Strategy
We help credit unions develop transformative corporate strategy that improves market relevance and strengthens competitive positioning.
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Process Overview
Our corporate strategy development process involves three distinct phases designed to fully engage and utilize the talents of credit union board and management team members.
Activity 1: Environment
The environment is the set of conditions and forces that exist outside the organization that affect its ability to succeed. The environment for credit unions includes the economy, politics and regulation, social trends and demographics, technology trends and use cases, and competitors. Environmental issues can both create opportunities and present threats to organizations, so it is important for credit unions to stay informed about how these forces may impact them. To that end we help board and management team members:
Define a broad range of relevant environmental issues and competitors;
Explore the issues and competitors to create depth of understanding;
Rate credit union's potential "sensitivity" to each issue and competitor;
Select the issues and and competitors that have strong "strategic" relevance.
Activity 2: Strategy
Strategy is the collection of decisions an organization makes about the critical health foundation, business model strategy, and organizational transformation required to withstand environmental influence while remaining relevant to marketplace needs. Sound, informed decisions ensure a growing, sustainable organization - which should be the ultimate objective of any planning process. To that end we we help board and management team members:
Define the credit union's "key health indicators" and their acceptable performance ranges.
Establish business model strategy, including the credit union's market focus, value propositions and related revenue streams, relationship context, and delivery channels.
Establish objectives, which are long-term goals focused on organizational transformation, and key results, which are short-term measures of progress towards objectives.
Activity 3: Operations
Operations is the way in which an organization supports and executes strategy and includes critical activities, resources and assets, 3rd party partnerships, and related cost structures. Any time strategy is created or updated an operational response is likely to be required, and may involve expanding operations, cutting operations, or both. To that end, we help management team members:
Identify the influences and impact on operations of strategic decisions;
Define in which areas (activities, assets/resources, partners, costs) operational responses are required;
Identify and prioritize the projects and initiatives required to transform operations in order to effectively support strategy.
Critical Resource
We developed a tool to help us capture the output of client-specific strategy projects. The tool, built on the Airtable platform, is easily accessible online ensuring all participants remain informed and engaged throughout the planning process. In addition, access to the tool can easily be transferred to clients that desire to utilize it to manage the strategic plan after the planning process ends.
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Credit unions waste time trying to establish clarity of purpose through creation of mission and vision statements. A well-defined business model is a more worthwhile pursuit.