing existing ones, or reducing operational expenses – and that can’t be too bad for the budget or your career. However, in tough economic times the challenge becomes harder as getting approval for large complex projects becomes difficult and even the approved budgets can get slashed. If your budget gets cut, is there a way to still implement enterprise grade e-commerce? Can an open source e-commerce solution be the answer to the “do more with less” mantra? Is open source e-commerce ready to play with the big boys in the enterprise domain? Let’s explore these questions and the capabilities of the open source e-commerce solutions.
Let’s start with a common misconception that an open source e-commerce product requires significant customizations and the cost of customizations more than offsets any savings from not having to pay license fees. Implicit in this assumption is the notion that a commercial product requires little or no customizations. However, the real-world experience shows us that this is not the case. Even the best commercial products cannot be used out-of-the-box unless you decide to adopt their look and feel and their model of e-commerce. The cost of customizations can add up just as rapidly in a commercial product as they can in an open source one. Therefore a prudent approach would be to adhere to the industry standards and best practices and use out-of-the-box functionality in areas which are not competitive differentiators. Heavy customizations should be limited to the aspects of the website that are true differentiators and result in a unique user experience. This guiding principle applies regardless of the decision to use an open source or a commercial product.
There are a lot of inexpensive and open source e-commerce products out there; however, most of them are nothing more than a simple shopping cart. They are only suitable for the most basic needs of a simple web site. However, Apache OFBiz and Magento are two promising contenders that break from the pack and compete in the enterprise space. In this article we will primarily focus on OFBiz.
Apache OFBiz is actually an integrated suite of products that does not only include e-commerce capabilities but also provides support for accounting, order management, warehouse management, content management and more. An enterprise e-commerce implementation cannot exist as a point solution. It has to integrate and work well with other back office processes and applications. OFBiz’s integrated suite can be used to automate and integrate most back office functions. Even if you decide not to use the built-in functionality it can still be integrated with other existing systems albeit with more effort and cost. It provides enough e-commerce functionality out of the box to match most enterprise needs and the rest can be customized if needed. Here is a summary of our assessment of OFBiz:
Technical Capabilities
| # | Criteria | Rating | Comments |
| 1. | E-commerce capabilities | B+ | Provides Robust e-commerce capabilities OFBiz e-commerce capabilities include: catalog management, promotion & pricing management, order management, customer management, warehouse management, fulfillment, accounting, content management, and more. |
| 2. | Sign-on and Security | B | Granular and robust security framework The OFBiz security framework provides fine grain control of the security including multiple security roles and privileges. Roles can be used to control access to screens, business methods, web requests (URLs), and/or entire applications. |
| 3. | Technical flexibility & ease of use | B | Very flexible but complex OFBiz is an application development platform that can be used to build applications and as such provides a tremendous amount of flexibility. The use of the entire framework (which includes the database, an Object Relational Mapping (ORM) layer, business object layer, scripting support, and UI tools) is optional. |
| 4. | Integration with other apps and locations | A | Multiple integration methods OFBiz business services can be exposed as services and accessed by multiple methods including Remote Method Invocation (RMI) and XML Web Services. Integration directly with the OFBiz Relational Database is also possible. |
| 5. | Scalability | A | Highly Scalable Java systems are highly scalable provided a production architecture that is designed to support heavy load. A load balancing device and redundancy at the web, application and database servers can redundancy and scalability. |
| 6. | Relational database integration | A | Support for all major database platforms The most popular OFBiz database platforms are PostgreSQL and MySQL (both of which are open source). OFBiz has also been tested with Oracle, DB2, Sybase, and MS SQL Server. The default installation uses an Apache Derby database which is not recommended for production use. Our research indicates some problems with MS SQL Server database – this should be investigated further prior to selecting that database platform. |
| 7. | Skill Set to support | NA | OFBiz framework and application are based in the following technology components:
Long term support of the application would require knowledge and familiarity in each of these technology sets. While these technologies are mainstream and skills should be readily available in the future, skills and experience with the OFBiz framework that is built upon these technologies may not be. |
