• Strategic Planning

    Does your strategic plan resonate with your credit union?

    Does it reflect your vision for the credit union's future and a roadmap for achieving that vision?

    Does the board, management and staff LIVE it every day? 

    Of the many actions that an organization can undertake to help ensure its future success, Strategic planning is perhaps the most important. By its very nature, strategic planning assumes that change is inevitable. We can ride along with change, perhaps even rage against it, or we can use the strategic planning process to leverage and even drive change for the benefit of the credit union and the members it serves. Effective strategic planning will create a platform for competitive advantage, clear a pathway to knowledge management, reinforce cross-departmental teamwork, and provide a framework for making daily operational decisions.

    Growth

    Growth is often (and rightly should be) a central focus of strategic planning. All too often however, growth is stated in such a way that it is either too general or too specific to be translated into an effective action plan. We will work with you to develop an overarching growth strategy that is driven by clear action plans that will engage every business unit in your organization.
    • Expanding the field of membership
    • Increasing the number of services per member
    • Increasing share-of-wallet account penetration
    • Increasing the loan-to-asset ratio through managed growth
    • Increasing loan balances across business cycles
    • Identifying success indicators
    • Developing and leveraging the value proposition
    Shaking Hands - Leadership Development

    Beyond Growth

    While growth is essential to the ongoing financial health of the credit union, Strategic planning offers the platform (and the mandate) to address a number of other factors that will contribute to, support and even inform growth. We will help you codify these factors and incorporate them into a dynamic strategic plan that engages the entire credit union. Some of the elements beyond growth include but are not limited to the following:
    • Unifying the corporate culture
    • Transitioning the corporate culture
    • Building an organization of engaged and enthusiastic employees
    • Creating a platform for multi-tier leadership development
    • Turning managers into leaders, and line staff into managers
    • Developing and codifying a culture of staff development
    • Providing learning opportunities and career development for all staff
    • Implementing metrics and measurement tools
    • Reinforcing an internal brand through the core values, vision statement and mission statement

    The Process

    We will work with you to develop the various elements of the strategic planning process, including but not limited to:

    • Logistics
    • Core values statement (How are they determined? Does everyone believe in them?  Do they represent us today, or do they represent our ideal selves?  Do we live them every day?)
    • Vision statement (Do we have one? Is it broad enough to encompass the evolution of the credit union over the next five, ten or even twenty years?)
    • Mission statement (Do we have one? Does it resonate with all stakeholders?)
    • Questions to be addressed
      • Why are we engaged in this process?
      • What do we need to change?
      • How can we change what needs to be changed?
      • What are our organizational limitations?
      • Codifying and demystifying assumptions
      • Gap analysis
      • Quantifying goals and objectives
      • Accountability and Responsibility
        • How will we know if we have succeeded?
        • Who will be measuring the results?
        • What are the milestones?
        • What measurement tools with be used?
        • How, when, how often and to whom will those measurements be reported?
        • Is there proper accountability and follow-up?
    • Post-planning
      • Engaging the entire credit union
      • Making the Strategic Plan a dynamic, living document that will serve as a daily touchstone
      • Supporting the Strategic Plan through a dynamic metrics and reward systems
    The strategic planning process and the resulting document are sometimes simply seen as tasks that have to be checked-off a list; once completed, the plan is shelved and never revisited... until it becomes time for the process to start all over again. Our approach to strategic planning ensures that this does not occur, and that the process will instead result in integrated action plans.
    Contact us by phone at (888) 970-0216 or email via this website for an initial consultation