Vizient Deploys Modern Platform to Support Aggressive Growth with Kantata
Industry
Company
What Kantata Replaced
Headquarters
The Challenge
After a merger, Vizient was faced with the challenge of unifying a number of once-independent businesses and groups. Everyone was using different tools, including Sharepoint, Workfront, and Lawson. Fragmentation was an immediate issue. It was nearly impossible to create reports or analyze project success, and as data passed between systems it often became unreliable. Vizient also knew there was a huge opportunity to leverage the collective knowledge of the firm, however, resources and project details were spread across these disparate systems.
“Before we chose Kantata, we operated in five different applications, and none of them spoke to each other. Any reporting, any analysis…we were the medium by which these systems communicated. It all required manual Excel dumps.”
Director, Consulting Operations, Vizient
Vizient, Inc. is the largest member-owned healthcare company in the country, dedicated to serving members and customers through innovative data-driven solutions, expertise and collaborative opportunities that lead to improved patient outcomes and lower costs. Vizient was formed after the merger of some of the industry’s most trusted leaders.
The Solution
The Need For One Standard System
Vizient began hunting for a single solution that would get everyone on the same page. They debated custom development, but ultimately found that the reporting and resource management features in Kantata were exactly what they needed.
Resource Management
As a consulting firm, having the wrong resources on projects is a burden to Vizient’s bottom line. Chris Fehring states, “Knowing where people are working, and where they will be working in the future, is essential. Now we can see this all through Kantata. We are actually forecasting resources based on data instead of just intuition.”
Real-Time Reporting At Scale
Before the switch, Vizient was unable to do any operational reporting. With Kantata, they have a single source of truth. Everyone and all the relevant data is in one system, and everyone is using that data as a common language to make decisions.
Unique Reporting Needs
Vizient needed to find a solution that could accurately track member savings. Today they utilize Kantata’s custom fields to track if their consultants are on target to hit these savings.
“Our goal is to drive members savings. We’re successful if they’re successful. Being able to quantify this is incredibly important to demonstrate our value. It’s also how we get paid. Having a tool to centralize and manage all this information was not an option but a requirement.”
VP, Consulting Operations, Vizient
Benefits
- Improved Business Visibility and Control
- Increased Accuracy of Forecasting and Reporting
Reduction in Systems Footprint
The Results
Improved Data Quality and Reliable Reporting
“Kantata Insights gives us the ability to do reporting that we could never get before,” said Grant Anderson. “Our manual reporting was 50-60% reliable at best. Now we are at a point where we can rely on and trust the data.”
Newfound Resource Visibility Improves Profitability
Rather than reacting to resource management conflicts, Vizient is able to see exactly what resources are available to proactively forecast for future projects. This increases profitability and project success.
Confidence in the Future
Vizient is confident looking towards the future using Kantata. Grant stated, “Now that we have everything in the same system, over time, as we start to build really great data, we can track the various initiatives we work on and we can decide which ones we’re good at, which one’s save our members the most money. We are confident in how we are moving forward.”
“Knowing where people are working, and where they will be working in the future, is essential. We can see this all through Kantata. We are actually forecasting resources based on data instead of just intuition.”
Director of Consulting Operations, Vizient