Business Position
| # | Criteria | Rating | Comments |
| 1. | Financial stability | B | OFBiz is a “top level” project in the Apache Software Foundation. The Apache Software Foundation provides support for the Apache community of open-source software projects. The Apache projects are characterized by a collaborative, consensus based development process, an open and pragmatic software license, and a desire to create high quality software that leads the way in its field. |
| 2. | Maturity of product suite | B | Open For Business (OFBiz) was initially launched in 2001. In early 2006, the project went through the Apache Foundation’s “Incubation” process to review projects for quality and open source commitment. OFBiz was promoted to a top level Apache project in December 2006.The community for OFBiz is very active. The major web posting board receives between 20-40 postings per day relating to OFBiz. The original contributors are very active in monitoring these sites and sharing knowledge. |
| 3. | Reference Accounts | B- | Total number of installations is unknown due to the nature of open source software. The OFBiz websites lists more than 70 companies that use their software. However, there are very few marquee names. |
Implementing an enterprise e-commerce solution can be expensive and complex process that requires analysis and investment in people, processes, and technology. While it would be insincere to say that an enterprise e-commerce solution can be implemented on a budget in the ballpark of a mom and pop e-commerce store, the budget can be significantly reduced by:
- Carefully crafting business requirements
- Adapting the business model to match industry’s best practices
- Reducing and carefully planning data migration and application integration
- Keeping the customizations to a minimum
- And using an open source e-commerce platform
OFBiz provides a viable open source e-commerce stack that can be used to implement enterprise grade e-commerce. When combined with good implementation practices and solid execution the combination can result in slashing costs by twenty to forty percent — which sometimes can make the difference between getting funded or getting shelved.
I heard a report on the news this morning that in a recent survey, lawyers have indicated that they expect a dramatic decrease in business in 2009 and do not anticipate earning income at the same levels they earned in 2008. Really?
That may be true for mergers & acquisitions, and other similar purchase related transactions, but I do not believe the current economic downturn will have a similar affect on the insurance industry. In fact, I believe it will have the opposite affect.
I think the upsurge in litigation stemming from the collapse of the credit markets and the mortgage industry could surpass levels ever seen before. Litigation during these times could include some of the highest settlement amounts, parties sued, and parties suing. Insurers are bound to get caught up, due not only to defending their interests, but also mainly due to their policy responsibility of defending insureds for litigation brought against them.
Some insurance carriers are gearing up for that increase in defense costs. The Hartford is already battening down the hatches in preparation for a litigation hurricane. As the insurer for The Peanut Company of America, they have gone to Federal court for clarification on the liability coverage in their policy, in preparation for the litigation defense costs and settlement payments for the over 1800 product recalls and related illnesses.
People are losing their jobs and can’t make their payments on their Lexus because they over extended in the boom of ‘07. So those vehicles end up on eBay, on fire, or in a chop shop. Insurance SIU departments see a swell in claim counts. The number of injuries in car accidents goes up. These are times when an insurer’s Corporate Performance Management (CPM) and the ability to analyze their own data against their goals, along with incorporating automated processes can really pay off and keep expenses down. The identification of fraud also becomes key to insurer’s weathering the storm. Lawyers send people to the same doctors and vice versa. I remember a case of fraud where a doctor was reported to be treating 1600 people in one day. So, who gets involved in all these areas – lawyers. Both on the claimant and on the carrier side.
Traditionally economic downturns are the biggest catalyst for increases in insurance claims and insurance fraud – people need money. The decrease in policies written, coupled with the increase in policies cancelled for non-payment of premium, is not as dramatic a cost change as the increase in claims. People still recognize the need for insurance and recognize the importance of maintaining that policy. However, insureds, and claimants, feel they’ve been paying the premiums on their policies and now they need to get some money back.
I can’t see insurance lawyers experience that much, if any, drop in revenue during this recession.
Do you still distribute paper files and mail the old fashioned way? I see this all the time. Even Underwriting departments have people that distribute paper policy files to Underwriters for review of applications, renewals, MVR and CLUE reports.
