Tom Fagan is a Senior Analyst with Azavar Government Solutions. He has over 20 years of experience working as an analyst and local government affairs manager with an emphasis on Six Sigma methodology to improve processes.
In this interview, we learn how analysts with Azavar Government Solutions are using technology to help municipalities work smarter, not harder to grow their revenue. We also identify some common challenges many cities face during a standard audit.
QUESTION: Can you give an overview of the typical role of an analyst, what they do daily?
ANSWER: Within the analyst role, we are responsible for analyzing data. First, we format our information that we get from the provider and the municipality into our proprietary software.
Then we examine all addresses for correct taxation codes specific to that specific municipality. We identify any exceptions or miscoded addresses and sent them back to the provider for review and subsequent adjustment.
A senior analyst will have more diverse, yet more pinpointed role in regards to various providers. Their specialty could be gas, electric, hotel-motel, food and beverage, water, sales, telecom or cable tax.
My role as senior analyst is a bit unique because it also includes a business development component. I have been tasked to go out and evangelize, to source for new clients. I've been doing business development for the last year and I have enjoyed a great deal of success.
I have also met a lot of wonderful people in municipalities and have found they are often stretched very thin due to dwindling resources. Therefore, their opportunities for revenue growth are dwindling as well.
That’s where Azavar Government Solutions comes into play. We are here to help them produce for their constituents and to make sure that they're getting every dollar that’s remitted to them.
QUESTION: What do you think are the key strengths that most analysts have?
ANSWER: Successful analysts are highly detailed because attention to detail is extremely important. Since you're dealing with a lot of data and a tight turnaround time, you want to be as detailed as possible.
Good communication skills are also essential because you're dealing with providers as well as the municipality and you're often the go between both. Communication, attention to detail, strong analytical skills and a diverse knowledge of different resources are all important.
Because the analyst is only as strong as the weakest analyst, we have a diverse group with lots of experience that we’re able to draw from.
QUESTION: How has technology changed the role of an analyst?
ANSWER: I think technology has changed the landscape in many ways. We often find different types of methodologies within municipalities. Some can be very electronically based, while others can be very paper oriented with ledgers. Some municipalities are bigger, have more sources of revenue and might have more extensive databases.
We also believe electronic remittance is something that is key and essential to us growing as an organization. We're bringing in new technologies and new ways to have municipalities work smarter not harder, so the key technology on our side is helping the municipality grow their revenue and their technology into the 21st century.
QUESTION: Can you give an example of a challenging situation where Azavar Government Solutions helped a municipality work smarter not harder?
ANSWER: The very first community that I worked on as an analyst was a challenge because we found some data that there were a number of gas meters not in compliance. We found that the gas meters were in the house, but they were not in the provider’s database.
I found it to be challenging to bring the municipality and the utility provider to discuss the issues. I had to help the utility provider understand what needed to be done going forward by taking them through a step by step process to fix their methodology.
We also completed a field audit in which the community helped. By going house by house, we found every address that had gas meters that should have been remitting taxes to the community.
Bringing these two components together and being able to make everybody feel comfortable with the situation was a test that I think we passed very successfully.
QUESTION: When you have an experience like that, are there many lessons that you can use in the future?
ANSWER: I think having our analysts work as a group allows us to bring all these types of experiences together. We are so tightly knit that we're able to come together every morning and share our lessons so each team member can benefit.
When you have such a strong group, you never feel alone in our process. You might go through something like I did with the gas meters and that knowledge might prove to be valuable for another team member. It's building on that knowledge day by day, week by week, month by month that makes us so strong.
QUESTION: How often do you surprise a customer with your analysis or something that you find?
ANSWER: Since I’m currently more on the sales side, I haven't found as many surprises as probably the next senior analyst. However, for our team of analysts, there have been many aha moments in regards to our analysis.
QUESTION: Do you have a particular realm of expertise then that you deal with.
ANSWER: When I do analytics, it's usually within electric and gas.
QUESTION: Can you explain some of the complexities that an electric and gas audit might have?
ANSWER: I have found in my analysis that there can be a lot of anomalies in the way an address is presented. There's a lot of deviation in provider databases that can cause miscoding.
In regards to gas, you can have a lot of annexations that tend to become cumbersome for a provider. We often find large amounts of annexations that are not recorded by the provider.
Electric is not typically as cumbersome as gas. It’s usually more straightforward, but sometimes we do find anomalies in that area as well.
Our overall process is to first make sure that each address is coded correctly and staged correctly in the database. Those are often two huge takeaways that the provider can improve on, and that's what we're here to do.
QUESTION: Are there prevalent issues that repeat themselves across all other realms, including electric and gas?
ANSWER: I find that it's usually the same across other utilities due to the large amount of data. Even in this electronic age, it can be difficult to manage such massive amounts of information.
In addition, addresses often seem to be miscoded within every community. Whether they're sharing the same zip code or not sharing the same zip code, or if they are being coded as an unincorporated address.
QUESTION: What kind of impact do you think the new platform of apps from Azavar Government Solutions will make on the industry in the near future?
ANSWER: I think it's going to be huge for the Illinois market and will help us expand into many other states. It’s a platform that is so versatile, it can cross many municipalities. It’s also a diverse platform where there are many different offerings that municipalities can choose from.
I think the bottom line is helping municipalities work smarter not harder and maximizing their revenue. The success of the new apps should allow us to exponentially improve the value we can provide to these municipalities.
