Title: Money Pit ... or Enabler? Six Ways to Make Technology Work for You. the Keys: Add It to Strategic Plans, Lean on Vendors, Embrace New Ideas, Reconsider Outsourcing
Abstract: [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] For community banks, technology can be an enabler--or a source of continued frustration. At times, it can feel like a money pit, out of which bankers are anxious to climb. But there are community bankers who sound almost giddy when talking tech. They described it to ABA BJ as integral to the bank; something I'm passionate about; exciting. Frank Sorrentino, chairman and CEO of $729 million-assets North Jersey Community Bank, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., says, see our bank partially as a technology company. We are a local community bank, but we also have a powerful technology engine that fuels the type of products found at a money center bank. For example, when remote deposit capture emerged, many community banks took a wait-and-see approach. contrast, North Jersey Community jumped in and picked up a substantial client base as a result. A lot of our ability to bring our customers in as depositors revolves around our ability to serve them electronically, Sorrentino says. 2011, six of the bank's ten most profitable, recently acquired customers didn't set foot in a branch. While no one is suggesting that bankers discard deposits and loans for bits and bytes, even those with a love-hate relationship with technology can make technology work for their organizations. Here's how. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 1. Include tech in strategic plans Getting the most out of technology requires aligning technology priorities with a bank's strategic goals. But most banks fall short, according to the results of Abound Resources' recent community bank survey. While CEOs place a high priority on improving sales and marketing as a growth strategy, the top five tech priorities from IT, operations, and finance executives won't move the needle on that strategy, notes Brad Smith, Abound Resources president. Banks need to connect the dots by creating a technology plan based on strategic objectives, he says. It's not difficult, but very few community banks do it. Among those that do: $800 million-assets Ohio Valley Bank, headed up by Chairman and CEO Jeff Smith and headquartered in Gallipolis, Ohio. Last year, one of its five strategic initiatives was Utilize Technology to Create Opportunities for Income and Savings. The bank focused on cost-saving technologies, including electronic-document delivery. The initiative succeeded. E-statements alone saved the bank $85,000 in postage in 2011. Bryna Butler, the bank's assistant vice-president and director of e-services, explains that to drive income, Ohio Valley Bank partnered with Jack Henry & Associates, Inc., and Truaxis to offer e-coupons to customers through a revenue-sharing relationship with national merchants. The bank hopes to offer its StatementRewards platform to local merchants in 2012. Each year, Independent Bank, a $2.3 billion-assets institution based in Ionia, Mich., creates a list of four or five measurable objectives--such as deposit growth, asset quality, or expense reduction--that tie back to the bank's overall performance strategy, explains Pete Graves, CIO. During a process the bank calls business discovery, units work with IT to create cases for new technology initiatives that support those measurable objectives. What makes this approach successful is that we define our requirements before looking for a technology solution, says Graves. Sometimes the solution is already available in another unit, so we try to leverage existing platforms and applications to decrease costs and complexity. The biggest challenge to this approach, notes Graves, is encouraging management to take time to truly digest and document requirements to support what the bank is trying to accomplish. In the past, units would start down a path, then IT would try to catch up, resulting in less-than-optimal solutions, he says. …
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-02-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot