Study Highlights Key Organizational Imperatives for Financial Services Cooperatives in Search for Growth

An Oliver Wyman study of over 25 cooperative financial services institutions (cooperative banks and credit unions) in Canada, the US, Mexico, and Latin America underscores the important role of organizational effectiveness in the pursuit of growth.

The report was presented at the International Summit of Cooperatives 2014 in Quebec, where leaders of cooperative and mutualist enterprises from around the globe gathered to discuss shared concerns about current and future business challenges. The summit had over 3,000 attendees.

Drawing upon interviews with executives and senior stakeholders, Organizing for effectiveness and growth in cooperative financial services: A focus on the Americas shines a light on key organizational levers that cooperatives can — and should — exercise to optimize their long-term success.

Regardless of their individual circumstances, the report argues that all financial cooperatives stand to gain by addressing seven key imperatives:

1. Being conscious and deliberate about their purpose
2. Creating an organizational structure empowered for growth
3. Optimizing governance processes
4. Allocating resources for growth and effectiveness
5. Building a high-performance, entrepreneurial management model
6. Aligning their human capital — their employees and managers — with the growth agenda
7. Attending to the importance of informal organizational activities

“These findings have important implications for the ways cooperatives organize, deal with their members, source and grow talent, and work both individually and in unison to innovate and grow,” said John Boochever, Oliver Wyman senior partner. “Participation in the Summit gives Oliver Wyman the unique opportunity to extend our field of vision, gain visibility within the global cooperative sector, further invest in understanding the economics and opportunities of the movement, and contribute meaningfully to the dialogue on organizational effectiveness in cooperative financial services.”