Office Business Applications

Office Business Applications

Digitize and improve people-driven workflow and collaboration using Microsoft Office as an interface for your existing line-of-business applications.

Although integrating systems and automating transactions are essential to efficiently running a health payer organization, it is people - not systems - who have the greatest potential to improve personal health, drive out inefficiencies, and reduce operational and medical costs. Every day, members, providers, and employees - not PCs or servers - make decisions and take actions that affect health outcomes and care costs. By taking advantage of innovative technology tools to improve people-driven processes, your health payer organization can evolve into a customer-centric, highly collaborative, and knowledge-driven enterprise.

To date, information technology hasn't played a larger role in people-driven processes because, unlike administrative machine-to-machine transactions, much of people's day-to-day work is beyond the reach of conventional line-of-business applications such as customer relationship management (CRM), care/wellness management, and core administrative transactions. These applications are designed for routine tasks and structured business processes. Human workflow, on the other hand, is non-routine, unstructured, and highly collaborative, and it often runs across the workplace, home, and multiple company boundaries. 

The present disconnect between people-driven processes and the workflows often found within line-of-business applications explains why it's so difficult and time-consuming for employees, employers, providers, and consumers to collaborate and turn information into results. This "results gap" can be bridged only by easy-to-use technologies that work the way people work, connecting users to the people, information, and applications they need to do their jobs. Instead of imposing structured processes on people, solutions need to adapt to the unstructured way that individuals and teams communicate, share information, and work together.

Successfully manage and improve human workflow

To meet the needs of your organization, technology needs to:

  • Connect people, not just systems, to other people, information, and processes.

  • Manage processes across multiple applications that were never designed to work together, including line-of-business applications; email, word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation tools; and collaboration applications such as shared workspaces, instant messaging, and social networking.

  • Integrate communications into business processes with tools such as email, instant messaging, phones, voice mail, scheduling, and web conferencing integrated within the applications your employees use every day.

Microsoft Office Business Applications (OBAs)

A strategy for digitizing and improving people-driven workflow and collaboration

Enter Microsoft Office Business Applications (OBA) supported by the Microsoft Office system. Office Business Applications are unique in that they bridge existing line-of-business systems using the familiar Microsoft Office interface that your people already know. OBAs enable you to unlock the value of your current back-end systems by extending the Microsoft Office client or web parts into business processes in line-of-business applications such as enterprise resource planning, CRM, care management, and core administrative systems.

Microsoft's OBA strategy enables you to bridge the legacy world of structured, transactional processes to reach the new world of non-routine, unstructured, and people-driven processes. It provides a next-generation platform that supports direct-to-consumer connections, delivery of actionable information within the context of existing workflow and digital lifestyles, and end-to-end collaboration with providers and trading partners - all while integrating with existing core systems. This makes it easier for your people and teams to communicate, share insights, and work together from the workplace, from home, and across multiple company boundaries.

The Microsoft Office system

The out of-the-box capabilities of the Microsoft Office system - including unified communications, collaboration, enterprise content management, business intelligence, enterprise search, and workflow-can help you solve critical business issues faster, using fewer resources and with less complexity. The Microsoft Office system is a familiar and flexible platform that bridges the gaps between people-driven processes and line-of-business applications by:

  • Connecting people to other people, information, and processes within the context of their existing digital work style and the familiar applications they already use every day.

  • Managing communications, insight, document sharing, and human workflow within and beyond the enterprise.

Microsoft Office capabilities help you:

  • Increase the value of your existing technology investments.

  • Increase individual and team productivity.

  • Streamline people-driven processes.