Empower your growth hackers with self-serve data

Credit unions today recognize that their existing data is a goldmine of opportunity for growth, but many face organizational or architectural roadblocks to moving from data to analysis to insight. A recent Capgemini study found that the top three reasons data wasn’t being put to good use were that data was siloed or inaccessible, that it took too long to analyze data sets, and that financial institutions had a shortage of skilled personnel to analyze data.

So, how can your credit union take better advantage of its existing data? Here’s one all-in-one solution: invest in a modern enterprise business analytics solution with self-serve capabilities and an interface that is easy for business users to manipulate. By analyzing data precisely when you need insights and cutting out the analyst or IT middleman, your teams will design products more intelligently, identify the right offer for each member segment to market more effectively, and close the deal more reliably.

With the right toolset in their hands, your staff across multiple departments can become much more productive and transform into true “growth hackers” for their respective lines of business and for your credit union as a whole. Let’s see how easy-to-use, accessible analytics fuels the energy of everyday heroes.

Lending

Growth hackers in a lending department don’t just rely on renewals and brand loyalty to bring in new loans. Using their access to business analytics, they can probe information like ACH data for patterns that indicate loans at other financial institutions, then dig a bit deeper.

How much is the member paying biweekly or monthly to the other institution? How long has the payment been going on? Armed with this information, lenders can work with marketing to create campaigns that anticipate a renewed mortgage or new car loan, and get offers into member inboxes in a timely fashion. Members appreciate the personalized attention to their upcoming needs, and the credit union grows share of wallet – a true win/win solution.

Marketing

Credit union growth owes a lot to successful marketing, and successful marketing relies heavily on data. At a growth-minded credit union, marketers aren’t satisfied with sending one-size-fits-all product offers to their member base – they are always looking for ways to make their offers more timely, relevant, and targeted.

Marketers with access to business analytics don’t have to wait for IT to pull segmentation lists for campaigns. They can analyze demographic data, product data, and responses to previous campaigns to build their lists. And post-campaign, they have the tools to determine ROI and make adjustments for next time.

Sales

For a credit union sales team, hacking growth means keeping an eagle eye on the sales funnel to keep the leads flowing and make sure they get closed in good time. Using business analytics, this team can detect and resolve bottlenecks in the funnel, and observe and respond to patterns in the way opportunities flow through the sales process.

They can also identify and reward top sales performers, and figure out who might need a bit of additional coaching to contribute more effectively to credit union growth. And they can review channel data to figure out which channels are selling most effectively, so they can push the warmest leads to these channels and close more business.

Finance

At data-driven credit unions, the CFO uses business analytics on a daily basis to keep tabs on how the organization is functioning, and to make projections about how to help it grow. Unlike CFOs at less technologically adept institutions, she doesn’t have to manually pull and collate data from multiple systems, or wait on several other teams battling with spreadsheets, so she has more time to put her financial acumen to work.

Outside of the reporting process, an executive dashboard that gives at-a-glance data about channel efficacy, branch sales rates, and other business-critical metrics keeps her updated in real time, and contributes to more informed decision making at leadership team meetings, on everything from staffing levels to new product launches.

Turbocharge Your Growth by Mining Your Existing Data

The truth is, you already have the data your organization needs to grow rapidly. Unfortunately, chances are good your credit union isn’t making use of this data effectively – we often see credit unions only analyzing and acting on a subset of the data that is available, or dealing with processes that are so manual and cumbersome that most departments aren’t getting timely access to the insights that would help them drive growth.

Self-serve business analytics can eliminate these headaches and help your organization compete effectively. To get started with business analytics, you’ll want to build a business case based on a data gap analysis, working department by department to identify where actionable insights could build efficiency and profitability.

From there, it’s a matter of selecting the right tool and starting with low-hanging fruit, so your team can experience the benefits of being a data-driven organization right from the start. You’ll experience benefits like reduced costs, increased operational efficiency, and yes, rapid growth. What are you waiting for?