New Euna CEO Shares Priorities

All right, we're back for another special episode of In Case You Missed It, GovTech's weekly roundup of what's happening in this market. Joe, good to see you. It's been a wild week of events and, uh, and travel. How's it going?

It's been busy, it's been crazy, and if we keep doing these special episodes, this is gonna have to be a full-time gig, Dustin.

That's right, it shows you how hot this market is. And so today we've got some more breaking news. The UNIS Solutions, a leading provider of purpose-built cloud-based solutions for the public sector, today has announced the appointment of Tom Ambergy as Chief Executive Officer. We're here not just to break the news, but to actually invite Tom to our virtual stage, and we're going to dig into what this means for the wider market, what Tom's vision is, and where UNIS is going next from a market standpoint. So let's welcome to our stage, uh, Tom. Hey, Tom, thanks for joining us.

Hey, Dustin. Hey, Joe. Appreciate it. Glad to be here.

So I know this is your first time on In Case You Missed It, so I'd love to learn a little bit more about yourself and, uh, and your background.

Sure. Yeah, no, I appreciate that very much. So I've been, I've been in and around the GovTech space for, you know, 2 decades to almost 25 years, both on the private side as a, as a provider of software and solutions, but maybe more importantly on the public side. So I've served 2 different municipalities as a Chief Information Officer, a couple of places down in Florida, and really loved the time working in government. Learned a lot about transformation, learned a lot about the needs, and have carried that over into a couple of places in my background trying to serve that same sector.

That's great. You mentioned that rich history and carrying over some of that expertise into other roles. What expertise are you going to bring from your past experience into this new role at UNO?

Yeah, no, I think a couple of things. One, just the journey and the transformation into real SaaS business and helping to bring that to particularly the local market, right? Talking GovTech, right? It's 6.5 miles wide, right? So you can talk about all kinds of stuff, but really down into cities, counties, certain state levels, right? That SaaS transformation journey. Part of the things I did at both places when I was CIO was help lead them through that in the early stages of SaaS and the early stages of moving all of your operations, including key mission-critical ones, into the cloud, into cloud providers with some really key partners. And I think leveraging that experience, both the good, the bad, and the ugly, right, of how to do that, what the products need to look like, the security profiles, the ease of use, the customer engagement, the focus, and then what's important for the end user who's sitting across the desk. I've been mission-driven. I'm a mission-driven guy. I've got my parents were in the military, so I kind of grew up that way. And I love serving people who serve people, right? And one of the things that I'm really excited about at UNA is the opportunity to really enhance the way the day-to-day lives of those people who are serving citizens, who are serving businesses, serving constituents, just make it easier for them, right? So they can really focus on the things they care about.

So as you said before, you know, GovTech is so wide. There's so many different aspects of our market that you can tackle. So I'd love to kind of dig into what attracted you to UNA and why you decided to take on this new role.

Yeah, I've been— my background, I've been big in what we call the public— I've always called the public administration space, right? So the back office of government, whether it's ERP or human capital, community development, permitting, licensing, utilities, CIS systems, that stuff. And I think one of the exciting things about UNA is that the product suite, if you will, right? is meant to wrap around and provide extra value to some of those key mission-critical systems. From a budgeting perspective, from a procurement perspective, from a payments perspective, we do some things with licensing, some other small products. But really when we look at the idea of UNO, we look at something where you plan appropriately with budgeting, you roll it all out there, you spend the money wisely, and we get the best use of government funds through our procurement systems. And then we collect it efficiently and effectively, right? We've got some really cool things coming. So, and then the data that comes with that and the ability to really provide great insights to the leaders of the government across all of those things as they connect together is crucial. So I love the idea of kind of being a warm blanket, right, that wraps around these ERPs. 'Cause listen, there's some really great ERPs out there. But most of them don't do budgeting really well and they don't do procurement really well. They don't necessarily take payments really well because that's not their focus. And that's okay, right? They're really good at what they do and we want to be really good at what we do and wrap around and provide kind of that really solid, strong ecosystem for our customers.

Earlier you mentioned your parents' service. You mentioned your own kind of orientation to the public service. And you also talked about being mission-driven. What aspects of UNA's mission and vision and values kind of align to your personal and professional goals?

