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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

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Ask most California car buyers where their license plates come from and they’ll probably say “Sacramento” or “the DMV.” Very few would guess a 15,000-square-foot building in Agoura Hills. But about 1.3 million vehicle plates will be assembled and shipped from Motor Vehicle Software Corp. there this year. The mid-sized company, with more than 100 employees, is a major player in the $77 billion California automobile industry. It boasts providing electronic registration services for more than 500 of the 1,462 new car dealerships in the state – more than any other private company. The business is the brainchild of two pioneers in public-private technology: Kelly Kimball, who was experienced in government consulting, and Don Armstrong, who created the nation’s first online vehicle and watercraft registration renewal system for Michigan. They started the company in 2005, and the following year partnered with Rob Cohen, an expert in auto dealership compliance to develop their DMVdesk software. Armstrong and his partners knew that surviving in the heavily regulated automobile industry would be difficult. In fact, it took the company two years before it signed up its first customers. That year, 2007, they processed 2,242 electronic registration transactions – a number now completed before noon every single day at its 29219 Canwood St. offices. “We had our work cut out for us trying to build a solution, and we were not the first to market,” said Armstrong, the company’s chief executive officer. In fact, there are half a dozen companies selling their services to car dealerships on a month-by-month basis; their fees – capped by legislation – are passed on to new car buyers. Some providers are divisions of much larger, publicly traded companies. Others, like Computerized Vehicle Registration in Buena Park, have been around more than two decades and do business in more than 20 states. All are participants in California’s innovative Business Partner Automation program, which dates to 2003. It opened electronic vehicle registration to any private company that could pass the DMV’s stringent training, auditing and bonding requirements. In 2012, once there were half a dozen established providers in the market, electronic registration was legislatively mandated for all new-car dealers. Favored provider Once Motor Vehicle Software signs up a client, the process for using the system is relatively simple. DMVdesk’s web-based software works with all common web browsers. The software is completely Internet based, so there are no installation issues at the individual dealerships that use it. It typically takes a dealership two weeks to get the paperwork and financing completed on each sale. After that is done, the dealership electronically registers the vehicle. Within minutes, the company’s fulfillment team assembles what they call the “indicia package.” This includes any plates, registration cards or stickers that are required under the registration scenario. The buyer should receive the plates within two days of shipment. “We have same-day shipping, so the dealer’s customer gets an email that their plate is on the way and they get a tracking number for it as soon as that car is sold,” Armstrong said. Kris Edwards, controller at Tustin Buick, remembers the days when registration applications were mailed to a DMV processing center and customers had to wait to get completed registrations back in the mail. For the past two years, she’s been using DMVdesk to register an average of 110 cars each month. “You can call and get real time answers to your DMV issues and questions. They understand what the business office challenges are in a dealership and have process-driven methods to deal with all the issues,” said Edwards, who favors the company over competitors. Tustin Buick also uses the system to run its vehicle registration information and title check reports. “We also participate in just about every training course they offer. They are key to keeping us in compliance,” she said. The cost of the software varies based on the kind of service provided. There are numerous types of registrations such as auto, commercial, trailer, motorcycle or boat. The company charges a $29 transaction fee for each auto electronic registration; the dealerships pass that charge on to their customers. Training, technical support, registration support and on-site support are provided to the dealerships at no additional cost. The company declined to release revenue figures. While DMVdesk is a favored product right now, it’s in a fiercely competitive market that is constantly changing. Andrew Conway, chief of the DMV’s registration branch in Sacramento, said the company needs to stay on its toes to retain its position – something it’s been doing so far. “If they aren’t answering their phones, they’ll lose that customer. Nobody watches money like a car dealership, so (Motor Vehicle) has to watch every penny too, and they’re constantly innovating ways they can improve efficiency in how their warehouse moves license plates,” he said. Armstrong said he and his partners realized early on that they would need to do more than just register new car dealers’ vehicles if they were going to compete. Over the years, they’ve developed a cradle-to-grave strategy that provides services like renewals and transfers for fleet cars and junk dealers, as well as for insurance companies that do auto salvage. Public-private partnership California’s electronic registration program, which enabled the creation of DMVdesk, also avoided two frequent pitfalls in public-private collaborations: No one had to settle for a late-delivered, dysfunctional system developed by one contractor – something that crippled the ObamaCare website rollout – and the tech companies viewed DMV as a true partner rather than an obstacle. “In the 1990s, you saw private industry coming in with an antagonistic relationship toward government. They raised millions, then they crashed and burned. Nowadays, we’re working in conjunction with government and finding it can be very successful,” Armstrong said. Motor Vehicle Software is currently working on expanding its services to at least one Midwestern state, where Armstrong hopes to be operating by late this year. He’ll also have to keep innovating. “How valid will these legacy processes be going into the future, which is in connected vehicle services, Google cars and electric vehicles?” Armstrong asks. As cars get smarter, he acknowledged even DMVdesk itself may become obsolete: “Someday people are going to wonder why they even have to register their vehicles – and why they don’t just register themselves.”

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