The message has been ringing load and clear throughout the credit union industry for years: make better use of data and analytics or lose “member share” to more progressive CU peers or (horrors!) banks and fintech startups.

Despite the warning cries, the proportion of credit unions embracing this trend is (horrifyingly!) low.

A recent McKinsey & Company report emphasizes the fact that many industries are achieving only a fraction of their “digital potential”. However, the report observes, “In the United States, the information and communications technology sector, media, financial services, and professional services are surging ahead…”. This means other players in the marketplace served by credit unions have a big head start.

Credit unions that have been sitting on the sidelines can wait no longer. To get off the bench, these organizations need to ask:

• What are the basic questions about the organization’s strategic direction that cannot be answered today?
• How can existing data be better “generated, collected, and organized”?
• What data outside the organization would be useful?
• What skillsets are missing internally and to what degree can they (or should they) be outsourced?
• Once “insights” are uncovered from analytics, what are the practical steps to leveraging them to create value?

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