Strategic planning is a universe of facts, figures, opinion and interpretations

By: Tim Allen, VP of Strategic Planning

Part I. Get the right facts - right.
There are two important data sets that any strategic plan should include - your member data and the “market” data.
That member data set will help to identify the success of past decisions and existing conditions of your branching network. Knowing how your members use your branches and other service outlets is imperative to understanding the likely results of expanding your services, given that the successful steps you’ve taken in the past are repeated.
That market data is a horse of a different color. Years ago, it was nearly enough to learn where the largest population densities were and what their expectations for growth were. And, yes, other facts such as income and traffic counts were looked at too. Safe it to say that these samplings of data were funnel views of a market and decidedly different than the broad extent of factors that a good strategic plan considers today. Another reason for this expansion of market perspectives is due to the diverse fields of membership that exist today and the reliable target marketing products that can enhance a typical marketing program.

Confidence in the market data is extremely important. Many market data providers offer a regurgitation of U.S. Census Bureau data. Since a full census is only performed each decade, as you’d think, there’s a lot of estimating between them. These data providers’ systems take that universe of numbers and appropriate it in different geographies such as zip codes and census tracts. Until a few years ago, BCI purchased its market data from several of these type data providers but, we changed. That happened when we learned of another data provider who had a different approach. Instead of relying on U.S. Census Bureau estimates they analyze zip plus 4 postal records. And, we obtain quarterly updates…it’s as good as the data can get. This allows us to see the dynamics of growth over short periods of time. No more waiting for the next annual release.



Part II coming soon…