CU Demystifies Data & Empowers Managers to Make Data-Driven Decisions

SELCO Community Credit Union Demystifies Data & Empowers Managers to Make Data-Driven Decisions with Power BI

Company Overview

SELCO Community Credit Union provides a comprehensive suite of financial services to its members. From personal and commercial checking accounts to credit cards to home and auto loans to digital banking services to financial planning and more, SELCO helps its members work toward their life and business goals. Founded in 1936, the not-for-profit cooperative has become renowned for its tireless personal service and commitment to the communities it serves.

Executive Summary

According to John Ryan, director of information services at SELCO, the organization had a solid IT infrastructure in place and no shortage of data. However, the company’s business units didn’t have a streamlined way to access the data they needed nor a way to view and present information in a simplified and meaningful format.

SELCO had prior experience working with CFS’s team of data integration experts. CFS integrated data from its direct consumer lending LOS (MeridianLink) and its indirect lending LOS (CUDirect) into its existing data warehouse in the 4th quarter of 2018. From this experience, Ryan knew he could count on CFS to develop an analytics solution to meet the credit union’s data analytics needs. SELCO had selected Power BI as its dashboard/analytic platform and chose CFS to deliver curated data sets and sample dashboards for consumption by its end users. SELCO had a strategy (not unlike its peers) that the organization had to invest in providing insightful access to important information first before its team could identify the specific ways in which they would become data-driven in decision making. SELCO saw its relationship with CFS as a way to get this process jump-started, but in the longer term, its own team would have to take ownership of the program over time.

Challenges

According to Ryan, SELCO had a lot of data but lacked a way for its business unit managers to readily explore it independently for monitoring performance and making business decisions.

Although the company’s small but talented IT team had methodically developed a robust data infrastructure, it needed a partner with specialized credit union expertise in data modeling and analytics to create a viable business intelligence solution.

SELCO also recognized it might meet some challenges in convincing its business users to readily adopt a new tool. Ryan and his IT team realized it would be a big ask to expect busy managers to find the time to learn how to use the software for creating reports and dashboards.