When we ask our customers this question, we usually get a response like, “we provide COBRA compliance administration services for employers and their members.”  While this is a true statement, it is more of a description of a service provided, not the definition of their core competency. 

We actively engage customers in helping them rethink conventional thought and encourage them to look at their businesses from a different perspective.  In doing so, our customers usually see new opportunities, but I’ll get into that later.

Our customers run highly efficient, profitable, and scalable individual subscriber billing businesses.  This is the definition of their core competency for the business they run.  Currently, their operations and service teams are configured to administer a well-defined federal regulation called COBRA.  Stated differently, their individual subscriber billing businesses are configured to follow a discrete set of business rules dictated by federal regulations.  Changing these business rules does not greatly alter their core competency.  If we change the business rules slightly to perform pre- and post-65 retiree billing, state continuation, or health benefit exchange administration, the core competency of the business does not change.

A case study from one of our customers reveals the distinction between service provided and definition of their core competency.  Shortly after realizing their specialization in individual subscriber billing, this customer was able to sell a much broader range of innovative individual subscriber billing solutions.  They expanded their offerings to include car loan payments for a large auto dealership, church tithing to a local church, and association dues billing for a Community Association Board.  These three deals added more enrolled lives than their entire COBRA population.  The added new revenues were immediately accretive to the business and drove profitability to record levels.

Customers who realize they are individual subscriber billing specialists, powered by SPMpoint and HBEpoint, are able to diversify their current revenue streams, strengthen their relationships, and position themselves to take advantage of the evolving health care industry. 

One final thought.  Changing the mind-set of your company begins with you.  Only when you completely embrace the definition of your core competency as the description of our business, will your staff follow and your distribution channel will embrace your core competency.  Just in case you need another proof point before you’re convinced, take a look at Apple.  Apple was a maker of personal PCs.  They recognized their core competency was more than this alone and now they're in almost every home, with a market capitalization $100B more than Microsoft.