Tag: efficiency

Digitizing the Titling Process, Safely and Efficiently

On November 14, 2022

Henry Ford shook the automobile industry with the introduction of his Ford Model T back in 1908. By turning the current business model at that time upside down, he created a path forward for every consumer and family to own their own vehicle. Now, just over 100 years later, we’re witnessing a new automotive transformation, powered by the likes of Tesla, CarMax, Carvana and Vroom, strengthened by a global pandemic and solidified by consumer demand: the digitization of car buying.

Online car purchases represent about 11% of all car sales. That’s expected to grow considerably—over 50% in the coming 4-5 years—and along with this new frontier, other aspects of the process are following suit. Vehicle titling, for example, has long been a time-consuming process for state governments and their motor vehicle constituents, in addition to being prone to errors, expensive and susceptible to fraud. That could soon change as states begin to adopt a digital solution that can effectively serve today’s unique challenges.

Prior to the digital age, vehicle records were kept via paper and filing cabinets. The process was intensive, and the information wasn’t available to anyone outside of the physical location where the records were kept. Along came expensive back-up systems, then computers and finally e-titling. While all seemed well, a bigger, more dangerous problem emerged: cyber threats. The rise of malicious attacks and other potential cyber threats made it difficult to manage the data safely. Even still today, the e-titling process remains fragmented, with each state having their own system, leaving the door open for fraud and driving up costs while lowering productivity.

“Titling is complicated, involving numerous stakeholders, and it’s getting more difficult to manage in a digital world where the average online car sale is purchased from someone living 900+ miles from the dealership and across state lines,” said Shane Bigelow, CEO of CHAMPtitles (“CHAMP”), a Cleveland, Ohio-based technology startup. “For companies buying and selling vehicles throughout the country, this issue is much more prevalent, often leading to even longer delays and more opportunities for bad actors to take advantage of the system.”

CHAMP is revolutionizing the vehicle titling and registration process with a first-of-its-kind Digital Titling, Registration and Lien Management SaaS software. Not only does it modernize DMV title and registration management, but CHAMP’s new Digital Title and Registration Services (DTRS) also offers NSA-level security protections against fraud.

“Our security-first titling, registration, and lien management platform is secured by a three-pronged approach that includes a segmented and segregated network; encryption of data in transit and at rest, using elliptic curve cryptography; and the utilization of private-public key infrastructure. In short, aggregate government is waking up to the risks of not using today’s best thinking in technology, and we are excited to be part of the solutions they seek,” Bigelow said.

The state of West Virginia was an early adopter of this innovative titling technology. “We are proud to be the first state to allow this groundbreaking technology to be a reality for all members of our community. We do believe that enabling blockchain based vehicle titling will offer significant benefits for our auto dealers, lenders, insurance companies, all of their service providers, and most importantly, our citizens,” said Everett Frazier, Commissioner of West Virginia’s Division of Motor Vehicles. “Since the launch, the benefits have been abundant for those who have onboarded to our dealer submission service or our electronic lien and title service, with lots more to come thanks to the forward-thinking design of the DTRS solution from CHAMP. Realizing benefits incrementally has really been great for West Virginia and all who are enjoying these improved ways of transacting, not least of which is the DMV.”

People often do not think of the consequences of poor record keeping, but it can and does cause major financial or legal problems, as well as the potential for data to be corrupted by bad actors. These consequences can be multiplied in the vehicle titling space, where there are so many stakeholders involved in every transaction, each represented by their state’s own unique government procedures and regulations. Paper processes create incredible costs and slow the pace of commerce, while limiting innovation and providing the easiest path for fraud. Digital processes solve these concerns but require extensive knowledge of cyber security protocols to keep information secure.

“Many of the legacy systems still in use today don’t have the ability to effectively and safely process the thousands of transactions per day and store or transfer the millions of files that otherwise become printed pieces of paper,” Bigelow said. “And when the systems go down, no one knows how to fix them because those who understand the outdated technology are no longer in the industry.”

CHAMP is on a mission to make these problems relics of the past. Its online solution creates legal, verified digital car titles that enable transferability between state governments, insurance carriers, financial institutions, auto dealers and consumers.

The patented software digitizes title and registration processes for states as well as their constituents in the title and registration process – vehicle dealers, lenders, service providers, salvers, and insurance carriers to name a few. Further, the technology allows the transfer of ownership of titles to occur in minutes instead of the weeks that most states and their constituents endure today. Other companies have offered their versions of online titling and registration but not to the extent of CHAMP’s, and none have successfully built their platforms with DTRS and limited the change management burden for states—and that’s a major differentiator. DTRS offers a proven method for encryption that certifies corrupt-free data, reducing the risk of fraud and cyber threats, while offering the fastest modernization available in the industry today.