Why do so many insurance organizations still use a manual distribution method for workflow - especially in the Claims arena which has transactions that are so heavily paper based? There are so many problems created by paper files and mail being stacked on adjusters’ desks for handling without regard to priority. An insurance organization takes on too much risk:
- Increased Error Rates
- Increased Operation Costs
- Reduced Service Response Time
- Extending the Lifecycle
- Raising Adjuster “Burn Out” Rate and Increasing Employee Turnover and Training
When I was a claims adjuster, every day was the same – about 10:30, after the morning mail was opened (which I had to go to the post office and retrieve because I was a “field adjuster”), a stack about 3 inches tall, wrapped in a rubber band, would be dropped on my desk like a ton of bricks. At least the claim file numbers were written on them which the administrative staff would spend about 90 minutes researching. Then I would have to take that stack of mail, and start retrieving all the paper files from cabinets associated with that mail – PIP applications, damage appraisals, attorney correspondence, medical bills, etc. How was I supposed to go out in the field when I had all those paper files back in the office? You couldn’t take them with you because they weren’t allowed to leave the office IN CASE THEY GOT LOST.
Granted, this was a long time ago, and I had to consider myself lucky that at least I had a mainframe system into which I could enter my reserves, payments, notes and confirm coverage. But these days, not storing files electronically and making them accessible remotely is almost inexcusable. All that wasted time and productivity. I probably could’ve handled twice the case load and closed files twice as fast if I could have been out in the field all the time.
Like so many of their policy brethren, many modern claim systems include automated workflow and straight-through processing features that insurance organizations with legacy systems can not, or do not, utilize. But these legacy systems don’t necessarily have to be replaced in order to implement these types of functions. Many independent automated workflow systems can work right along side existing legacy systems and push work forward. I know carriers that implement a simple document management system with high speed scanners that scan and distribute 10,000 – yes, ten thousand – pieces of mail every day.
There are those claim managers that are considering making a change to their claim administration system, and may want to increase the priority of the automated workflow function in their search criteria. By introducing an automated workflow, many insurance organizations have improved productivity by as much as 100%, recognizing savings to the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and supported a 20% increase in business with existing staffing levels. The additional benefits to an Insurance organization of a workflow utility are that it can:
- Implement continuity in processing,
- Decrease processing costs, and
- Increase efficiencies to improve Service-level Agreements (SLAs) with customers, agents, and company departments.
Insurance organizations can also benefit by increasing the collaboration of resources using a document repository. A single repository would enable organizations to reduce resource costs associated with searching for non-existent data or recreating data that is unable to be found, such as loss control guidelines, rating specifications, or even just the office fire procedures. Call center and other service-related expenses can also be reduced by providing customers with access to their documents via the Web for policy documentation and/or claims forms. In addition, field workers would be more efficient by being able to review and transfer documents remotely, reducing claim processing times and expenses, and allowing for claim payments to be issued more promptly to customers; spending more face time with insureds, claimants, and agents. Face time is always good for business.
One final note, Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Workflow can also be utilized as a knowledge broker between the many systems and departments within an Insurance company, and can become an important source for Business Intelligence (BI). It can provide consistent searchable metadata for proper document retrieval that can be used to support Dashboards and other BI reporting tools for executive management, resulting in improved productivity even at those levels.
But that’s all right. You keep paying rent on that office space for file cabinets and maintaining resources to pass paper around. I’m sure you’re not losing market share or unnecessarily increasing your expense ratios.
When looking at the results of our last poll on collaboration styles, several things jumped out at us.
1. Nearly a third of the respondents are either still relying on email collaboration or under-utilizing basic portal functionality (document checkout/checkin for version control).
2. Among users of collaboration portals, there was an even split between Sharepoint and other tools.
This led us to wonder how broad corporate adoption of collaboration tools might be. And it leads us, of course, to another poll.
Comments always welcome, and in case you missed the first post in this series, it’s still open and you can vote here.
