It’s no secret that data analytics are more important than ever to today’s businesses. No longer confined to just giant technology companies, data analytics have found their way into finance, and savvy credit unions utilize them to stay competitive, improve member retention and discover new business opportunities. Data analytics provides credit unions with a unique opportunity to better understand and anticipate their members’ needs.
Despite this growing importance of data analytics, many credit unions are still not “data-driven” organizations. Often the biggest roadblocks to embracing data analytics are driven by inaccuracies or misinformation. Below are five top tips for building a data-driven organization and addressing resistance to data analytics projects.
1. Use Pre-built Solutions
Most credit unions think that it can be expensive to pursue data analytics projects like data warehouses. While it’s true that a data warehouse might cost a larger organization millions of dollars, for most credit unions the results are significantly more cost-effective.
Data analytics platforms, like Trellance’s M360, have pre-built solutions incorporated, saving you time, energy, resources and money. These capabilities are ideal for credit unions, giving you affordable access to a suite of analytics tools and features that can be customized for your specific needs.
2. Don’t Build Your Data Warehouse All at Once
Building a data warehouse can feel like an impossible goal if you try and tackle the project all at once. Data analytics development is ideally an iterative process; trying to integrate all of your data sources into a warehouse at once increases your chances of the project failing – and costing more money, time and resources in the long run. By taking an iterative approach to building a data warehouse, you are setting up your credit union for long-term success.
3. Automate the Analytics Process
The average credit union equaling $1 billion in assets has somewhere between forty-five and sixty-five third-party applications or data sources. When you think about how disparate that can make the data inside the credit union, it’s easy to see how tens of thousands of employee hours are wasted managing this data every year.
By utilizing an automated data analytics platform, the process is streamlined and made effortless – giving your staff back their time to tackle other pressing matters and continuing to grow the credit union. An investment in data analytics platforms today pays off in countless ways tomorrow.
4. Embrace New Strategies
Data analytics projects can sometimes meet resistance with the argument that things should continue the way they have always been done. While it might seem that staying the course is both proven and the path of least resistance, the reality is it often leads to disaster. Think about how much your credit union has changed over the last decade – and how much you had to change to keep up with demand and expectations.
You can’t rely on gut instinct to make complex business decisions anymore. Your credit union not only competes with local competition but now it has to fend off losing members to non-traditional competitors like peer-to-peer lenders and 100% digital banks. These new threats were made possible thanks to analytics, and it is up to your credit union to use their playbook against them by leveraging the power of analytics.
5. Build the Right Data Culture
Data-driven organizations have a data-driven culture. While you’re building your data and analytics initiative, consider how you can create and nurture a data-driven culture in your credit union. Does your staff have a data-driven mentality and the necessary support to empower this cultural shift?
It is vital to listen to staff, provide support, offer the necessary tools and foster a data-driven culture. With the right data-friendly culture, your data analytics program will mitigate unnecessary roadblocks internally and build an environment to enable good data practices to thrive.
Building a Future with Data
As you can see, creating a data-driven credit union enables you stay competitive, build a strong community focus and deepen member relationships. A credit union that embraces data analytics produces powerful insights, boosts its growth potential and expands its bottom line – and it all starts with building a data-driven culture.
Discover new trends, perspectives and ideas to better serve members during Trellance’s 2021 Digital Series.