Yeah, you know, if I'm being honest, one of the exciting things is that some of that's being formulated, right? You guys kind of know the history of UNA coming together through GTY and a lot of companies coming together. And that's really, you know, some of these companies are 15, 20 years old, but the reality of UNA is pretty young. And so being able to help shape that A little more and better define that. But in general, it's a group of people at UNA that are passionate about helping their customers. They're passionate about the things that they do. People that are— some people might laugh about it in some places and stuff like that, but people that are passionate about procurement and budgeting and what that means, because they understand the value it brings to the customers. They understand the value it brings to the communities that they serve. And so when you have people that are passionate about stuff, bringing that passion together and organizing it in a way that you can drive forward to really see the transformation that really well-run GovTech companies can have that service really important markets with really outstanding products, right? And so putting all that together to drive that mission. So people that care about building communities, I've always said, and I will continue to say, right, that that I want to leave the world a better place than I found it. And there's no better way, in my opinion, to impact a very large number of people and communities to help make the world a better place than working in GovTech, right? By just driving success into those organizations, we can then drive success in their communities. And that means something to me. That's why I get up. That's why I come to work every day. I want to be surrounded by a group of people, and I think that exist at Unite, right? People that really want to make a difference and drive that mission forward.

Yeah, that's amazing. That's a beautiful thing. And that's the great thing about our market is that, you know, kind of mission purpose-driven dynamic. It's great to see, you know, you have that here too. So, you know, you mentioned kind of the rich history that Unite's had, you know, previously as GTY, a set of best-of-breed applications that were kind of combined together. How do these solution offerings, you know, how do you see them working together well to support some of your customers going forward?

Yeah, I think first and foremost, that view of plan it, spend it, collect it, right? And just that there's a natural line there. Listen, government is about changing and taking care of people, but there's an operation to that, right? And the operation is around money, right? How do we pay for the roads? How do we pay for the schools? How do we collect taxes? How do we ensure people are safe with our public safety? Well, that includes collecting and managing funds. It's the heart of what we do. And so as we think about that line that goes through it as the primary driver of that, let's plan it appropriately. That means easy-to-use budgeting processes that then create transparent and easy-to-use budget books and information that can be shared, that then flows and connects to a procurement system that allows for digital buying, for marketplaces, that allows for the driving of information to be shared publicly and easily so that we can ensure we're getting the best deals for our government and the best bang for our buck, that then automatically updates the budget through the ERP and automatically produces reports. And then when it's time, we're collecting revenue, we're collecting information, whether it's from large things like taxes and utilities or small things like simply a minor service fee, right, that then flows again back into and ultimately Uh, a comparison with the budget to make sure that everything's working right. When you put that together, then there's, um, there's so many ways to, to modernize that and digitize that. If you think about a wallet, I mean, we all, with all best intentions, most of the time if we go interact with our government, I've got one login to pay my utility bill, with another login if I'm pulling a building permit, with another login if I happen to get a parking ticket, with another login if I happen to, you know, need to, you know, register for summer camp or whatever. And you go on and on and on, and you I've gotta remember 16 different logins and enter my credit card 17 different times. Well, we're really excited about the idea of wallets, right? And the idea of making it easy for me to go in and make multiple payments at once. And we have some really cool technology to drive that. And so again, just transforming the user experience. And when we really think about and what we really want to bring home is we want to think about our customer's customer, right? Our customers are important. We're trying to serve them. But we think the best way to do that is to think about their customer, right? How do we make that experience better? And so we've got this set of products that are really meant to do that, right? Ultimately, they're meant to make the government operate more seamlessly, but at their best and what the things you can get out of them are making that citizen or business or some other constituent of the government's interface and interaction with the government better and easier, and that's what we're really excited about.

So I want to dig into your decision, kind of, and what influenced your decision to take on this role. Earlier you mentioned kind of some of the gaps that may exist in the ERP market and the desire to kind of be, you know, that warm blanket that surrounds the solutions that are out there. But what opportunities or even challenges are you seeing right now in Eunice's market that really kind of made you go, this is the time to Yeah, you know, so a couple of things.

One, you know, COVID, you guys have talked about on the show, right? And COVID has just upended this market and proven that you can drive towards SaaS. You can operate the government differently, right? It doesn't have to be on-premise. It doesn't have to be all kind of this old-school stuff that was happening. The forcing of remote workforces, the forcing of remote connectivity and that. And so we have a suite of products that are all SaaS-based, right? So first and foremost, we're not coming in and trying to retrofit products and slam them into something, right? They're already there. Some of them, you know, have gone through a transition. Some of them were purpose-built SaaS products. So the fact that they're already there and already leveraging, I think that they're built as point solutions, which means they're built with APIs. They're built with the idea of connecting to other things. So the ease that we're going to be able to connect them together as well as partner with the big guys in the space, right, to really leverage our opportunities that was exciting, right? Um, to, to look at just the ever-changing nature of government and know that, um, you know, the federal government's been pretty nice to local governments lately, and there's, there's some money. So that money is meant to transform them and to make them, you know, you know, you're never going to be recession-proof or never be, you know, pandemic-proof, but to drive them to where they're closer. And so that means there's lots of opportunity in the market right now to leverage our already SaaS nature, to leverage our already ability to integrate with pretty much anybody and anything and really make a difference. And so it was very attractive in that regard.

