Vendor as "State Proxy" - Part 1

Unregistered Carriers on 03/10/2009 - 741
Unregistered Carriers on 03/12/2010 - 686

Illinois - 96.84%
Maine - 96.24%
Indiana - 92.10%
Alabama - 91.69%
Kentucky - 89.85%

In Wednesday's post, I said that a vendor that "acted like a state on behalf of the state" - via outsourcing - might very well out-perform the state for which the vendor was the proxy. Please understand that this idea is sort of hypothetical, but, having been on the vendor side, I know the idea to be workable as well.

Let's assume at the outset of this "thought experiment" that the quality of service provided by the vendor would be at least as good as the state would provide - whatever that means. I'll leave it to your imagination as to how high that bar would be set.

Let's also assume that the vendor is operating under the following - and only the following - contraints.

First, the vendor can't do illegal, unethical or immoral stuff.

Second, the vendor will be told by the state what, specifically, will constitute "acceptable or unacceptable" registrations, and will use the same acceptability decision-making mechanism as the state. ("This guy claimed 1,000 power units and paid for one! Why did you accept that?")

Those assumptions will do for starters. We may need to add some as we go.

OK, as I see it, the registration side (as opposed to the enforcement side) of UCR involves two major tasks: carrier contact and then the actual act of carrier registration.

In my next post, we'll compare the state approach to the vendor approach and see who would likely come out on top.