Independence Blue Cross Case Study - Ironworks Consulting

Independence Blue Cross

Independence Blue Cross, headquartered in Philadelphia, is a full service health insurance company started in 1938. Today, IBC is an $8 billion corporation with 8,400 employees. The Company, including its subsidiaries and affiliates, provides health care coverage to nearly 4 million people.

IBC offers a full range of product lines to all market segments. The company is one of the largest Blue Cross and Blue Shield organizations in the country.

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Client:	Independence Blue Cross
Technology:	Solaris 2.9 Apache Oracle 8i Database Interwoven Teamsite 6.5 IBM Websphere 3.5 Verity UltraSeek J2EE, Java, JSP, ANT, RSync
Industry:	Insurance
Service:	Web Design & Usability

The Challenge

Independence Blue Cross wanted to create a new look and feel for IBX.com and IBXPRESS.com to support the 2004 fall open enrollment season. Simultaneously, IBC was engaged in a member Portal Personalization project.

IBC was looking to move substantial amounts of content from IBX.com to IBXPRESS.com to support the personalization effort through the application of a best in class user interface design.

The Solution

The vision for Phase I was to transform IBX.com into a marketing / public relations site to attract prospective members as well as enhance the member portal, IBXPRESS.com. Ironworks created the information architecture and design which achieved the following:

Reflected the company’s philosophy: Knowledge, Choice and Independence
Reinforced IBC’s brand message through graphic design, content, and functionality to provide overall support of sales and marketing efforts
Employed a simplified, understandable navigation scheme providing IBC customers with an easy to use interface
Reduced the number of clicks required to access high traffic content areas
Provided meaningful access to site visitors that have sensory disabilities

In addition to the redesign of the sites, Ironworks performed the necessary TeamSite coding and configuration changes which allowed IBC to leverage a Generic Web Property Model previously developed for other sites. Ironworks also worked closely with IBC on the portal personalization aspect of the project to ensure that TeamSite was properly integrated with the WebSphere portal product.

The Results

Key benefits from this engagement include:

Repurposed, dynamic presentation of content on ibx.com and ibxpress.com
A simplified, understandable navigation scheme providing IBC customers with an easy to use and understand interface
An enhanced layout to support the implementation of personalization on ibxpress.com
A flexible and scaleable platform

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