As the world continues to move toward the digital landscape, partners in the title ecosystem are awakening to the security benefits of this digitized titling and registration process. And now that states, banks, vehicle retailers, insurance companies and many others can quantify the savings and benefits, consumers will soon benefit greatly from the adoption of this technology by government.

CHAMP’s end-to-end vehicle titling and registration solution is rapidly becoming the go-to answer for states to modernize their title, registration and lien management capabilities.

To learn more about CHAMP and its revolutionary encryption titling and registration software, please visit champtitles.com.

Digitization in Government

By CHAMPtitles

On January 6, 2022

In Consumers, Government

By Joanna Allegretti, CHAMPtitles

It is 2022, and US government is ripe for adopting digitization for two main reasons: the benefits (cost, security, ease just to name a few) are significant and the touchpoint are numerous (331 million citizens and counting).

When most people think of government, they do not consider it a first mover for adopting innovative technology, but the desire is there. According to an Accenture survey, more than 65% of public service leaders have cited creating a personalized citizen experience as a priority. More than a mere preference for policy makers, digitization in government is now being adopted at a faster pace than ever before. There are plenty of good examples of implementation to mention.

Here is one to start: Nearly all US citizens must file a US federal individual income tax return each year. If you submit your return online, you are the beneficiary of this digital government process. E-filing is a huge improvement on completing form 1040 by hand. It also saves the time spent mailing the return at the post office and the cost to send it to the IRS. Best of all, because of the digital process, the tax refund arrives more quickly. Citizens are not the only ones to benefit from this simplified process, so too does the Internal Revenue Service. Between 2010 and 2015, the IRS budget decreased in part due to increased electronic filing. It is no surprise that converting a paper return into a machine-readable format is costly! The more user-friendly digital process also means government resources are freed up for more important things. Customer engagement and satisfaction are also improving; in 2020, 94% of all individual tax returns were filed electronically! Mother nature is equally pleased about this change. Electronically submitting an income tax return is an environmentally friendly alternative to printing and mailing.

Sadly, not all government processes have transformed like this one though, and there is far from broad-based support for digital government by key decision makers. It is the reason many government agencies at the federal and state level still employ legacy and paper-based processes using mainframes or cloud-based systems to process transactions.

Take the Department of Motor Vehicles, a government agency that many adults in this country have interacted with whether it was to apply for or renew a driver’s license or title a new car upon sale. Citizens know all too well that these processes are cumbersome and paper-based: long lines and wait times at the DMV office, piles of paper to manually fill in, and the result: a paper license or title mailed home weeks later. For the DMV, these paper-based processes are costly, inefficient, and prone to human error and unnecessary delay. Even moderately sized states use an estimated 18 million sheets of paper per year to process car titles!

A digital solution for DMVs would be one that modernizes their title and registration systems. For citizens, a digital vehicle title would be profoundly better than what they experience today, lowering costs, increasing security, easing the transfer of ownership, and improving customer satisfaction. As was the case with electronic tax filing, digitization is seamless for citizens and innovative for government. Digital systems replace legacy ones for a fraction of the price, which is a direct savings to taxpayers. A digital process is also more secure for government, and the time efficiencies and cost savings realized by this transformation allow them to pursue other priorities.

The DMV is just one interesting example of the future of digital government, but the good news is interest in this idea of digitization is on the rise. We, as citizens, eagerly await the simplification and savings of all these once onerous and costly government processes.

The Case for Digitization by Blockchain

By CHAMPtitles

On November 23, 2020

In Business, Government

By Ben Walton, CHAMPtitles

Digitization is the process of creating a digital representation of an asset. You can read more about that in our earlier post here.

Blockchain technologies are well suited to be the system of record for these digital representations. They have the potential to improve asset security, efficiency of the processes involving the asset, and trust among the parties using the asset.

The blockchain structure can be thought of as entries in a book (or ledger). Each entry represents a transaction which includes creating, modifying, and destroying the digital representation. Due to the structure of a blockchain, an entry itself cannot be altered or removed. The only way to modify the state of an asset is through a new transaction. With this additional security, users of the blockchain are more inclined to trust the authenticity of the data on the ledger.

If you imagine that the entries in the ledger are about an asset (perhaps medical records) being shared or exchanged between two parties, then you can use the ledger to understand who has modified or transferred which assets. This provides built-in trust to the system due to the transparent nature of how the ledger stores data. A third-party auditor could easily look at the ledger and follow the flow of data to construct a timeline of which parties own or have edited which assets. This transparency will help to reduce fraud and eliminate disputes arising from two parties having differing information.

