Running head: STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS 1

Strategic Planning Process for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association

Nina Naples

University of San Diego

ENLC-557-02A-SU19 – Strategic Planning and Management of Health Systems

Dr. Brenda Boone

August 26, 2019

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Strategic Planning Process for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association

Step One: Setting the Stage

Blue Cross Blue Shield is made up of 36 individual Plans that are governed by an

association that manages the brand, licenses, polices, and Plan data. One of the Association’s

goals is to enhance the values of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield brand to support Plan’s growth

and ensure the private healthcare market provides quality, accessible, and affordable healthcare

for all Americans (BCBSA, 2019). BCBSA is comprised of multiple departments, such as

commercial markets, finance, Brand, strategic services, office of policy and representation, office

of clinical affairs, information security, and enterprise technology services.

The Association’s mission statement is “to enable the success of Blue Plans collectively

and individually in order to benefit those they serve” (BCBSA, 2019, para. 1). The values are

stated as, “we believe that our mission is best achieved when we operate and are guided by a

strong belief in our values. We strive to create and maintain a work environment that is

conducive to our personal growth and development, and allows us to contribute to our greatest

capability. Our behavior, efforts and the way we interact with our customers and colleagues are

focused on the following values: commitment, integrity, collaboration, leadership, and

innovation” (BCBSA, 2019, para. 2).

The stakeholders that will be involved in the strategic planning process are the thirty six

Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plan Chief Executive Officer’s (CEO), the Blue Cross Blue Shield

Association CEO, leadership from each department at the association, and randomly selected

employees from each department that will equal to 75% of the company’s employees. The

CEO’s and department leader’s roles will be to act as the decision makers throughout the

strategic planning process by voting and providing recommendations. The Association

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employee’s role will be to strategically think of innovative and creative ways to make the

recommendations feasible for the company to achieve. The strategic planning team will have

communication tools, such as online conferencing and internal conference rooms. All of the

necessary stakeholders will meet on a quarterly basis, every three months, for a year.

Throughout the planning process it is assumed that the team will have to be aware of government

mandated rules and requirements for healthcare payers, as well as the viability of the

Associations recommendations for all or the majority of the 36 Plans to successfully implement.

Step Two: Doing Your Homework

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association has exhibited a few general impressions

throughout the doing your homework step in the strategic planning process. The most prevalent

impressions were found by clearly seeing that the Association excels at communicating with

their external business partners but can improve internal communication. The organizations

strengths are revealed through communication, collaboration, and customer service with their

external business partners. They excel at these strengths by utilizing their available tools such

as, memos, emails, in person conference meetings, conference calls, and individual calls.

The Associations weaknesses are uncovered internally by seeing that the departments

being siloed throughout the project planning process, which prevents clear communication

between teams. The organization needs to be able to collaborate between departments in order to

achieve its goals. The suggested improvements are to utilize the available applications, such as

SharePoint and BlueWeb intranet, to clearly identify and communicate the necessary action

items needed to be successful internally. By using the already available tools the teams will be

able to increase productivity and collaboration. Another weakness can be seen during the

facilitation of scheduled project conference calls with the Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) Plans
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and Plan vendors. If the organization wants to improve, they should stop allowing the more

dominate BCBS Plans from overshadow the project conference calls and take control over the

facilitation by encouraging the less dominate Plans to participate. By doing so, the Association

will gather more intelligence from their stakeholders.

There is an opportunity for growth by increasing the visibility into the deliverables

between internal departments to successfully implement their projects. One way this can be

achieved is by cross collaborating with the each of the internal teams that run that data

warehouses to best utilize the quality and cost information provided by the BCBS Plans. The

largest threat to the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association is the competing insurers. Since the

Association governs 36 BCBS Plans, they are often times delayed in their innovation and

program implementation due to needing the approval from the majority of the Plans. This can

also be noted as a weakness of the organization because its competitors can bypass the stringent

approval process that the Association has to undergo and act faster. Moving forward the

Association can strategize to provide a well facilitated open forum during their project

conference calls with their external business partners and limit the decision making to smaller

groups to encourage timeliness and prevent the decision making from being interrupted. Another

threat from competing insurers is their cost of care compared to Blue Cross Blue Shield. Overall

the Association has a solid framework to allow for stakeholders to innovate as long as the

organization can keep strong facilitation, communication and collaboration.

