Benchmarking Basics

Benchmarking is a valuable method of comparing a credit union's performance to others in the industry, such as banks or customized peer groups. Doing so allows you to gain insights into their financial standing and uncover opportunities, strengths, and weaknesses.

Benefits of Benchmarking:

Benchmarking offers several advantages that can positively impact a credit union's performance:

• Identifying Opportunities and Weaknesses: By comparing a credit union's performance to peers, you can identify areas of excellence and areas that need improvement. This enables you to make informed decisions about where to focus your efforts.
• Setting Realistic Goals: Benchmarking helps you set meaningful and achievable goals by providing a clear understanding of a market and competitors' responses to challenges.
• Monitoring Progress: Regular benchmarking allows you to track progress towards specific goals and make necessary adjustments to stay on course.
• Providing Actionable Information: Benchmarking provides data-driven insights that offer your team valuable information to act upon, reducing the likelihood of decisions based on intuition or emotions.
• Understanding Market Trends: Benchmarking helps you spot patterns and trends in the industry, providing a better understanding of the market dynamics.
• Enhancing Decision-making: With accurate peer data, you can make well-informed decisions that align with your strategic objectives.

The Uniqueness of Credit Union Benchmarking:

Credit unions have a distinct challenge in benchmarking due to their not-for-profit nature. Unlike traditional businesses driven by profit metrics, credit unions focus on providing value to their members. This dynamic can make defining success metrics more challenging since traditional performance metrics like higher net income or ROA  (Return on Assets) aren’t always aligned with how credit unions are ‘keeping score.'

Benchmarking allows credit unions to set relevant performance metrics that align with their mission and track progress effectively. Changing performance in any area of a credit union's operations involves trade-offs. Without accurate and detailed knowledge of the competition, it's difficult to gauge how well a credit union performs in key areas. Benchmarking provides the necessary data to back up assumptions and make objective decisions.

Regular benchmarking using tools like Peer Suite simplifies the process and can have a direct impact on a credit union's bottom line. Let's dive in and harness the power of benchmarking to aid in financial performance analysis and decision-making.