CUBI.Pro

By Michael Cochrum, CUBI.Pro When I was a junior in high school, my school’s marching banding, The O’Fallon Township Marching Panthers, was invited to march in the Orange Bowl Parade.   Band geeks around the world, like me, understand what a prestigious honor an invitation like this is.   It is equivalent, or more, to a state championship for an athletic team.   It’s a really big deal.   I have no real memory of most of the parade, however there are two things that do stand out in my recollection of this trip.   First, I remember being behind the Budweiser Clydesdale horses in the parade, which adds a level of complexity to making it through the parade with clean shoes.   Second, I remember our backstage tour of Walt Disney World on our trip back home to Illinois. Few visitors to Walt Disney World ever have the opportunity to go ‘behind the wall’ and learn how Disney manages to make a family’s trip to their park so seemingly miraculous.   W...

On the morning of January 19 th , 2009, 150 passengers boarded a routine flight from New York La Guardia airport headed to Charlotte, NC.  As the plane climbed from the runway it collided with a flock of geese near the airport, critically damaging both of the airplane’s engines.  Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger applied over 19,000 hours experience to safely land the A320 aircraft on the surface of the Hudson.  The tenth anniversary of what has now become known as “The Miracle on the Hudson” was just observed a week ago, celebrating the heroism of the crew and the fact that all 155 passengers and crew survived what should have been a catastrophe.  We call it a miracle because we all know that outcomes, like the one above, are rare to say the least. Typically, when any decision maker is faced with a number of simultaneous system failures, it represents a crisis.  The success of any business rises and falls on the ability of leadership to manage crise...

By Michael Cochrum, CUBI.Pro Recently, my wife and I successfully launched our last child into adulthood.  I’m proud to say that all five or our children are college educated and gainfully employed in professional jobs, four are home-owners two are married, and they all own their own vehicles.  Anecdotally, I would say they have cracked the mold of how many researchers would categorize ‘millennials’.  This is one reason why I hesitate to generalize in this sense, but one thing that has stood out among my millennials is an extremely minimal understanding of personal finance and how to interact with a financial institution.  Perhaps, this is our fault as parents, but who’s to know whether they would have listened to us in the first place.  This lack of awareness makes it difficult to differentiate a credit union from any other financial institution.  But, if I’m right, this creates a unique opportunity for credit unions to build a high-level of trust w...

By Michael Cochrum, CUBI.Pro I’ve worked with dozens, if not hundreds, of organizations on data analytics projects.   Most often, I encounter my clients at a point of heightened frustration, having spent weeks or months and thousands of dollars to solve what they perceive should be a simple analytics problem.   Unfortunately, some organizations simply give up and retreat to an intuitive decision-making process that is irritatingly slow and notoriously inaccurate.   If I had the opportunity to consult with your organization before you embark on your data journey, here are four questions that I would ask about your organization before proceeding on a journey to data-driven decision making. Does Your Leadership Support Data-Driven Decision-Making? Data Analytics and Business Intelligence has become a bit of a fad to talk about, especially since Harvard Business Review named Data Scientist the Most Sexiest Job of the 21 st Century in 2012 [i] .   Who doesn...

By Michael Cochrum, CUBI.Pro Years ago, when I was serving in ministry at a local church, an old preacher shared a story about misaligned expectations.   Here is how I remember it: After days of torrential rain, an old man found himself stranded by rising waters, so he climbed to the roof of his house and began praying.   The man prayed that God would save him from the imminent flood.   After an hour of waiting and watching the water rise, some first responders came by his house and offered to move him to higher ground.   The old man refused their help, confident that God would save him before the water got too high.   After another hour, the water had risen to cover the first floor of his house when a man in a boat came by and offered to give the man a lift to higher ground.   The old man refused, again, confident that God would save him from the flood.   After waiting another hour, the water had reached the eaves of the house and the man ...

Have you ever wondered how much time your employees actually spend doing their primary work task?   According to the company WorkFront [i] , a management software provider, employees reported only spending 40% of their time working on their primary task in 2018.   This is down from 45% reported in 2014.   Workers report that emails, administrative tasks (clocking in, clocking out and completing forms), wasteful meetings and needless interruptions account for the remainder of the time your employees spend at work.   In a credit union, there are obvious positions that must be filled with onsite, permanent employees, but many back-office, support tasks can be outsourced, especially those that require a high level of skill and experience, reducing costs and increasing productivity.   Data Sciences and Analytics are a good example where credit unions can get more for less by outsourcing these functions. If your credit union is considering digging into its da...

It is clear that my current primary focus is on data, specifically data that helps credit unions serve members at a higher level.   In the pursuit of better data, I often stumble on operational issues that contribute to poor data collection practices.   Recently, I was discussing data issues with a credit union and was told that details were being skipped in favor of increasing the speed at which loans could be funded.   In other words, data collection practices such as asking for and verifying reference information was set aside in order to expedite a loan closing.   I realize on a sinking ship, one can argue that navigation gives way to bailing water, but these credit unions are not sinking ships, and while meeting a growth goal may be important, we want to ensure that the credit union is safe and sound far into the future.   Here are some ways that automation software, like a Loan Origination System, can help the credit union achieve higher efficiencies ...