In late 2021, Filene fielded a system-wide analytics readiness survey to baseline and benchmark the readiness and maturity of credit unions’ data analytics and business intelligence capabilities. The analysis surfaced six critical drivers of readiness to help credit unions make sound investments in the people, processes, and technologies of data analytics.
The most critical lever identified
It may come as a surprise to learn that of the six levers identified, the most critical lever to focus on to drive value from data analytics is one that is a low-cost but critical investment—changing the culture of your credit union to create a truly data-driven decision-making environment. Understanding performance in this analytical lever and related opportunities maximizes the value of this research for Filene’s survey participants.
The project collected more than 200 responses to the system survey, corresponding to a 4% response rate for the entire credit union system. Each participating credit union also received a personalized dashboard providing baseline information on where they stand relative to the system with respect to these analytics levers and outcomes. Included in this dashboard are recommendations on where to prioritize their first or next investments based on the survey findings.
Upcoming research
Generally, the overall analytics readiness of the credit union system, as measured by the robustness of analytics levers, is limited. To address this, Filene is releasing a series of research on analytics readiness. The first report focused on architecture (Lever #5) has already been released: Building the Modern Credit Union Data Stack to Leverage Analytics Value. The reports focused on the remaining levers will be released over the next year.
Additionally, Filene Fellow Cheri Speier-Pero will be closing out Filene’s annual member event, big.bright.minds., on October 25 – 26 with a keynote on how credit unions can build organizational infrastructure, teams and ecosystems to better leverage data for growth.