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Table 1: SWOT Analysis

Internal
Strengths
 Communication with external
business partners
 Several forms of communication
with external business partners
through memos, emails, in
Positive person conference meetings, and
conference calls
 Customer Service throughout
program and platform
implementations
Weaknesses
 Segregated team environments
throughout project planning
 Lack of internal communication
Negative
between departments during
program implementations
 Delayed action to new industry
standards and innovation
External
Opportunities
 Increase communication using
available tools – SharePoint and
BlueWeb
 Growth in national account
business by having competitive
products and pricing
 Better utilize BCBS Plan quality
and cost data to analyze trends in
business
 Increase interoperability between
BCBS Plans and the Association
Threats
 Competing insurers who can
take quick action on new
industry standards and
innovation
 Competing insurers cost of care
 Adverse demographic changes

Step Three: Describe Your Culture

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) pride themselves on their well thought

mission statement and core values. These are clearly shown throughout their office for all

employees to see, whether it is displayed on their laptops, painted on the walls, or discussed

during town hall meetings where all employees gather each quarter. The Blue Cross Blue Shield

Association’s states that their mission is “to enable the success of Blue Plans collectively and

individually in order to benefit those they serve” (BCBSA, 2019, para. 1). They also list their

five core values as commitment, integrity, collaboration, leadership, and innovation.

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association’s institutional business plan is to ensure that the

private healthcare market provides quality, accessible, and affordable healthcare for all
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Americans (BCBSA, 2019). This business plan explicitly states what the healthcare organization

does and provides for their community (BCBSA, 2019).

The classification of an institutional purpose is to bring substance to a strategic plan for

the healthcare organization. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association’s purpose is to serve the

common needs of its Member Plans and to support Plan’s branded business (BCBSA, 2019). The

organization’s purpose noticeably identifies the meaning behind the day-to-day work of the

employees by providing the Blue Plans with quality and cost-efficient programs for their

members.

The Association’s core values are defined as commitment, integrity, collaboration,

leadership, and innovation (BCBSA, 2019). The organization also states that their values are

placed and followed to best achieve their mission which allows them to maintain a work

environment that encourages personal growth and development. The organization includes both

expressive and instrumental values to explain their purpose.

Step Four: Identify the Strategic Area

The goal of identifying an organization’s strategic area is to better understand the current

and potential strategic concerns that impact the organization. In order to be strategic, the area

must be comprehensive, critical, changeable, and controllable. By being able to recognize the

organizations competitive strengths, the organization can have a competitive advantage which

allows them to be successful in their industry. On the other hand, being aware of their

competitively relevant weaknesses allows the organization to create a well thought out action

plan to improve in order to build onto their competitive advantage (Ginter, Duncan, & Swyane,

2013). Based on the previously provided SWOT analysis, the following are the most critical

areas of strategic concern.

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Physical Structure:

A critical area for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association is their physical environment

regarding how their teams are organized throughout their office. Many teams are split between

different floors, as well as teams that work together on a regular basis. This causes a critical area

because the physical arrangement of the desks is a major part in a cohesive work environment.

While reorganizing and reassigning desks can be a tedious and sometimes difficult task, the area

is changeable, and it can be done. This process is also controlled by the organization’s

leadership. In order to achieve the reorganization, leadership must review the projects and teams

to decide where each team should be placed to be the most beneficial.

Quality of Data:

Another critical strategic area that should be reviewed is the quality of the big data that

the Associations receives from its external partners. Depending on the data, the Association

receives data sets on either a weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, and annually with a few

off cycle ad hoc exceptions. Due to the amount of data received, it is critical that the

organization has to ensure the quality is up to their standards because the data is use for

numerous reporting outlets. This process is changeable because the organization has the

opportunity to enhance their systems to include more security, error messages and certification

levels to systematically pass quality checks. This is controlled by department leadership, as well

as the board since enhancements require the budget to be reviewed. By improving the quality of

their data, the Association’s reporting will be more reliable.

Delayed Action on Innovation:

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The last critical strategic area that needs the most improvement is the delayed

speed to action on new industry standards and innovations. This is critical because it can lead to

a large competitive disadvantage for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association because it can put

them behind in the healthcare industry compared to their competitors. Since the governing

board, which is made up of the 36 individual Blue Cross Blue Shield companies CEO’s and the

Association CEO, controls the new goals for each year there are much more hoops to jump

through to get approval over new implementations. This creates a slow and inefficient way to

receive the support for new projects. The process is changeable by limiting the number of

meetings and workgroups needed to approve. By only allowing the necessary parties to be

involved, it will increase the organization’s efficiency and speed up the process.

Step Five and Six: Strategies and Action Steps

After identifying the organization’s strategic areas of concern to better understand the

current and potential strategic impacts, it is critical to create measurable action steps for those

areas. In order to be strategic, the area must establish what is going to be done, who is

responsible for getting it done, and when it will be finalized. Table 1 outlines the strategy and

action steps for each of the critical areas of concern that were previously mentioned above.

