Case: How CSAM Health Group gets invoicing correct – with 700 customer contracts in 14 companies

About Svein-Harald UtGÅrd

Svein-Harald Utgård has extensive experience in the field of IT, with the last 16 years spent in leadership roles in companies that develop solutions for the healthcare sector. He joined CSAM Health Group when they acquired Arcid in 2019, where he served as CEO. There, he assumed a significant responsibility early on: from 2020 to 2023, he held the position of Contract Services Manager, ensuring full control over 700 contracts with 500 customers. Today, he leads two of CSAM's seven business areas.

ABOUT CSAM Health Group

CSAM Health Group is the leading provider of specialized software for the healthcare sector in the Nordic region, and they are expanding their reach to the rest of the world. The company is organized into seven different business areas, creating software for public preparedness, health data sharing and collaboration, medical imaging, maternal and child health, and medical research. Their solutions are critical at every stage of life, from conception, pregnancy, and birth to diagnosis, cancer treatments, and emergency ambulance procedures.

Background

In total, CSAM Health Group serves around 500 customers, primarily public and private healthcare organizations. Most of these are located in the Nordic region, but they now have customers in 27 countries. These customers are served by one or more of the company's 14 subsidiaries, and 76% of the group's 2022 revenue of NOK 370 million comes from Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), licenses which customers pay for the use of the software.

Since going public in October 2020, the requirements for revenue recognition quality at CSAM Health Group have significantly increased, along with expectations for growth. Acquiring smaller niche providers is a central part of their growth strategy. This involves a large number of contracts with customers based on different practices in each company.

Challenges

Although CSAM Health Group is considered medium-sized on an international scale, they face the complexity of a large company. A CFO would identify significant challenges for the finance department in a company like CSAM Health Group:

Consolidating revenues from all companies.
Managing over 700 customer contracts, often required by auditors.
Tracking prices for an even larger number of products, creating significant complexity in customer billing due to different practices among the 14 subsidiaries.
Critical missions necessitate extraordinary efforts to monitor key subcontractors.
Secure storage of vital documentation, such as data processing agreements with a large number of customers.

Process

There are now 900 active contracts registered in Complete Control, with more than 700 being customer contracts:

"In the initial phase after adopting Complete Control, I was responsible for establishing procedures and processes for how the entire CSAM Health should handle agreements. Now, the IT department is responsible for the software itself, but I am still consulted for advice."

"I greatly appreciate that the solution is so intuitive and easy to use. To put it this way: I am the one in CSAM Health Group who contacts House of Control support most frequently, and I may have called four times. And when I do need help, Karoline and Jompe are fantastic resources for us."

Improvements

The top priority was to gain control over all income streams among the subsidiaries, which required a well-functioning contract archive for the entire group. They needed a solution with the functionality required for contract management:

"With Complete Control, we have what we need to have complete control over all agreements down to the last detail. On an aggregated level, we can be sure that billing for a total of 500 million NOK per year is done correctly and in accordance with the contracts."

Regarding control over subcontractors:

"With the alerts in Complete Control, our product managers receive invaluable assistance in checking compliance related to subcontracting. Since our solutions and services are critical to society, they are highly regulated and monitored by health authorities. Therefore, it is crucial that we always meet all requirements and can influence subcontractors to adapt to new demands in good time."

CSAM HEALTH GROUP'S CONTRACT MANAGEMENT SUCCESS

Read about how CSAM Health Group, a leading provider of specialized software for the healthcare sector in the Nordic region, tackled the challenges related to contract management and revenue recognition after their stock market listing in October 2020. We have interviewed Svein-Harald Utgård, an experienced leader with a background in IT and healthcare, who shares how he played a key role as Contract Services Manager from 2020 to 2023.

Read the entire interview here:

How CSAM Health Group gets invoicing correct – with 700 customer contracts in 14 companies