Quick Overview
Hey folks,
We’re excited to bring you the second edition of “Voices from the League,” your direct line to the brightest credit union leadership. Through this Eltropy initiative, you’ll gain firsthand insights into the strategies, innovations, and thought processes that these industry veterans have used to overcome the challenges you face today, all drawn from their extensive experience and far-reaching impact.
For this edition, Eltropy’s Head of Content Marketing, Amita Aggerwal, engaged in an insightful discussion with Jose Ortiz, Senior Business Solutions Manager of Navatros.
Jose shared some eye-opening insights on harnessing AI to elevate member interactions beyond the ordinary. He also discussed the need to balance vendor consolidation with strong contingency plans, ensuring uninterrupted service for members.
What’s the big shift happening in vendor consolidation, and why are credit unions taking a closer look at simplifying their vendor relationships?
Jose: Vendor management processes are being closely examined by organizations of all sizes. They’re looking for ways to consolidate vendors to create an easier due diligence and management process—essentially moving from multiple agreements to one central agreement. This is something they are continuously exploring as they streamline and create more efficiencies in their operations.
Additionally, I would say that there’s an outside influence from the examiner’s standpoint for improved vendor management processes and some of those efficiencies may come out of those exams there.
Amita:What’s your take on the ‘one platform to rule them all’ approach? Does having everything in one place make sense for credit unions?
Jose: It’s common sense to use one platform that can do multiple things instead of having multiple tools do overlapping tasks and complicating things – You can only dedicate so many resources to vendor management, due diligence, training, data management, and so on.
Therefore, if you have a technology vendor that can fulfill multiple needs within your organization, it makes sense to have one due diligence process for that single vendor and one vendor management agreement that covers multiple areas. This approach allows your staff more flexibility to address the other vendors that may not be able to consolidate. But if you have one stop for multiple solutions, it makes it much easier to operate on a day-to-day basis.
From a cost standpoint as well, as long as they’ve done their due diligence and revisited those agreements to ensure no one else can do what they do, odds are, you pick the winner; it’s something that’s here for the future.
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Is the fear of putting all your eggs in one basket pushing credit unions to stick with multiple vendors, or is it just an illusion of safety?
Jose: There’s a real fear that if that one basket goes down, you can no longer serve your members. However, as long as folks are prepared and have contingencies in place, it can work. Let’s say, if you have generative AI or a call center AI operating in your organization and the technology goes down or your internet service fails, you typically have a backup process to fall back on temporarily while you resolve the issue.
As long as they have contingencies in place and are aware that this consolidation creates daily efficiencies, they should understand that there’s always a possibility of something going wrong. But we have a process in place to take care of our members if happens, you should be in a good spot.
You also have to weigh in that having one partner that operates in multiple areas & continuously improves its solutions to better serve your members is a very strong advantage. Nothing is a 100% guarantee; it may provide 90% or 99% reliability, but there’s always that 1% chance. As long as you prepare for it, you should be okay.
Amita:What impact does vendor overload have on the member experience, and how does consolidating vendors improve it?
Jose: A member expects to be able to go to their credit union’s resources and have a single sign-on for everything that the credit union has to offer. As long as everything cooperates and plays nice that you have for your members, it’s great. This is usually managed behind the scenes and should feel almost seamless to members. But, if there are multiple platforms or separate vendors that require multiple sign-ins – it creates friction in the member experience. It’s like, “Why are you asking me for this if I’m already in your ecosystem?”
So, if there is a single vendor that has multiple platforms that communicate internally and doesn’t require multiple inputs from the consumer. It just gets them to where they need to be – creating a better experience for individuals at increased speed and greater efficiency.
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Jose Ortiz
Senior Business Solutions Manager at Navatros