Strategic Area of Concern #1: The inefficient physical environment regarding how teams are
organized within their office.
Strategy: Develop a reorganization process to better align teams within each floor and create a
cohesive work environment.
Action Step #1: Discuss and Action Step #2: Have human Action Step #3: Have human
inform all employees of the resources schedule two resources work with an
new reorganization at the Fall working sessions in the third outside vendor during the 3rd
Town Hall meeting with a quarter with a group of five quarter to better understand
scheduled timeline of events, employees from each division the work environment from a
such as, receiving new desk to determine efficient and third party in order to achieve
assignments, packing dates, effective desk reassignments. the most efficient desk
and moving schedules. reassignments.
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Strategic Area of Concern #2: The quality of the big data that the Association receives from
its external partners.
Strategy: Create a step by step process to ensure the quality of the data is up to the standards
of the organization.
Action Step #1: Leadership Action Step #2: Have the IT Action Step #3: Require the
must review the budget team improve the certification IT team to create errors
during the third quarter in process to systematically messages for when the data
order to be able to have the check the data quality by does not meet the
information technology (IT) implementing stricter requirements to notify the
team enhance the security requirements provided by external partners to resubmit
systems. business leadership. their data.
Strategic Area of Concern #3: Delayed action on new industry standards and innovations.
Strategy: Design a new approval process to be more efficient and streamlined in order to
enhance the organizations speed to action on new projects.
Action Step #1: Leadership Action Step #2: Have Action Step #3: Facilitator
must limit the number of leadership assign a facilitator must create a timeline for
approving parties and only to oversee the corporate goal streamlining the approval
allow the additional parties to meetings in the 4th quarter process, include receiving
provide feedback during a and provide a guide to initial feedback from official
decided set schedule provided encourage engagement and workgroups and strategic
by leadership. discourage distractions. meetings for leadership.

Step Seven: Vision Statement

Vision provides direction for where the company wants to go, as well as inspires

confidence and courage (Ebener &Smith, 2015). After evaluating the Blue Cross Blue Shield

Association, their vision statement is to lead collective Plan efforts to improve the nation’s health

and affordability of healthcare within the next ten years.

This vision statement for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association clearly defines the

organization’s direction forward by stating their desire to improve the nation’s health and

affordability. A vision statement should also set the organizations priorities by expressing it in a

clear, concise way that undoubtedly describes their future and challenges the organization’s

imagination but is still within their reach. The vision statement does this by leading their efforts

with the help of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Plans.

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The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association’s vision statement allows for the vision to be

completed within ten years into the future. This gives the organization enough time to

thoughtfully assemble a plan of action to improve the nation’s health and affordability. Creating

a plan of action can be a challenging task because it tests everyone’s imagination. There are

many ways that the organization can improve the quality and cost of healthcare in America but,

the organization wants to be able to make the largest impact for the nation and help as many

American’s as they can.

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association will be able to imagine the future of their

organization by being able to set their priorities and create an impactful plan of action in order to

improve the nation’s health and affordability of healthcare within the next ten years.

Step Eight: Hold Yourself Accountable

The strategic planning process has the potential to be long and not have a sense of

urgency. Accountability sessions can provide an organization with clarity to identify the

objectives, required actions, responsible parties, organization resources, and how the results are

measured.

The Blue Cross Blue shield Associations healthcare objectives are to improve their

communication between departments and their competitive advantage to increase their speed to

action on new industry standards and innovations. The initial steps in the strategic planning

process have been completed, the organization understands what their objectives and areas of

concern are. The first three months must consist of the preliminary steps of the action plan. The

organization must identify what the action steps are and who will be responsible for each action.

The first action step is to improve their physical environment by having human resources
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develop a new reorganization process to better align the teams and departments. Leadership will

also have to create a new approval process to streamline the speed to action on new industry

standards and innovations.

Once competed the next three months, leading up to month six, will involve working

sessions and meetings to determine the objectives effectiveness. Human resources will schedule

two working sessions to with employees from each department to discuss the reorganization and

how to make it the most efficient. During this time leadership will also identify a facilitator too

encourage engagement and discourage distractions in the corporate goal meetings.

The last portion of the action plan, during the next three months leading up to the ninth

month, will consist of the organizations human resources team developing a survey using their

internal system to measure the results on how communication has improved between the

departments based on the new reorganization. The facilitator will also create a timeline of the

new approval process and retrieve feedback from the corporate goal meetings. By being able to

measure the results of the objective the organization will be able to report on their amount of

success. After completing the action plan, the organization will have a better insight in their

direction and where the future is leading them in the next ten years.
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References

Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. (2019). About. Blue Cross Blue Shield Association The

Pulse. Retrieved from https://association.bcbs.com

Ebener, D.R., Smith, F.L. (2015). Strategic planning: An interactive process for leaders.

Mahawal, N.J.: Paullist Press ISBN: 10:0809149206

Ginter, P. M., Duncan, W.J., & Swayne, L. M. (2013). Strategic management of healthcare

organizations (7th ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers ISBN: 10:1118466462