International SOS is the world's leading provider of medical assistance, international healthcare, security services, and outsourced customer care. International SOS currently provides services to 83% of Fortune Global 100 companies.
It helps businesses, governments and non-profit organisations manage medical, travel and security risks facing their international travelers, expatriates, and global workforce through its network of alarm centers, online travel management services and medical consulting practice.
In the past, International SOS used three key assistance applications: one is developed in the US, and the other two are both developed in Australia. These disparate systems served the company well in their daily operations but only provided partial integration. As a result, the data was often untimely.
Over 6,000 employees rely on these applications, including customer service executives, nurses and doctors, sales and marketing professionals, financial professionals, and business intelligence analysts.
With global operations in over 70 countries and locations, it was critical for International SOS to have an environment where relevant information was available 24/7. International SOS needed a system that allowed it to become location independent.
International SOS developed new applications that allowed the company to provide a single integrated environment across its entire assistance structure. For example, it can serve as a platform for doctors and customer service executives to work together in sync and in real time.
International SOS underwent a global Business Process improvement, which required the consolidation of case management and billings systems to its 26 operations and billing centers spanning five continents. As these systems continue to evolve, more and more enhancements and improvements came into place as a result of ever changing business needs.
The development of these applications alone required rigorous testing by different groups located in different departments and locations. Adopting an off-shoring and resource augmentation model that allows dynamic allocation of resources to provide cost savings put International SOS' knowledge retention at risk if mismanaged.
HP Quality Center resolved these problems by allowing International SOS to provide a single integrated environment across its entire IT Infrastructure. Information is retained and knowledge can be easily shared via the requirements and test scripts that have been written. It has acted as a repository, not just on defects raised from previous projects but also the requirements that change over time.
In addition, HP Quality Center makes communication between all development and test team members much easier. Teams have access to data anywhere, at any time via the Internet or International SOS intranet. Test managers can check their projects' real time testing status and prioritise defects. They can also monitor each tester's productivity and knowledge of the system.
A strategic HP Software Business Partner, Pro-Datech, worked with HP to identify the needs of International SOS and concertedly worked towards the implementation of HP's solutions. With more than 30 years of experience in the IT industry, Pro-Datech delivers end-to-end solutions for enterprise systems, storage and security, from hardware and software provisioning, to consultation, project management, implementation and after-sales support services.
As HP and Pro-Datech took the time to understand and work with the business requirements of International SOS, they were able to deliver the right product and value proposition. Armed with this knowledge, it only took three months to get the solution implemented, which meant zero business downtime. In addition, Pro- Datech offered possible solutions for the future as the landscape of software development is under constant change while the business continues to grow.
From a business stand point there are two improvements. The speed of raising change requests has improved. Because businesses can simply raise their requests through HP Quality Center, requests can be analyzed there and then by technical teams. This has done away with email and phone calls, which allowed some requests to slip by unanswered when International SOS experienced a high volume of calls previously.
Also, the number of issues slowing workflow has decreased. This is due to the increased quality of the applications. The number of resolved production defects can be directly translated to the development teams' productivity. This has resulted in a 10% reduction of product defects.
The productivity of the technical teams has improved by an estimated 50% with process automation. Also, the information submitted in the form of an online request is easy to track from end to end - something that would be extremely difficult to do with the manual process.
Regression testing has improved significantly. A process that normally takes 5 days has been reduced to a day with HP QuickTest Professional software.
Overall, International SOS has achieved 82% of their targeted ROI, while making a significant drop in the defects of their applications.
As business grows in International SOS, so will its application requirements. With HP Quality Center's ability to scale and the hands-on approach from Pro- Datech, International SOS will be equipped to cope with the increasing demands of its business globally.
