IHS Public Sector Consulting

IHS Public Sector Consulting works with government agencies worldwide to investigate alternative sources of revenue, identify fraud, manage risk, and formulate sound, economically defensible policy. Our practice draws on IHS Global Insight's macroeconomic and industry sector analysis, IHS CERA’s energy research, and IHS Fairplay’s maritime intelligence to provide an integrated service—unmatched in its depth and breadth of information, insights, and expertise. Public agencies rely on us to help make critical decisions that improve governmental operations and the delivery of services to their citizens.

Comprised of economists, statisticians, policy analysts, and industry experts, our practice forms an extension of your operations to help you confront challenges, such as:

• How can my agency implement an automated fraud detection process? How can our existing process be enhanced? What are the key drivers behind fraud, waste and abuse? Which fraud cases should I investigate first?
• How will a proposed policy impact jobs and economic activity in my region, state, or locality?
• How should we craft our economic development policy to encourage innovation and competition?
• How much of each tourism dollar is retained in the country or state?
• Is there enough demand to justify this new port?
• How could I better manage my disability caseload to reduce management costs?
• What are the differences among the pending cap and trade proposals in the legislature? Bio-fuels policies?

Benefits

IHS Public Sector Consulting enables public professionals to:

• Identify waste and abuse in key governmental delivery systems such as insurance, disability claims, and unemployment payments
• Quantify the costs and benefits of current, expanded or new state and local government programs and projects, including job creation, increased tax revenue, and public benefits at the local, state, and national levels
• Assess the economic development investments required to spawn new industry clusters in your area
• Better understand the characteristics of freight transportation movement in your area and plan a better emergency response system
• Gain critical insights into how proposed policy changes will affect your jurisdiction and beyond
• Help  agencies with limited research budgets identify and prioritize investments and opportunities
• Forecast tax revenue based on your jurisdiction’s socioeconomic forecasts and revenue-simulation modeling
• Examine alternative energy and bio-fuel sources and the potential of "green" technology applications and industrial development in your area
• Develop innovative tourism strategies and tourism analysis

• Learn more about our Experts, Key Offerings or Contact us for an exploratory meeting

Fraud Waste and Abuse Analytics
Fraud, waste and abuse (FWA) is a complex and diverse activity costing public agencies millions of dollars annually from fraudulent contracts and refunds, duplication of services, unnecessary delays and other activities. Although many governments have robust capabilities intended to combat FWA, IHS has helped clients significantly  improve their identification and mitigation of FWA through the following tools:

• Predictive Fraud Analytics - The right information at the right time
• Risk Ranking - Allocation of limited resources for maximum return
• Independent Verification & Validation - Non-partisan evaluation of your FWA processes, models, tools, techniques
• Forecasting Fraud, Waste & Abuse - Predictive models  incorporating regional economics and socio-demographic trends

Our consultants partner with you to understand your agency's processes, people, and constraints so that we apply the most appropriate solution - statistical analysis, user-friendly analytical tools, dashboards, model review, validation and/or audit - that meets your requirements and provides the highest value within your stated budget.

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Predictive Fraud Analytics - Identifying and integrating the key drivers of fraud in a modeling framework that quantifies each agent's contribution

Use Predictive Fraud Analytics to:

• Automate your fraud detection techniques: Spend more time investigating fraud rather than solely identifying it
• Identify FWA proactively: IHS models automatically surface providers and claimants for additional security based on characteristics and patterns consistent with prior incidents of fraudulent activity or known outliers 
• Simulate "what-if" scenarios: Understand the effects of each driver’s contribution to fraudulent events, and determine the  most cost-efficient, effective approach

Risk Ranking -- Helping clients prioritize the order in which to investigate potential fraud cases based on key fraud characteristics, the likelihood of fraudulent activity, expected return (or expected dollars at risk), the likelihood of successful prosecution, and estimates of the deterrent impact

Independent Verification & Validation - Providing an objective assessment of your FWA models and processes and identifying tangible improvements that increase their accuracy

Forecasting Fraud, Waste & Abuse - Incorporating cutting-edge credit scoring algorithms that integrate regional economics and socio-demographic trends into fraud prediction models

With FWA forecasts, you can:

• Enhance current fraud detection and the ability to know how many investigators will be needed and where to send them
• Understand the relationship between regional economics and fraud - enabling you to anticipate fraud by location more accurately and correspondingly allocate investigators and other resources necessary to identify and prosecute fraud

Decision Analytics Brochure

Economic Impact Analysis -- Providing comprehensive assessments that quantify and clearly articulate the economic ripple effect on jobs and tax revenues arising from changes to the status quo

Use Economic Impact Analysis to:

