Word: ies
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
That all changed earlier this year when Scarpa learned about IE-Engine, a privately held software firm based in Waltham, Mass., that promised to make it easier and cheaper to buy health insurance. IE-Engine set up a pilot program that helped ABB streamline its health-care providers in North Carolina from three to one with no reduction in quality of care. The system enabled Scarpa and his staff to make that decision in half the time it would have taken before. From the receipt of bids to the comparative analysis, the entire process was handled via the Internet...
...online bids. As auction software has become more sophisticated, though, companies are using it to award gnarly contracts for relocation, travel and other complicated services. Today these tools are also being adapted to the health-care market by a handful of firms led by IE-Engine. Its software and services, which cost $200,000 to $700,000, achieve savings by increasing speed and efficiency and by loosening the grip on prices held by the chummy network of providers, brokers and consultants on which most corporate insurance buyers have had to rely...
Taking on that establishment is John McMahon, 47, CEO of IE-Engine, a sourcing-software specialist who once worked for auction-technology firm Ariba and networking giant Cisco Systems. His year-old start-up counts as customers Dow Chemical, Ford, Lucent, Owens Corning and Staples. "The fact that these creme de la creme companies have signed up validates the idea," says Lou Volpe, 52, a partner at Kodiak Ventures, which has invested $6 million in IE-Engine...
...companies spend about $600 billion a year on health care and other employee benefits--a pot of gold that is attracting rivals to IE-Engine's niche. BenefitPoint, based in San Francisco, offers Web-based sourcing of employee benefits but keeps brokers in the loop. FreeMarkets, a $167 million sourcing-software firm based in Pittsburgh, Pa., moved into the health-care business eight months ago, placing more than $1 billion in contracts...
...rightfielder Paul O?Neill, at the end of a storybook career as a Yankee, dumped a single to left as the faithful serenaded him with chants of ?Paul-ie, Paul-ie.? Then, with two out, first baseman Tino Martinez, who like most of the Yankees batsman had been hitless and helpless to this point, smoked the first pitch he saw over the wall in right center...