Random Moment Sampling

Cost allocation vehicle of Federal, State and Local funds

 How do you distribute the cost incurred by Local, State and Federal of the staff (as an example In a State Dept. of Children and Families) who works on multiple programs often crisscrossing or related to these 3 agencies? One way is to collect each time slot of each staff and attribute the nature of work to local, state or federal “buckets” but then it’s a huge overhead – the other sensible way is to randomly select one (sample) – and randomly select a time slot and identify the distribution of work into these 3 buckets. Once you have this random moment sample – extrapolate it across all the employees and time (usually fiscal quarter) one would now have the effort of the month at the department by the bucket (categories) – now appropriate the funds according to efforts. 

Government Stamp of approval and sponsorship

As outlined in OMB Circular A-87 Section 11.h(6), random moment sampling is a recognized and accepted alternative to burdensome 100% time reporting.

Using the unique RMS service even small agencies can cost effectively collect the data required to confidently apply for reimbursement for salaries and wages spent servicing public assistance programs. Many of these groups would previously have been discouraged from claiming their share of Federal and State monies by the onerous data collection and reporting requirements.  

One time - high value purchase 

I was looking into this market – and found its very niche, and not many players. Though most of state and other govt. agencies often procure RMS systems. The usual deal size for RMS systems are close to $10 million.

Example CSG won a deal with State of Illinois, in 2011, for the RMS solution at Human and Healthcare Framework, the deal size there was $16 million. Fairbanks LLC and Public Consulting group won deals in RMS at State of Illinois and Michigan in the same year which again are deals ~ $10 million.

The second observation was that the RMS value chain is very short.  The product companies provide it end to end, with hosting included. There is a lesser role for system integrators or value added service players. Therefore the entry barrier is quite high. Also since the customers are mostly government, and they typically look for good references (existing sales) before they procure, new comers will have a lesser say in the market.  The brand identity is huge.

On the other hand the existing engagement mandates that hosting is of impeccable standards, security is true north – this would make the exit barriers high. One might contend that hosting players might take over from the RMS solution or product and run the business as is – but then since most of the RMS products are based on proprietary platforms; it would be a difficult goal.  

HIGH ENTRY - HIGH EXIT - REGULATED MARKET

With HIGH entry barrier, and HIGH exit barrier; and limited players in the market; under the un-intentional government procurement policy (of looking for reference and experience and therefore high barrier) has ironically facilitated an OLIGOPOLISTIC market. The only reason it’s not making noise because the RMS players are intentionally or otherwise flying low under radar. A question to linger and ponder over is does any of the RMS provider have a transparent and open balance sheet? 

Thanks for the Comments- other related questions are 
a. Will the agencies like Medicaid make repeat procurement for RMS? 
b.  If these agencies make repeat procurement then would they go for replacing the incumbent vendor - would they try out a new entrant in the market, with possibly low references/ clients ? 

Consumerism – What U.S Healthcare could (should definitely) pick from Indian Telecom Market

How do you define the competitiveness of the Telecom market which has one of the lowest ARPU (Average Revenue Per User): less than $ 2.5 / year

-          Intense

What do you term the sub market – Value Added Services (VAS): which constitute 10% of this ARPU – but has 250 players fighting in this space.

-          Unparalleled

And how do you further define the companies which battle out in this intensely competitive market where regulation mandates

-          Lowest exit barrier from the products : As simple as sending a SMS

-          Strict monitoring on marketing bandwidth usage : Out of those 250, approximately 10 marketing promotions of vendors can be made within the week

-          Retention is as real as sighting a unicorn  (again just sending a SMS, IVR option):  a mobile VAS services loses almost all of his customers in less than 2 months  (monthly churn is 70%)  

-          Such is the lopsided affair with customer that if the marketing channel reaches a DND customer thrice , while she doesn’t want the service, government might revoke the telecom license (some amendments are under way)

-          you don’t waste time in looking for how to define this market,  but you set forth looking for these people who have steered and championed in this market

Lets briefly dissect this market into how VAS Companies attract and acquire new customers, retain their customers, increase their revenue – just to survive in this market.  

Telecom VAS is low value – multiple purchases- high volume market. Therefore the key to survival is “Engagement” – another word for same is “Customer Centricity” or “consumerism”.

The LTV of a customer is as low as $ 0.22  

The channel partner revenue is highest: around 30%

The means to churn is endless!!