So as you take the helm, you know, day one, what is your number one priority?

Yeah, that's a great question. Obviously learning the people, learning the business, right? It's one thing to know it from the outside and to I was, you know, I laugh, I was a customer of a couple of the products way back when, right? And so I know them from that perspective. They've obviously changed a lot, but getting to know where things are at, right? Where are the hotspots? Where are some things we really need to work on? I think getting to know the people. You know, we have come together with a bunch of different companies. And so getting to know the different cultures and the different things. We've got folks kind of in lots of different places in North America. And so really just spending a lot of time getting to know people and then— express our goals, our visions, our missions, and where we want to get. At the same time, lots of exciting stuff happening in the market and continuing to drive that forward. So if you boil it down to number 1, it's learn, right? It's learn everything that I can learn. Number 2 is communicate and really share that passion with everyone and make sure that we're all driving in the same direction. Number 3, and it's really 1A, 1B, 1C, but say 3 is get out, talk to our customers, See where they think we can do better, see where they love what we're doing, really talk about what their needs are and make sure that that's in our roadmaps, make sure that's in our processes, and really just get— it's all about engagement. It's about relationships and just driving those forward.

You know, we joked at the top of the episode, you know, the market seems like it's hotter than ever. Mergers, acquisitions, you name it. Lots of things are happening right now. What's your perspective on the future of the GovTech industry?

Yeah, you know, it's— I've always joked, I've been at a couple private equity-backed companies, and this is a joke, but I'll share it. Like, it's like GovTech companies from a private equity perspective are often seen— it's like investing in gold, right? It's always nice and steady. It's never going to fall off a cliff. You're always going to be able to assure that it's there. So, you know, it's gold or it's your CD, right? It's your 5-year CD that you want to make sure. But honestly, that's changed, right? To your guys' point, it is hot, it's growing. It's so ripe with small little point solutions and small little regional point solutions and small little within a region regional point solutions, right? That from an investment perspective, right, there's this great opportunity to bring these things together and build really solid companies that are mission-driven, that are focused on a vision, that are focused on servicing a very targeted solution set and doing it well. And then so I think private equity and other investment arms have seen that and are really interested in that. So I think that's going to continue for the next, call it 5 to 10 years. There'll be consolidations, there'll be some new things pop up. I think there'll be growth within some of the larger guys already out there. They're going to continue their models that they've been following, right, with doing investment and doing add-ons. So I think Will the whole thing consolidate? I don't think it will ever fully consolidate, but I think you'll see larger pockets of consolidation happening and you'll see a drive that those aren't— those that aren't out in front with true SaaS and native SaaS products that are highly secure and highly easy to use are going to fall behind. And so in that regard, it's much more like the B2B market that we knew 5 years ago, 6 years ago.

Exciting times. So as we look at wrapping up, what message would you like to leave with our audience of government and industry executives regarding the future of UNA?

Yeah, first and foremost, listen, we appreciate everything that your listeners do, right? For those that are serving the public, for those that, you know, whether it's some small city in the middle of America or they're running one of the largest cities, if they're listening to this, just thank you for your service. We're here to serve you. We appreciate everything. And I think what you're going to see out of UNA over the next, you know, 6 months, 12 months, 18 months is you're going to see us aggressively coming out there and talking to you and showing you the great value that we think that we can bring with our products, our services, our people, and the way that we just want to partner with you, right? We want to help you evolve. We want to help you transform. And we want to help you really impact those citizens that you signed up to serve. So thank you. And hey, be on the lookout for us.

Great message. So the easiest question you're going to get from us today is, where does our audience go to learn more?

So very easy, unisolutions.com. We'd love to have you out there both on our website as well as our social media channels, and we'll have plenty of stuff out there. We've got blogs, you know, we believe in thought leadership, we want to bring good ideas, and so you'll find our blogs out there, thought leadership articles, all the information about our products. You can view some demo videos, you can sign up for other demos and get all the information that you need. So unisolutions.com, nice and easy.

All right, very much so, Tom. Thanks so much for joining us. Congratulations on the new role, and we'll certainly be looking out for all the wonderful announcements and things to come.

Awesome. Thank you guys very much. Appreciate it.

All right, see you on the next episode, everyone. Thanks for joining.