Ep. 110: Mitch Perry - Business Transformation (in the Context of Accounting & Finance)

Contact Mitch Perry:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitch-perry-6111b61/


FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Mitch: (00:00)


Thanks for coming back and listening to another episode of Count
Me In, I'm your host Mitch Roshong, and this is the 110th episode
of IMA's podcast series. Today you will hear from Mitch Perry,
CFO for Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. Mitch is an
experienced executive with a demonstrated history of leading
effectively across multiple industries, including healthcare,
energy, and insurance. In this episode, he talks about business
transformation in the context of accounting and finance. Keep
listening to hear about some keys, best practices and strategies,
for overcoming challenges associated with business
transformation. 


 


Adam: (00:47)


Mitch, what is the current nature of business transformations and
what do businesses hope to accomplish by going through a business
transformation? 


 


Mitch P.: (00:56)


Yeah. Well, thanks, Adam,  for that question, it's, it was
really timely. For us, we're seeing, you know, a lot of change in
healthcare and trying to lead transformation in healthcare, you
know, it's at its most basic form, I look at it as a need to be
responsive to really what's going on in the marketplace, how
rapidly business conditions are changing. What you need to do to,
as a company is not only to stay current, but hopefully stay in,
stay in the lead. I think about healthcare, maybe even business
in general, what we're living through right now with COVID-19,
has really underscored, how, how important it is to be ready, to
adapt and change and transform to the external market. And what
we've seen, to some extent, even gives a little bit of an
opportunity to accelerate some of that transformation. I view us
as an industry that is transforming right before our eyes, and I
see us as Blue Cross, North Carolina as playing a role on helping
to transform leading the transformation of health healthcare for
the better, in our state. And the way we look at it is largely
from an affordability lens that, we got to drive transform
ourselves and help transform the system in a way that, is,
provides for more affordable healthcare for our customers, and a
major way we're doing that is through how we transform our, our
payment approach with our provider partners, and you're paying
them for, quality and outcomes as opposed to a fee for service.
And even though we're a leader, maybe especially because we're a
leader, you know, we're doing it from a position of strength,
we're making certain that we're focusing on, what we should be
doing for the long-term,and it kind of allows us to play offense
as opposed to maybe having to react and try to transform from a
position of defense later r. You know, the final point I would
make on, on this question, Adam is, we have, had really strong
momentum with our provider partners and transforming, the payment
system before the pandemic, and it really, because of that has
allowed us to maintain momentum and even accelerated, some things
that weren't initially on the roadmap is, have now allowed us to
even go faster. So think in terms of how we're able to add
telehealth, into what we're, in, into what we're really,
completing as part of our transformation, structure, and then,
you know, how we're working and bringing our primary care along
as well. So it really, put us in a position to not only be strong
coming into it, but to maybe even go faster through it. 


 


Adam: (04:13)


So I think you've given us some great examples of how you've been
able to have a successful transformation. What are some of the
keys that you've been able to apply to make it a successful
transformation? 


 


Mitch P.: (04:23)


Yeah, and Adam, I will acknowledge, that, you know, we are, in
the middle of this and maybe all businesses are at some stage in
the middle of transformation, but, you know, the good news is I
think I've got some really timely, feedback, but there's also the
reality that we learn and learning every day. You know, one of
the things I think about is, innovation is important. I think
sometimes when you talk about transformation, people think about
innovation and clearly there is an aspect of that, but I think
about it as, as being more than about innovation, I think about
it as execution the really the most critical part. I don't know
if you've had exposure to John Doerr, a very successful investor
with Kleiner Perkins. He was late investor, Google, Amazon
recently, Door Dash, and, I've heard him say before, that ideas
are easy execution is everything. And it really hits home for me
that, yeah, it's, it's great to have all these great ideas, but
there are a lot of great ideas, you know, really the key to
success is can you execute on those ideas? And so with that, you
know, I've done a little thinking around what are some successful
events and, you know, almost think about it like a little bit of
a recipe. This recipe happens to have six items. I will say I'm a
pretty simplistic baker. Six items is quite, quite a bit, but
transformation has some complexity to it, and I think six
probably makes sense and they all happen to begin with the letter
C. So hopefully they're easy to remember, but not the six c's.
The first one is courage. I think it takes courage to make
changes to the status quo. You have to have energy to continue to
be curious. You have to find ways to take measured risks so that
you move forward without putting too much of your existing model
at risk. The second is, communication. You know, I'd say it
starts at the executive level, but it has to go all the way
through the organization. Being clear about what you're driving
towards, you know, what we're trying to achieve, why it's better,
you know, why, you know, not just trying to make a change for
change sake, but why it makes sense for what we're doing. The
third is collaboration, and I think what we're doing with our
provider partners provides, or will a good example of that.
transformation requires partnerships. I don't think there's
really any way to do it effectively unless you deal with
partnerships, whether they be internal partnerships or external.
And I think it's important that you invest the time is early. She
can, and your transformation process there to build those
partnerships so that you can get some early wins and you can
withstand the challenges later, and where in, you're able to pick
up momentum as you, as you move. The fourth, is change management
and, you know, I think about change management as being 
almost a process to itself. You have to be purposeful. We all
understand that, as an organization and as individuals, we
embrace change differently. We have different risk tolerances,
but important, that you're able to, bring everyone along. And
there's no way to do that, I think, but to be purposeful around
kind of how you, how you work through the organization and when
you're doing it outside the organization, how you work outside
the organization to make certain, everyone has a common
understanding. The fifth, and this one may become a little more
obvious given the, for the fact that the four score probably has
some complexity to them, but it is commitment. I'd like to say
that you have to be patient, but you also have to be persistent.
You can't change momentum overnight. There will be setbacks.
There will be opportunities for people to say this doesn't work,
but you have to make certain that you've got the commitment and
fortitude to continue to move forward even during the challenges.
And the final one, which I really think underpins them all is
culture. And, you know, the culture of blue cross North Carolina
is going to be different say than ...