Overview
The Motor Dealer Council of British Columbia (MDCBC) is a non-profit organization delegated by the Province of BC to administer and enforce the Motor Dealer Act and its regulations. Incorporated in July of 2003, MDC came into effect on April 1, 2004. MDC now oversees consumer protection and regulates approximately 1,700 motor dealers and their sales representatives. In July of 2004, the Motor Dealer Standards Association of BC was dissolved, making it possible for its ongoing activities, including the Training and Certification Program for the retail motor vehicle industry, to be assumed by the Motor Dealer Council of BC.

In April 2004, new legislation enacted changes to the Motor Dealer Act that involved the registration, licensing and compliance for salespersons employed in the motor dealer industry. Salespersons were to be licensed as of June 1, 2004.

Challenge
To help facilitate this new structure, MDC hired TP Systems to identify, design, develop and implement a short-term solution for the end of May of that year. In addition, TP Systems was to identify a long-term solution for dealer and salesperson licensing. Since MDC’s immediate goal was to initiate a system as soon as possible, TP Systems proposed a custom system to meet their short-term needs for processing applications and producing 6-month conditional licenses.

Once the short-term custom solution was approved, TP Systems put together a team that assessed MDC’s needs and then proceeded to develop and implement the Sales Person System (SPS) for the first week in June. In doing so, the team discovered that MDC faced a number of challenges: As a newly formed body, MDC had to set up a newly acquired business model. This meant tackling unknown variables throughout the creation of the licensing database and tracking system. TP Systems’ team worked with MDC’s staff to design and build SPS to accommodate continually changing business rules.

Outcome
After using the system for four months, MDC developed a much stronger understanding of their business requirements and the steps required to develop an IT solution to support those business requirements. This positions them well to move forward as their business matures and to finalize their decisions towards a long term solution.