NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. — The credit union industry is being confronted with a changing financial business model and various issues such as decreasing membership growth, an aging membership, minimal market differentiation, commodization and consolidation, that it needs to deal with to remain competitive. By forming the National Center for Collaboration and Innovation, NACUSO wants to ensure credit unions and CUSOs can confront these challenges effectively.
NACUSO Chairman Tom Davis, president/CEO of Davis & Company, said the objective of the National Center is to "establish, operate and maintain a unifying structure to support the credit union industry."
Building a unifying structure, he continued, will "create a sense of urgency and reinforce the belief that collaboration and cooperation is essential to the industry. We don't have the same scale as the competition to outspend or outmuscle them, but we have a tool that they don't–cooperation and collaboration."
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According to Davis, the National Center will include four transformation processes or what he referred to as "the four pillars." They include critical thinking, innovation, cooperation/collaboration, and implementation.
"We have some superior critical thinkers in the credit union industry, but we need to broaden that and get people thinking critically. That's the precursor to innovation," said Davis.
As an initial step to implementing the National Center, a fifth NACUSO advisory board will be added to focus on educational opportunities with universities, innovation models inside and outside the CU industry, and strategy execution technique. The center intends to link up with universities to provide seminars on critical thinking. In addition, the association will provide seminars on critical thinking at its regional conferences.
Davis stressed that this strategy is intended to be inclusive of partnerships with other organizations both inside the CU industry such as the Filene Research Institute's i3 Group and the Center for Credit Union Innovation, as well as with groups outside the industry.
Davis explained that NACUSO wants the National Center for Collaboration and Innovation "to be the repository of information on who is doing what, and to be the link that connects credit unions to the products and services offered by collaborations…a NACUSO National Center can bring intellectual capital together and capitalize on it by providing models for innovation."
There are a lot of creative ideas and things going on in the credit union industry, said Davis, but there's no repository for the information like a clearinghouse. To help put credit unions in touch with other industry organizations that have launched various innovative projects, Davis said NACUSO plans to put together a CUMatch.com link on its Web site for credit unions and CUSOs to access.
"At 5.8% of the assets in the financial services industry, we aren't big enough to outspend the competition, but we can be smart enough to outthink them…NACUSO intends to be the catalyst in getting credit unions and CUSOs to work together, then develop and implement new and innovative ideas," said Davis. –[email protected]
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