Canadian novelist Robertson Davies wrote, “The eye sees onlywhat the mind is prepared to comprehend.” This quote comes to meoften as I speak with others in the credit union industry aboutcore technologies. It seems that our comprehension is getting stuckon delivery channels and “cloud” branding when core systems arereally about software.

Cloud computing has been described as an expression for avariety of computing concepts with differing degrees of benefit.Google's Google Drive and Apple's iCloud serve as excellentexamples of high-value, cloud-delivered technologies.

For core credit union systems, it's much more cloudy because thepopularity of the term is used to market hosted services from aremote location.

Although the delivery channel of online has been around for morethan 35 years, most every core processor in the credit unionindustry has seized upon the opportunity to re-brand their onlineofferings as cloud-hosted solutions.

Rather than focusing on old delivery models that have beenbranded as new, the credit union industry should be focused onsubstantive core innovation.

It is interesting that one of the first questions asked in acore system review is whether to go in-house or hosted when thefirst concern should be about core software functions and features,with the delivery channel as a near afterthought.

New on the horizon is facilities management, which makes thisscenario possible by encompassing multiple disciplines to ensurefunctionality of the built environment by integrating people,place, process and technology.

The impact that facilities management has on core systemdeliveries can be illustrated with the recent changes that theautomobile industry has made by advancing and re-engineering themanual and automatic transmissions into a single bi-delivery optionfor consumers.

In today's higher-end sport cars, manufacturers haveincorporated opposing paddle shifters within finger reach behindthe steering wheel. Now, with a simple flip of a switch, yourautomatic turns into a high-performance manual transmission givingthe driver instant gear changing control.

Likewise, facilities management provides a similar unifyingeffect with in-house and hosted. Furthermore, it empowers creditunions to customize the system to best match the operationalenvironment of the institution lending itself to increased controlover cost.

Facilities management goes further than any previous technologyto remove the friction points and concerns credit unionstraditionally harbor when evaluating in-house (purchased) or hostedsolutions.

As facilities management advances, credit unions willincreasingly enjoy independent control over their desired method ofimplementation. A credit union may opt to have their solutioninitially hosted and within a year or two elect to purchase.

Facilities managed-purchased cores may be physically placedin-house, in a secure co-location data site across town, orhundreds of miles away absent the need to hire additional ITpersonnel.

In summary, facilities management renders the differences incore system deliveries virtually transparent to the creditunion.

Facilities management offers:

• Service Specific Automation – All services traditionallythought only available through a hosted solution can be remotelyoffered by a single core provider in either a hosted or purchasedenvironment, including e-vaulting of data, disaster recovery, dailypostings, transmissions, system updates, system maintenance,software upgrades, monitoring, firewall and security services.

• Transparent Delivery Channels – Regardless of which deliverychannel is selected, a credit union's human capital resourcesremain unchanged.

• Zero-Impact Scalability – Flexible and capable of servingcredit unions of all sizes.

• IT Efficiency – As the system can be placed anywhere,facilities management nearly removes the need for internal ITpersonnel to manage the core, allowing them to concentrate onnetwork infrastructure, security, peripheral management and branchcommunications. Consequently, credit union core reviews will shiftin the direction of departmental business experts evaluatingproduct functionality, yielding the software system thatbest meets the business needs of the institution.

• Core Innovation – Through force of competition, facilitiesmanagement will advance core development reducing (but noteliminating where practical) what has become an imbalanceddependency on third-party solutions.

• Reduced Cost – Facilities management empowers credit unions tocustomize the system to best match their operational environmentlending itself to increased control over both system and cost.

As the cloud continues to change the world around us, facilitiesmanagement represents a substantive, cloud-inspired effort to anindustry starving for core system innovation and brings ourattention back to that which matters most – software.

SeanHolcomb is senior vice president at FLEX in Sandy, Utah.