Anthem Blue Cross 2001 Annual Report Download - page 12

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Taking Great Strides:
Reducing our administrative costs
Managing administrative costs – those expenses related
to the operational functions of our business – remained
a major focus for Anthem.
We were successful in containing these costs
in 2001, even as we maintained strong growth and made
progress on the integration of newly acquired operations.
Keeping expenses flat for our shared services model,
where important functions such as legal, human resources,
communications, finance, facilities management and
purchasing are shared by the entire organization, was a
key element of our success. For the year, our consolidated
administrative expense ratio was 19.6 percent, an
improvement of 160 basis points over 2000, when
administrative expenses were 21.2 percent of
operating revenues.
We take great pride in progress made with the
integration of our recent acquisitions and with process
improvements made possible by the introduction of
new technology in each of our regions. Our progress in
advancing our technological capabilities propelled us
from 444th to 159th in Information Week magazine’s
annual survey of the nation’s largest, most innovative
organizations. Information Week also presented
Anthem with medals in business practices, technology,
eBusiness strategies and customer knowledge. As we
continue to consolidate our operating systems and
improve our processes, we anticipate further
improvement in administrative costs, an important
measure of our financial performance.
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