02 - Services | Process Optimization

Services.

Optimize What You Already Have

It is sometimes said that people that if they think leading a large financial institution is hard, they should try leading small one. Smaller financial institutions have all the challenges of the larger banks but little of the resources. Being a small player in a market being squeezed by big banks on one side, and disruptive FinTech upstarts, on the other is a very real challenge for the C-Suite.

There are two solutions to this challenge while staying independent and focused:

Optimization of existing processes to optimize the member experience and drive revenue growth in the short to medium term; and
The creation of an innovation pipeline process to drive growth in the longer term

Member Experience Transformation

One of the biggest challenges for credit unions is how to offer a consistently superior experience to your members. As the average age of your membership increases, you face a fierce competitive battle with the deep pockets of big banks and the nimble technology of Fintech startups.

Upgrading your member experience is the quickest and most cost-effective way of attracting and retaining active members.

Out 3-step process works as follows:

Member experience mapping: We conduct a remote audit on the process of your choice. For example, it may be member onboarding, a loan product, making a payment or a collections process. We don't need an existing process to be documented to do this. Just let us speak briefly the relevant team member and we will reconstruct the process.
Optimized process: You get a documented and optimized process that addresses member experience pain points. This will also make life easier for your staff and reduce operational risk.
Implementation: We can help implement any process changes with training, metrics and documentation. We are not here to sell you technology because the process always comes first. But if you wish to leverage the process with appropriate technology, we can help you evaluate, select and integrate.

Sales Process Optimization

Sales Process Optimization must be one of the most overlooked areas for driving revenue growth in financial services. There are always opportunities for improvement and those improvements flow directly to the bottom line.

Every credit union works under extreme constraints. Any solution needs to be able to work within those constraints and be non-disruptive. "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are" were the words of Theodore Roosevelt. That is the challenge.

Our Sales Process Optimization program was designed with that mindset. The key benefits of the program:

Improves customer conversion rates so that you can grow revenue without additional headcount
Has a positive impact on customer loyalty increasing your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and creating a moat around your business
Opens up new, less competitive sales channels reducing your customer acquisition costs
Delivers faster results than traditional 'implementation heavy' approaches meaning you can start generating more regulatory capital sooner to support your growth
Has a light footprint on the business, so you don't need any additional software or embark on a costly IT transformation exercise

Innovation Pipeline Processes

The Sales Process Optimization program is designed specifically to drive revenue growth and improve profitability in the short to medium term.

However, the landscape of traditional financial services businesses is being dramatically altered by the rise of the innovative and fast-moving FinTech sector. This is actually an enormous opportunity for small banks because it opens the door to technology that was previously hard to access.

In order to take advantage of this monumental shift, credit unions and small banks will need to develop their own innovation muscles. The challenge is to become more innovative without increasing risk.

We designed the Innovation Pipeline Process with the goal of reducing innovation risk in small banks. The reality is that most ideas won't work and the only way to know if an idea has value is to test it. That means you need a constant pipeline of ideas from across the organization.

You can download our Credit Union Innovation Playbook for free at the CUES site here.

With your own Innovation Pipeline Process you will be able to:

Create a high volume of innovative ideas from across the company
Filter ideas to create a short list to test
Test and validate ideas in less than 1 month and for less than $1,000
Build on early successes to foster a culture of innovation and create a lasting source of competitive advantage
Build a renewable portfolio of products, services and customer experiences to drive sustainable profitability in the age of technological disruption

Specialized
Risk Advisory
Services

OPERATIONAL RISK

Due to its very nature, operational risk is often a challenging area to manage in smaller banks and credit unions where resources are more constrained.

Led by Jonathan Woods, a former manager of Risk and Control Solutions at PWC, Vendor Risk Manager at Commonwealth Bank and and Risk and Technology Assurance at Deloittes, we work with financial institutions to:

Strengthen your Enterprise Risk Framework, risk appetite statement, 3 lines of defense model including the provision of independent internal audit services
Employ quantitative modeling to better forecast operational risk-related losses
Conduct scenario analysis for estimating losses related to forward-looking idiosyncratic events
Develop and strengthen new product development and approval processes

CREDIT RISK MANAGEMENT

Led by Chris Gifford, a former Chief Risk Officer with strong data science skills, we provide solutions and support to build, review and improve: