Tighten Up
Ted Kawoczka
Partner, Information and IT Solutions
Fact: Sizeable Non-Interest Expense cuts can be achieved at most community banks and credit unions. And, they are available without reducing headcount or negatively impacting the quality of your customer service. This blog represents the 1st of a series of practical, real steps you can undertake to get results and instill disciplined expense management in your institution.
Have you recently considered how your institution selected and licensed your voice and data network? How about the corresponding outsourced Network Monitoring and Security Monitoring services? Patch Management? Phones? Desktop applications? If you can answer these questions affirmatively it’s probable you have an active, disciplined IT Steering Committee in place and these technologies and vendors went through scrutiny and risk management similar to your Core Banking and Digital offerings. If not, you may want to re-visit this area of critical infrastructure. Here’s why.
For many institutions, these sorts of products and services are contracted through relationships developed with local Agents or IT re-sellers whose knowledge and expertise can be weighted toward the vendor(s) and products they are licensed to represent. Naturally, your suppliers are entitled to reasonable markups and commissions for their deliverables. No quibbling there. What’s less certain is if local provider with whom your institution relies on represents and understands the technologies that will keep you competitive, expense efficient, and protect against ever evolving threats. (Think recent Colonial Pipeline Ransomware Cyberattack.) Frankly, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for the smaller firms to invest where it matters most – supporting clients with staff with real subject matter expertise.
Some questions to ask and action items to consider:
Do you have a disciplined infrastructure and expense management review process in place?
In addition to Core/Digital vendors, does that process include tele-carriers, co-location/data centers, network infrastructure and managed service providers?
Have you re-priced your network options recently?
Have you considered going beyond your local Agents or re-sellers?
Have you reviewed the important organization audits of outsource service providers?
Bottom line – your technology team should be encouraged to consider a broader array of vendors / solutions and bring them to your IT Steering Committee. Network infrastructure and security are critically important. IT Managed Service Providers should be known and understood by the executive team. If you haven’t done a recent, thorough audit against your current strategic priorities, we can help by coming alongside your team to help you realize significant cost savings and productivity gains.