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Six Months Journey with Anaqua: Interview with Ethan Waters

Brevets | Marques
Ethan Waters - Senior Director, Technology

In June 2020, O P Solutions joined the Anaqua family and it’s quite a change from a ten-person team, but company veteran Ethan Waters, Senior Director, Technology in O P Solutions, has had little problem adapting. Ethan was interviewed by Nancy Hegarty, VP of Marketing at Anaqua:

What has being acquired by Anaqua meant to you?

For both myself and the staff, the acquisition was definitely very exciting and brought renewed energy to a company where I’ve been working for more than 20 years. There’s a determination at Anaqua to take our flagship product PATTSY WAVE to the next level.

How has the O P Solutions’ operation changed?

We’ve kept many aspects the same, particularly the personal and responsive nature of our support team. It’s important for clients to have immediate feedback on high-priority issues—most of the industry has turned to ticketing and emails, which are more impersonal and may be prone to delay.

But, overall, we’re better in every way, shape, and form. We’re investing in tech and support staff and bringing in consultants to speed product delivery.

On the client side, we were a bit of a ‘no news is good news’ type of operation but that’s changed now, and we’re actively reaching out and developing client focus groups. On the tech side, there’s a big push to refresh the user interface and implement integration with several DMS systems.

What do your new and existing clients think?

Overall, it’s been resoundingly positive. Anaqua’s size and reputation behind us is very comforting for clients. From early on in the process, CEO Bob Romeo and Anaqua kept repeating that we’re not ‘sunsetting’ PATTSY WAVE, we’re looking to grow it and use it as a stepping stone to get further cemented in the industry, and that’s comforting for clients to know.

For our new clients, I just don’t see any downsides. We have new options, like being able to host clients on cloud servers, that we didn’t have six months ago.

How has your job changed?

At the small ten-person company O P Solutions was, I was on the tech side, but I also dealt with the overall management of human resources and health plans. This has all shifted to people who understand it much more thoroughly.

I was the guy that dealt with networking issues and troubleshooting, but a lot of that has moved on to experts on the Anaqua side of things now. This allows me to focus more clearly on my areas of expertise, such as figuring out how to build new features and functionality.

What’s the best thing about working for Anaqua?

The expertise of the people in their various working areas within Anaqua has been the best aspect overall. Anaqua has great resources—we’ve been able to reach out to people and say, ‘you’ve dealt with this issue before, how do we do it?’

I’ve always considered myself a hard and dedicated worker, and it’s so important to know that others feel the same way. At Anaqua, everyone is dedicated and determined to work hard.

Where do you see yourself and OP Solutions in six months’ time?

Over the first six months, we’ve been working with Anaqua to onboard the O P Solutions team, from both an infrastructure and network standpoint, and a company policy standpoint. We’re wrapping up Phase One of integration (which was time-consuming but rewarding) and over the next six months, we’ll be working on Phase Two of the integration.

The idea of PATTSY WAVE 7.0 coming together in six months’ time is very exciting. This is the first time in nearly ten years that we’re working on a brand-new look and feel. Adding in integration with Anaqua annuity payments and several DMS systems along with the ability to have PATTSY WAVE hosted in the cloud—is a game-changer.