1. Case
Study
How NASCO Lowered Costs and Shortened
the Development Cycle to Realize
Significant ROI
> buSINeSS pROfILe
Insurance claims processor
“Actuate has helped NASCO cut its development costs in half while improving the end user
experience. We are better able to deliver what our customers want on a timely basis.” > LOCATION
— Malcolm Silberman, Project Manager, NASCO Based in Atlanta
> CHALLeNge
The NASCO Challenge The Actuate Solution • Reduce time to create Web-
based applications
NASCO had limited flexibility to meet certain NASCO selected Actuate’s BIRT (Business • Leverage data warehouse to
customer needs with existing systems— Intelligence and Reporting Tools ) deliver plan information via
namely long development cycles, text-based development platform to provide a cost- extranet
reports and timely cost-effective ways efficient, flexible, robust, rich information
to generate reports. Customers also had application solution for its healthcare Plan > SOLuTION
limited ability to customize reports without customers. The company selected BIRT based Leverage Actuate’s BIRT plat-
impacting other users of base reports. on the following criteria: form for operational perfor-
Changing reports was costly and involved a mance management
- Ability to integrate with existing
long release cycle.
membership and billing application
“NASCO is currently using a modernized - Ability to pull from data warehouse > beNefITS
membership and billing solution called - More cost effective than Cognos • Lower development costs by
MembersEdgeSM based on the MetaVance® - Web-oriented approach to information more than 50 percent
application developed by HP. However, while delivery • Cut report deployment time
this application supports our Plan’s needs - Proven scalability from 18 to under 6 months
for membership and billing functionality, - Flexibility to develop own information • Expand premium billing ser-
the reporting component was not flexible or applications in timely manner vice with new clients
timely enough to meet our demands,” says • Deliver interactive views on
“Actuate and BIRT offer proven scalability that
Malcolm Silberman, Project Manager, NASCO. demand
can work with any data warehouse in our
“The long development cycle had a negative
Membership department,” states Silberman.
effect on customer satisfaction.”
“And Actuate was willing to work with us to
grow our application — starting with a small
deployment of 100 users and expanding to
an extranet application with over 450 users,”

2. Case Study: NASCO
says Silberman. Actuate is currently used enhance product Offering and Revenue
by the company’s Membership department Opportunity
to provide information applications to Call NASCO was able to expand its premium
Center Managers, Billing Managers and billing business because of the richness and
Financial Analysts at Plan customer sites. depth of the BIRT information applications.
NASCO provides a consistent view of Prior to Actuate, some of NASCO’s customers
membership data to its internal users and would not use the premium billing service
Plan customers, offering a single version because of the lack of customized reporting.
of the truth. Through an extranet site, end BIRT has also proven to be a scalable solution
users can access billing and member data for and enables NASCO to grow its customer
their specific healthcare plan. “Through the base.
flexibility of the Actuate solution, we are able
to deliver enterprise, Web-based customer
information via a single BI infrastructure,
ensuring consistency while lowering our BI
deployment costs,” says Silberman.
benefits of Actuate
and bIRT
Significant Reduction in Development
Costs
NASCO leverages BIRT’s collaborative
environment, allowing its developers, report
writers and end users to create and/or use NASCO utilizes the BIRT Interactive Viewer, an ad hoc web-
based tool that enables end users to modify their views to
applications rich in interactivity, depth, span suit their specific needs.
and complexity. As a result, NASCO has been
Improve Customer Satisfaction
able to lower its development costs by over
half. Because of Actuate’s scalable platform Because of Actuate, NASCO has reduced
and rich functionality, NASCO has also been the time required to deliver new reports
able to reduce IT costs by consolidating from 18 months to less than 6 months.
applications on a single server. “Our customers are happier now that
their enhancement requests and needs
are met on a timely basis,” says Silberman.
“The Actuate and BIRT initiative has also
boosted customer satisfaction by increasing
collaboration between business managers
gathering customer requirements and
Plan resources.” NASCO customers are also
empowered with interactive reports that
deliver information on demand.
Actuate provides rich data visualization that meets the
specific needs of NASCO’s Plan customers.
2

3. Case Study: NASCO
The NASCO future Actuate - the people behind bIRT
Actuate founded and continues to co-lead
NASCO plans to expand its Actuate user the Eclipse BIRT open source project. BIRT is
community and leverage additional the premier development environment for
capabilities of the BIRT technology. Rich Information Applications that present
According to Silberman, “The cost data in compelling and interactive ways
savings and reduced turnaround times via the web on any device. Actuate and
we have achieved with BIRT have been its people are dedicated to making BIRT
unprecedented. Due to our successful the best environment for our customers
implementation and measurable value-add to develop Web 2.0 applications that
with the BIRT solution, we will be expanding drive revenue through higher customer
our use of Actuate and continuing to satisfaction/loyalty and improve operational
leverage rich interactive information performance. The people of Actuate
applications going forward.” continually participate in and provide
resources for the vibrant open source
About NASCO community that has emerged around
In 1987, NASCO was formed through a BIRT. Anybody can participate in the BIRT
partnership among major BlueCross® and movement by visiting www.birt-exchange.
BlueShield® (BCBS) Plans. Today, NASCO com.
provides the most efficient single-system Actuate offers value-add BIRT products
claims processing solution for national, state, and services that speed the development
large group and government accounts, process and bring additional functionality,
processing over 147.7 million claims for over interactivity and enterprise scalability to
11 million members. BIRT-based Rich Information Applications.
NASCO offers system and service solutions Actuate has over 4,400 customers
exclusively to many BCBS Plans. NASCO’s globally in a diverse range of business
core strength comes from its claims areas including financial services and the
processing system, the NASCO Processing public sector. Founded in 1993, Actuate is
System, which provides unsurpassed headquartered in San Mateo, California,
flexibility, scalability and operational with offices worldwide. Actuate is listed on
performance. NASCO offers a highly NASDAQ under the symbol ACTU. For more
configurable membership solution that information, visit the company’s web site at
can be suited for any Plan’s total book www.actuate.com.
of business, as well as a multitude of
performance-based services designed
to help Plan customers improve their
operational efficiencies and reduce costs.
Actuate Corporation Tel: (888) 422-8828
2207 Bridgepointe Parkway Web: http://www.actuate.com
Suite 500 3
San Mateo, CA 94404