3 strategic shifts critical to successful digital transformation

Digital transformation used to be an IT department strategy focused on process efficiency. Today, that focus is shifting to a more holistic concept of digital transformation centered on the wants, needs and expectations of credit union members. The ability to meet those needs, however, isn’t as simple as just investing in a software solution.

Is your credit union ready to take on digital transformation? Here are three areas where credit unions are making strategic shifts to affect change in their organizations.

• From board of directors to board of visionaries

According to Alliant Credit Union, a board of directors “holds management accountable while overseeing operations and ensuring a company’s executives are moving the organization in the right direction.” Alliant is one of the nation’s top 10 largest credit unions, and it has a board of directors that takes its role in setting the organization’s strategic vision seriously. Their focus on providing “state of the art, digital-based services” to their members has driven the organization to eliminate paper processing, partner in the creation of a custom fraud management solution, and utilize intelligent capture and electronic workflow to automate processes.

But knowing your credit union’s vision should include digital transformation and knowing whether or not you’re equipped to move the organization forward on that path are different. If this is a murky area for your credit union, the solution may be having your board assess its own understanding and adoption of technology. With this information in hand, your credit union’s board can begin to build out a new model of leadership that weaves digital transformation into every aspect of your business plans.

• From technology strategy to business strategy

Indeed, some credit unions are finding that business strategies can no longer be discussed without considering technology. Florida-based BrightStar Credit Union is one of them. The organization, which was featured in a recent article on BizTech.com, has made a huge push to bring an enhanced mobile experience to its members.

With the increasing amount of consumer interactions that take place on mobile devices (Google says customers have double the interactions with brands over mobile devices than all other mediums combined), it’s not surprising that BrightStar is focusing their new customer experience strategy on mobile. “There’s only so many branch locations we can have,” BrightStar CIO Matt Meyer told BizTech. “It’s a challenge to make sure there’s always a branch right next to you — that’s impossible. But with today’s technology, I can put that branch right into your hands.” Technology strategy? Check. Business strategy? Super check.

• From piecemeal digitization to digitizing entire customer journeys

Digitizing certain processes can help to speed member interactions, but digitizing entire customer journeys is where financial institutions are finding the most value. What’s a customer journey? For a credit union, it’s really a member journey – the path a member goes down from discovering a product or service to actually making a purchase or taking a desired action.

Boston Consulting Group recently told The Financial Brand that “one large bank redesigned its credit lending journey and cut the timeframe from application to funding in half, shaving 30 percent in costs associated with the process. Another bank tackling the same journey saved $200 million over four years.” Those are huge numbers. Ready to redesign all of your customer journeys? Not so fast.

It’s better to focus on finding the journeys with the most potential for improvement and tackle them one at a time. Why? Discovering the right journeys for digital transformation takes time and resources to dig into “customer transaction histories, call center logs and online data to identify those points in the journey that are causing the most pain,” explained the Financial Brand article.

I think I can, I think I can

The credit unions mentioned above have accomplished board members, sophisticated technology-focused business strategies and the solutions needed to create fully digital customer journeys. But they haven’t always been that way. In fact, prior to their digital transformation efforts, it took two to three weeks for Alliant to process just one invoice and four to five hours to do the monthly fraud reporting. By working with Hyland, an enterprise software provider, Alliant was able to take the focus away from these painstaking manual tasks and put it back on their members.

So now is the time for you to shift. Shift away from thinking that digital transformation is too big for your credit union to undertake. Start believing that you can take these big ideas back to your organization and move the needle on digital transformation.

Want some help? Learn more about OnBase by Hyland now.