• Better understand how legislative or regulatory policy changes, fiscal spending decisions, or proposed capital projects impact jobs and economic activity throughout your area
• Communicate the contribution an industry makes to the local, state and national economies
• Gain independent assessments that can be used to positively inform and support negotiations with public officials

Download IHS Economic Impact Analysis Brochure (PDF)

Economic Development and Strategy -- Helping states and localities produce comprehensive, research-based, geographic-specific economic development strategies that are designed to promote the political will necessary for implementation

IHS takes an "outside-in" perspective – understanding a locality’s strengths, challenges, and opportunities against the backdrop of the international economy. IHS's partner, the Economic Competitiveness Group, provides the framework for ensuring our analysis leads to successful, long-term strategy implementation. We focus on building a competitive economic asset base for a 21st century-economy, including industry clusters that create family wages and entice new wealth into the state.

Economic Development Industry Cluster Analysis – Helping states and localities to recognize and support industry clusters that promote economic development A key pillar of IHS's economic development approach is the recognition that excellence in innovation and competition tends to cluster, not just in cities but also in rural regions.  These aggregations constitute more than a handful of innovative firms; they form a web of interlinked suppliers, training centers, applied research capabilities, specialized infrastructure, and other supporting governmental and quasi-governmental institutions. IHS identifies the key players for each element and ensures they are working synergistically.  By learning how to recognize these webs, especially in their incipient stages, governments can support cluster growth and transformation through a targeted, fine-tuned strategy.

Revenue Forecasting/Tax Simulation -- Forecasting tax revenue based on your jurisdiction’s socioeconomic forecasts and revenue-simulation modeling

Travel and Tourism Development features products and solutions that help governments understand the complex factors influencing worldwide travel. Clients obtain customized forecasts, market-sizing analysis, early warning systems, and industry assessments designed to position their jurisdictions for growth.

Our consultants link rich historical data to our proven econometric models, combined with careful qualitative analysis, to provide you with accurate, comprehensive, and flexible solutions that include:

• Market analysis and forecasts
• Project-Feasibility Analysis
• Tourism Satellite Accounts
• City Tourism Impact
• State and Local Government Custom Services

Market Analysis and Forecasts – Identifying markets and market segments that offer the greatest return on your tourism budget

Market Analysis helps you segment your marketplace and focus on those customers and geographies with the most potential. We assess the size and composition of selected markets, identify potential opportunities, and highlight risk based on our economic outlook for employment, exchange rates, income, and other causal factors.

Market Forecasts identify markets that offer the greatest return on investment and the best long-term growth potential.

Armed with IHS's Market Analysis and Forecasts, you can:

• Anticipate shifts in travel demand by market
• Determine true market size by region
• Identify the fastest-growing markets
• Target new and emerging markets
• Understand the risks facing current and future markets
• Locate and target the most lucrative customers
• Rank tourism investments to maximize your dollar return
• Measure the potential benefit of a marketing initiative or set of initiatives for tourism by destination and origin market
• Obtain forecasts of visitors and spending based on "what-if" scenario analysis

 
Project Feasibility Analysis – Assisting clients to validate whether a venture will succeed before committing to any large-scale investment.

Use Project Feasibility Analysis to:

• Attract investors and encourage support from local stakeholders
• Determine overall market size
• Understand your competitive position in the marketplace
• Predict future project-related demand
• Decide whether your project will benefit the community in which your organization operates
• Induce local and regional governments to fund your infrastructure improvements or offer tax breaks based on evidence your project will spur job growth or tax revenue

Tourism Satellite Accounts – Providing a comprehensive, accurate view of the tourism industry for specific geographies

Tourism Satellite Accounts are the United Nations' approved system for measuring the economic impact of travel and tourism on a state, national, or regional economy and are more geographically specific than traditional economic impact techniques.

Use Tourism Satellite Accounts to answer key questions such as:

• How much of each tourism dollar is retained in the country?
• How does government support compare to tax revenues generated by tourism?
• Are current levels of capital investment sufficient to sustain tourism growth?
• Do tourism growth rates reflect the growth rates in the manufacturing sector?
• What is tourism's impact on other industry sectors?
• How does tourism compare with other industries?

Our Tourism Satellite Accounts enable governments to:

• Quantify and track the sector's impact on the rest of the economy
• Determine the travel and tourism industry's importance for the region's vitality
• Create realistic marketing budgets, justify capital expenditures, and take other steps necessary to support the industry

City Tourism Impact -- Assessing the structural and economic impact of tourism, as well as gauging the performance of existing tourism assets and marketing campaigns

A service provided jointly by IHS and D.K. Shifflet, City Tourism Impactenables cities, convention, and visitor bureaus to answer such critical questions as:

• How many visitors are hosted?
• What the breakdown is between U.S. and international visitors
• What revenue is by visitor category
• How much tax revenue is generated by visitor category?
• How many jobs are attributed to/created by the tourism industry?

