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WellPoint puts its tremendous
clout behind supplier diversity
RepuCare, a WBE staffing company, supplies doctors, nurses, assorted other healthcare workers and IT folks for WellPoint and other major providers
 'Three years ago,” says Brenda Burke, “WellPoint created its first fulltime supplier diversity position and I was lucky enough to get the job.”
Burke, now nationwide supplier diversity director for the healthcare benefits giant, reflects that “It was a really great opportunity to expand nationally beyond what I had been doing in the past.
“I came into WellPoint eager to create the program because I know its value and I know how important it is for companies to take it seriously. I had worked with many supplier diversity directors in the private sector.”
Although there had been informal supplier diversity initiatives at the company, Burke found she was “basically starting from scratch. WellPoint was clearly  committed to supplier diversity, but now they needed a fulltime initiative because of the volume and the importance of the program.”
Burke reports directly to Tony Santiago, WellPoint’s chief procurement officer, a position that she relishes. “Procurement is exactly where I need to be,” she believes. “I touch and feel the sourcing initiative, I know what’s going on and what we’re going to be buying and I’m right there with the sourcing managers and buyers.”
The program has done very well in its first three years. “We’ve moved from a $22 million spend with diverse suppliers the first year to close to $100 million on tier 1 and tier 2 levels
this past year,” Burke reports.
NMSDC and WBENC
WellPoint is a corporate member of both NMSDC (www.nmsdc.org) and WBENC (www.wbenc.org). On the national level Burke is membership chair of the NMSDC healthcare group, and on the local level she’s on the board of the Indiana Minority Supplier Development Council, one of NMSDC’s thirty-nine local councils.
RepuCare works for WellPoint
Billie Dragoo is founder and CEO of RepuCare, a WBENC-certified WBE that supplies healthcare personnel staffing. “I’m involved with Brenda Burke on a lot of different levels in the state of Indiana,” Dragoo notes.
Her direct involvement is through RepuCare’s very significant contract with WellPoint. Starting at the beginning of 2007, the $12 million contract calls for RepuCare and another company to provide customer service reps and case management nurses for WellPoint in the state of Indiana.
“We ended up hiring a hundred new temporary employees for the work. It’s been a very good contract,” Dragoo says.
Very well known in the city
Dragoo and Burke had worked together even earlier than the WellPoint contract. Before she joined the healthcare giant Burke worked for the mayor of Indianapolis, IN, expanding and improving a supplier diversity program for the city. “I was fortunate enough to be appointed
to the mayor’s cabinet when he was elected in 1999,” she explains.
Through the mayor’s office, Burke was involved with the first-ever public/private partnership for supplier diversity in Indianapolis. “The mayor, the CEO of Eli Lilly and the governor came together in a packed auditorium of minority- and women-owned businesses,” she recalls. “That was the beginning. The state’s top leaders announced that they were serious about supplier diversity and committed to it, and many major hospitals and healthcare companies in particular really took it seriously and moved forward with it.
“I knew then that I had a passion for supplier diversity and wanted to stay in that area, but I wanted to take it to a level far beyond state and city. And now here I am at WellPoint.”
For her part, Dragoo is an architect of the National Association of Women Business Owners (www.nawbo.org), and has been involved with Burke on outreach programs for that organization. Burke, she says, was “very well known in the city and state and very highly regarded because of her championship of inclusion. People knew who she was and were continually seeking her advice.
“Now that she’s transferred from the city to WellPoint, we can’t say enough about her!”
Launching RepuCare
Dragoo, who had worked in employment services, started her company out of her house in 1995. “I had placed doctors and physical therapists and was considered a top woman headhunter in the Midwest.
“I already had good relationships with the hospitals and clinics in the state, so I started up and it was a nice transition to health, physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech pathology staffing in clinics and hospitals.
“We still have that mainstay business,” she notes. “We get the first call from hospitals throughout Indiana and have even expanded into other states. We provide nurses, doctors and others for major companies in the city and state, clinics, and the Hoosier Health Program.”
