Market Opportunities in Local Government - Tom Tobin, Compudata Services
 

Tom Tobin opened his speech by telling the group that there are opportunities everywhere to make money and sell your product.  He suggested considering where you live, work, and in every town you travel through.

According to Tom’s research, government agencies exist in 19,450 Municipalities, 16,500 Townships, 3,050 Counties, and 15,500 Utilities.  The resulting total is 54,500 locations to find agencies in the market.  Ways in which you can find the government opportunities are:

• www.census.gov
• state associations
• state agencies
• drive into any town, government buildings are fairly easy to spot

Visual Utility Billing is the system that bills for water, sewer, electric, refuse, and gas.  Water meters use CSI’s VUB which has an easy interface for most of the industry’s meter readers.  The sewer billing system is a based on a flat fee on a periodic basis, so configuring a billing product would not be difficult. 

Electric billing is the most complicated because there are more variables involved.  The major influencing variables are:

·        reading demands

·        multiple rates due to taxes

·        in PA – some communities buy and resell electric to community

Refuse billing is establish in a flat fee per bag or per dumpster.  Other information that Refuse services will want may include who is not using the service.

CSI Visual Utility Billing (VUB) is an interface to VAM GL.  They have a similar look and feel and utilizing both provides a total solution for billing processes.  CSI will support dealer and end user demonstrations, data conversions application set-up, application training, support and upgrades/enhancements.  

Relationships

Referral:

• You find the opportunity
• Engage Compudata Services
• CSI steps you through needs analysis
• CSI demonstrates VUM to prospect
• CSI presents proposal
• CSI assists on closing deal
• Reseller responsible for VAM install and training.

Reseller:

• Submit government marketing plan
• Attend CSI reseller class/certification
• Trained sales personnel
• Qualified support personnel for training

Go back to the main AccountMate Summit 2003 page, or visit our home page featuring reviews of all the top products. 

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