Also just to let know the VAS market’s value chain is as follows

[Content or service] -> [Telecom operator] à customer

OR

[content or service] -> [ Devices]  -> [Telecom operator] -> Customer  

So basically the operator is the only channel through which content might get consumed, and billed, also to most extent discovered

Being with 2 major Telecom operators handling the emerging services and later establishing a French – British firm on Social – Mobile VAS Services in the market, I had the opportunity to experience and work on this market both the sides of table (with the operator pruning the products and VAS companies which I need to market and with VAS companies in forging alliances with operators/ devices muscling enough strategy to get into those 10 companies out of 250 week on week!!  

To be in the game, one needs to exactly know who their customers are, where would customers hear about these products, how do you convert those marketing messages to onboarding, how do you convert onboarding to revenue over some time, how do you prevent the churn or bring back churned customers back to your service, and finally how do you engage with customers so that they turn as your marketing channel.  This way of life maps to Dave Mcclure’s famous AARRR.

Detailed the AARRR and corresponding activities across these as follows

1.       Acquisition:

We explored the various acquisition channels that are available and made scrupulous use of same. Right from offline space such as Bill inserts, Retail leaflets, target ATL (example organizing a contest for teenies – and sponsoring their marathon – and talking about the same using our service) TO effective online. Online marketing channels are bi-directional, can be tracked, and one could initiate an action with the discovery medium. Example a DSTK message (when your phone is inactive, and you are around a particular BTS, operator could transmit messages to your phone which wont jam your inbox) can be clicked to land onto your product page.   Or using the space in Missed Call Alerts to talk about our service.

2.       Activation:

My experience has been we lose 50% of customers with each additional clicks or steps to onboard. Sometimes more. What is the minimum information you need from customer to enroll her? How transparent are your products? How do you create confidence with products? Do you have support channels to reach customers if you detect the enrollment is left incomplete?

3.       Retention:

Engage the customers. I used to monitor the minutes spent by customer on my product across demographics, spot some trends. Which product features are cool and used more? Are most customers of yours suffering from high usage to waning ones- it might indicate trouble. I noticed people were using Facebook and other social media through my product during Wednesdays out of all days in a week instead of weekends – and that  

4.       Revenue:

The LTV was $0.20 for the service – we choose low acquisition cost channels example SMS and USSD at $0.01. But to ensure that we get to extract the fullest LTV we needed to engage and offer various pricing options which could suit the customer, right from sachet based pricing to free trials to freemium models. How to ensure we have positive cash flows – refine agreements with operators- have revenue share kind of model with the partner channels

5.       Referral:

Introduce hooks in product to make the service viral with consent of customer. Example integrate with address book of the device, or reward the customer for bringing friends, incentivize further for building communities. Introduce features in product that makes viral simpler – example any post to Facebook through our service would have signatures which reflect our service and clicking on same can bring more customers. So we have essentially marketed our service through customer posts with their consent!!

The ethos is still the same – the HC market is waking up to the similar “way of life” in Telecom VAS (except that Referral part of AARRR isn’t there yet)

1.                         Acquisition

                                    i.      Public and Private HIX, Direct to Consumer, off line medium, mobile advertising, wearable  

                                  ii.      Make use of analytics to find out efficacies and ROI channel wise

                                 iii.      Who are your untapped markets: Hispanics? Would you have pages in Spanish then? If Baby Boomers, would you have the web portals tailored for them?

                                iv.      What are your products?   

                                  v.      Smoother and Effective Touch points – Re-engineer the existing Contact Center, introduce automation, go for SaaS model than huge upfront CAPEX investments

2.                         Activation

                                    i.        Smoother enrollment

                                  ii.      digitalized fulfillment

3.                         Registration

                                    i.        Enrollment Transformation     

4.                         Revenue

                                    i.        Billing automation

                                  ii.      Payment portal modernization

                                 iii.      value based care

5.                         Retention

                                    i.        Customer Life time Value Management

                                  ii.      Loyalty programs     

Charter for the Blog

"Well why do we need this Blog ?"  I ask ..

Well, this is exactly the start I needed ..  to begin with questions. The post symbolizes the blog - to press questions , to probe.. not just any other blog or a garbage of public and private information but to work on the data to identify trends - to ask questions to know more .. 

"Well, why this post then? " the voices in me ask again  

This is to your correction tool .. To channelize .. to set the agenda

I would use this post to 

- learn about the HEALTHCARE market  

- to share the learning with broader community (use #HCview in my twitter handle)  

- to collect thoughts / posts from like minded people 

- to get ideas / suggestions from the HC world at large so that I can understand the market more
- to grow together and if I could shorten the learning curve for at least one , would consider my purpose fulfilled 

.. Lets begin