Use City Tourism Impact to:

• Determine how vital travel and tourism is to a city
• Strategically allocate marketing budgets
• Justify capital investments and other support of the tourism industry

State and Local Government Custom Services-- Helping governments around the world to analyze markets and refine their tourism-development strategies

Our services can help you:

• Understand the key demand drivers for tourism
• Forge lasting partnerships between government and private developers
• Grasp the economic implications of planned projects
• Win tax concessions
• Evaluate joint-ownership and profit-sharing arrangements

• Travel and Tourism brochure (PDF)

Multi-Modal Transportation Planning helps governments better understand the flow of goods and their impact on local economies. We leverage our proprietary datasets, economic forecasting models, and transportation industry expertise to answer specific questions facing public agencies on freight infrastructure planning, investment, funding/financing, economic impacts, highway design, commodity flow analysis, trucking, rail freight air freight, maritime, and port planning

Our expertise includes:

• Economic Impact
• Transportation Policy Impact Analysis
• Port Modernization and Concessions
• Port Specific Forecasts
• Modal Costing
• Intermodal Service and Terminal Facilities
• Highway expansion and tolling programs
• State and Local infrastructure improvement projects
• Airport modernization and expansion projects
• Freight Finder
• Diversion Analysis
• HazMat Emergency Preparedness Training
• Port Strategic Planning
• Maritime Emissions Modeling
• Global Commerce & Transport Data

Economic Impact – Measuring the economic impact of freight transportation infrastructure projects, including rail and highway corridors and port and airport cargo expansions.

Use Economic Impact to:

• Measure the direct and indirect impacts of transportation infrastructure projects on each state's or region’s economy
• Model a project’s impact on both gross state product (GSP) or GNP and employment by business sector
• Estimate impacts by sector for 32 NAICS sectors at the three-digit NAICS level

• Transportation Impact Modeling (TIMS) brochure (PDF)

Transportation Policy Impact Analysis – Quantifying the impact of proposed policy changes through the use of IHS proprietary data, forecasts, and industry expertise

Port Modernization and Concessions – Quantifying the decision to invest in a port by assessing key factors such as total market size, mode types, and potential future growth

Port Specific Forecasts -- Quantifying the volume and growth outlook for specific ports based on market insight, historical data, and macroeconomic drivers

Modal Costing -- Providing a comprehensive, cost-based view of U.S. and Canadian freight shipment costs, enabling you to negotiate optimal shipping rates and better understand the comparative advantages of the various shipping modes for your locality

Intermodal Service and Terminal Facilities -- Assisting in the planning and evaluation of intermodal service offerings and terminal locations through demand forecasting, mode diversion, and local economic impact analysis

Highway expansion and tolling programs -- Leveraging IHS expertise in economic forecasting, freight travel demand, commodity flow data, freight forecasting, and diversion analysis to assist public and private agencies in the development of highway tolling projects and other public/private funding mechanisms

State and Local infrastructure improvement projects -- Delivering deep, wide-ranging analysis of public infrastructure projects, from congestion to tolling to economic impact analyses

Airport modernization and expansion projects -- Helping airport planners with 5 to 15-year investment strategies, justifying existing airport expansion projects, or proposing new airport facilities

Freight Finder – A customizable database that is a companion to our Transearch data service, IHS Freight Finder tells state and local governments the commodities that are being shipped in their area and who is shipping them. Containing more than 168,000 records on U.S. manufacturing and warehousing establishments, this service also provides estimates of annual tonnage, equipment needs, and rates of business growth or contraction.

Diversion Analysis – Quantifying mode shifts resulting from state and local infrastructure investments, carrier mergers and acquisitions, or supply chain "shocks"

HazMat Emergency Preparedness Training -- Measuring hazardous material freight flows by mode, at granular geographic state and local levels (BEAs, MSAs, counties), using our HazMat Tracking Service

Use HazMat to ascertain critical information on hazardous cargo:

• The portion of freight being moved through a specific area that is hazardous
• Points of origin and destination
• Specific traffic routes (highway and rail)
• Carrier mode

•   HazMat Service brochure (PDF)

Port Strategic Planning – Determining if sufficient demand exists to justify a new port development or port expansion investment as well as helping you plan design specifics based on the future of the maritime fleet

Maritime Emissions Modeling – Quantifying current and future port emissions for coastal states and localities via IHS's Vessel Emissions Model, enabling you to calculate your maritime carbon footprint and to quantify how emissions policy changes will impact you

Global Commerce & Transport Data – Leveraging IHS’s proprietary global commerce and transport databases to answer a variety of questions, including:

• What types of commodities and how much are moving on a country’s roads?
• What is their point of origin and where are they going?
• What ports need to expand to meet growing trade?
• From which regions can I source my materials?