Another feature of blockchain data storage is that the ledger can be held in multiple locations. This way, the data is no longer siloed in one location, so it is more secure from cyberattacks that attempt to hold the data hostage until a ransom is paid or corrupt it in some way.

With this inherent trust between users of the blockchain system, the concept of programmable logic called smart contracts can be introduced. In the blockchain system, these smart contracts can be written in such a way that they automatically execute when certain conditions are met. For example, let us assume the asset is an eBook where Party A (Alice) owns the book and Party B (Bob) would like to purchase it. Alice has set a price of $20 for the book. Bob enters his payment information and creates an order to purchase the book up to a price of $50. Once the blockchain system recognizes that the book is available for purchase and someone has agreed to buy it for that price, the smart contract is automatically triggered and purchases the book for Bob from Alice for $20. The power of smart contracts is that they significantly improve efficiency. They can automate many of the processes, if not all, involving an asset.

Blockchain technologies enhance asset security, improve the efficiency of the transactions involving the asset, and increase trust among the involved parties. Blockchain may not be suited for all digitization efforts but is worth exploring and testing as a path for achieving digitization.

Impacts of Digitization (Part I of III) – Increased Efficiency

By CHAMPtitles

On May 12, 2020

In Business, Government

By Ben Walton, CHAMPtitles

Creating a digital asset may seem foreign or technically challenging. Is it time-consuming to create, does it cost more, and is it safe from bad actors? If the current process works well enough, why change?

That last point is the crux of the issue here. There are so many processes that remain paper based simply because they work reasonably well. Here we will make the case for digitization, starting with an argument for efficiency.

Let’s look at three different ways to buy and then start reading a new book. In each scenario, the process becomes more efficient.

Method 1: Travel to a bookstore to buy a book in person and begin to read at home.

Method 2: Go online to a website to buy a book for delivery and begin to read when it arrives.

Method 3: Pick up an eBook reader to buy a book electronically and begin to read immediately.

Before we further analyze this example, we want to be clear that we are assuming the purchaser (new owner) of the book has no preference between a physical book and eBook.

For the customer, the biggest enhancement is the reduced time to transfer ownership of the asset (the book). The first method requires the buyer to leave home and perhaps not find the book in stock. The second method allows the buyer to stay home but requires them to wait days or weeks for the arrival of a book by mail. The third method allows the buyer to stay home, and the book is available to them immediately after purchase. The third method eliminates the transportation time to acquire the physical asset (a book) since the book is now a digital asset (an eBook). In this case, the time to transfer the asset is then instantaneous.

For the seller, the biggest enhancement is the reduced cost to transfer ownership of the asset. The first method requires the seller to rent a physical storefront to sell their books. The second method requires the seller to pay for a warehouse to store their books as well as the shipping and handling costs for each book. The third method only requires the seller to pay to build and then maintain the software/hardware used to access the eBook.

To better understand some of the potential cost savings, let’s look at some numbers. According to Statista.com¹, there were 675 million physical books sold in the U.S. in 2017. Let’s assume half of those books (337.5 million) were bought online and require delivery. Amazon² charges $3.99 for domestic standard shipping for each book. If we take that as the cost of shipping and multiply it by 337.5 million books, we arrive at about $1.35 billion spent on shipping annually! Of course, there were many assumptions made here, but even if the savings amounted to a fraction of what was calculated, that would be a substantial amount. And that is in addition to the money saved for the buyer on gas or public transportation and the seller on physical storefronts or distribution centers.

We have established that digitization reduces the time and cost to transfer ownership, but it is also more efficient due to the elimination of paper. After all, eBooks do not have to be printed! It costs $3 to print a book³so printing all the 675 million physical books sold each year would cost about $2 billion. If half of those were sold as eBooks, that saves $1 billion on printing books! By eliminating paper in the process to create and then transfer an asset, the cost savings become very appealing.

There are costs for publishing in a digital format that are analogous to printing in a paper format. According to one eBook converter and distributer⁴, a 100,000-word book manuscript in Word costs a one-time fee of $249 to convert into an eBook format and $99 for eBook distribution. These fees add up to the cost to print 116 books. Therefore, the cost to digitize a book becomes insignificant when compared to printing large numbers of books. The general trend is that the costs of digitizing an asset remain the same no matter the number of transactions on the asset.

For digitization, the final piece of the efficiency puzzle is that it also reduces the time and cost to verify ownership. We will cover this in more detail in a future post.

In summary, a more digitized process generally leads to a more efficient process as we saw with the shift to eBooks. The close relationship between increased efficiency and reduced process time and costs may alone convince you that the benefits of digitization outweigh most costs and risks. Still, we continue forward in our next post with the impact of enhanced security.