“I don’t choose the companies!”
Burke makes it very clear that the supplier diversity director does not decide which MBEs and WBEs get contracts. “We don’t choose the companies, but we are advocates for minority- and women-owned businesses and others. We bring to the table a list of suppliers we know have the capacity to compete with anyone else, and also have the leverage of the MBE and WBE certifications.
“As long as there’s still underutilization of diverse suppliers there will always be supplier diversity programs,” says Burke. “Ultimately it would be great if there was no longer a need
for supplier diversity directors or diversity programs in the workplace. But until then there
are advocates and champions and that’s what the supplier diversity people do!”
Burke works very closely with WellPoint’s sourcing directors, seeing where there’s a need and when an RFP will be coming out. “We’re looking for MBEs and WBEs and we want to make sure we have a good mix of all suppliers to send the RFP to. That’s how RepuCare and other companies get in the mix.”
Selected by the sourcing team
Diverse candidates are selected by the sourcing team through quantitative and qualitative analysis, and have to show they can do whatever job is given them. “After that they have visibility within the entire enterprise,” Burke notes. “They get opportunities to be selected for other contracts or for their contracts to be extended, and even for visibility with other major corporations who say, ‘Oh, they were selected to do business with WellPoint so maybe we should take a look at them.’”
As for RepuCare, “Brenda had seen our staffing capability back when she worked in supplier diversity for the mayor,” Dragoo recalls. “She knew what we were made of and what we
could do.
“But before we got to actually sign the contract we had meetings and conversations with many folks at WellPoint in California and here.
“It was tough. They want to make sure you are what you say you are and have the capacity to cover this kind of business.”
She was, and did. “Now I’m doing nationally what I was doing then on a statewide basis,” Dragoo recalls with pleasure.
Stats for RepuCare
In the RepuCare corporate office in Indianapolis, Dragoo has fifteen staffers of her own, including a CFO, COO, HR people and an assortment of supervisors and managers.
“The corporate staff supports the field staff, and in the field we have about 120 employees with specialties from customer service to nursing to physical therapy, occupational therapy, dental assistants and speech pathologists. We also have some healthcare managers and healthcare-related IT people, and we supply CSR service reps and call center operators for WellPoint. That’s been a great enterprise for us, too.
“When you say you do business with WellPoint, people sit up a little straighter,” Dragoo notes with a smile. “I can’t thank WellPoint’s team enough for giving us this opportunity.”
Supporting the members
Although WellPoint’s corporate offices are in Indiana, the company also has major offices in California. “We work closely with the Southern California Minority Business Development Council as well as the Indiana council,” Burke notes. “We have supported minority- and women-owned businesses by funding their booth space for opportunity fairs.
“As part of our NMSDC and WBENC memberships we can designate the councils we want to support from an administrative and operations standpoint and through the development of
their members; at advanced business schools, for example.”
WellPoint held an IT supplier diversity summit a couple of years ago “that went a long way in identifying suppliers in the IT space,” Burke recalls. They chose IT, she notes, “because it represents so much of our overall spend. We brought in a dozen IT suppliers here in Indianapolis and we did it again later that year in another venue. Our IT exec flew in dozens
of his IT leaders, VPs and above. We had all the conference spaces in our whole HQ building set aside for the event. Many of our top executives were there and spoke with the suppliers.”
As a result, she notes, WellPoint currently has contracts with about half the suppliers they hosted. “It was very successful.”
Executive cooperation
Without the cooperation of Angela F. Braly, WellPoint president and CEO, Wayne S. DeVeydt, CFO, and the entire executive leadership team, “What I do would not even be possible,” Burke affirms.
“I talk with my peers around the country and I realize that not everybody gets the support I do.”
WellPoint is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) in fourteen states. Burke is on the BCBSA supplier diversity advisory committee and her boss Tony Santiago, the WellPoint procurement exec, is on the BCBSA procurement advisory committee.
“It’s great,” Burke says. “We have visibility as to what’s going on and can get involved with contracts in the association as well.”
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