DES MOINES, Iowa-It's time to take a hard look at what CUs do best, and focus their strengths.
"The one thing this last year has taught all of us...is that you can't be all things to all people. You decrease your effectiveness," said Jeff Russell, VP-strategic planning for The Members Group. "Now credit unions have to decide, based on their own membership and local geography, what they are going to be best at."
Russell contends it comes down to "where do credit unions create value for their members? How do they remain relevant to their members' daily lives, and where can they leverage partnerships to deliver needed services? You need to make mortgage and member business loans, and offer credit cards, but maybe you don't have to do all that yourself. Sometimes that means collaborating, and leaning on companies who do that work day in and day out. That allows the credit union to focus on providing the very best member service."
Outsourcing means making "hard strategic choices because they require boards to say, 'We are not going to do this,'" he said
Regulatory compliance is another pressing issue CUs need to discuss, Russell added. "I think credit unions might be looking at business partner consolidation. Do I really want to have different business partners for all the products I offer? Or do I want to find one, for example, that can do my credit and debit cards together rather than having one that does credit, one that does my debit, and one that handles PINs. We are starting to see this in the industry."
For info: www.themembersgroup.com
