Kirk Drake
CHICAGO—More credit unions are turning to cloud-based IT platforms, but a roadblock to more conversions is the relationship between the CIO and the CEO, according to one systems provider.
Kirk Drake, president and CEO of Ongoing Operations, said CUs have already stepped over the hurdle of trusting that it is OK to have their critical information technology center further away from their control and protection to gain greater efficiencies and performance.
In remarks to the 2016 NASCUS/CUNA Cybersecurity Symposium, Drake noted Ongoing Operations has about 50 credit unions it is supporting via its cloud-based solution.
The big issue Ongoing Operations is now seeing, is alignment of the IT department and the CEO, according to Drake.
“The CEO says ‘This sounds great, I don’t have to deal with all the complexities of having an in-house system and doing things ourselves’,” said Drake. “But the IT person says, ‘Hold on, there are all these things we need to address.’ The key is how do you get those two people, the CIO and the CEO, aligned on what the credit union’s long-terms strategy is going to be.”
Challenging Conversation With IT
Drake said that Ongoing Operations focuses on the CEO first, getting the leader aligned philosophically with a cloud-based platform.
“And then we have a really challenging conversation with the CIO,” he explained.
Drake said that, interestingly, conversations that are the hardest are those where the CIO and CEO have an OK relationship, as opposed to one that is strained.
“In these cases the CEO trusts the CIO just enough to listen to him,” said Drake. “So if the CIO is not behind a cloud-based system, the CEO does not make the change to the cloud.”
One of the big advantages of the cloud is that credit unions of all sizes gain access to the latest “world-class” tools, according to Drake.
“Many credit union computing architectures are bolted-on technology over the last 20 years,” said Drake. “A complete hodgepodge of stuff, spending money on patching and updating what they have done. That architecture is challenging to manage, especially in a constantly changing regulatory environment and having limited resources.
Drake, who said the positive impact of moving to the cloud is often felt soonest at small credit unions, outlined the key benefits from a cloud platform.
“You are future proofing your platform. You are not having to do upgrades and maintenance. You are getting great security and compliance. You have built-in disaster recovery . . .”
Drake pointed to an issue that effects small CUs the most, which is not being to afford highly skilled IT teams and keep the great performers over the years.
“How can the credit union have a long-term IT strategy if they can’t hire or keep strong talent?” asked Drake. “Even if you can hire good IT people, how can you keep them if they don’t have a strong career path?”
Reallocating Resources
Drake said that Ongoing Operation has strong career paths for its IT teams and expects that many of the skilled staff the company has today will still be on board years down the road.
“Credit unions can just tap into those resources,” he said.
Moving to the cloud delivers some cost savings, but where CUs can benefit the most, asserted Drake, is by reallocating IT resources on higher priorities.
“The credit union can now focus on what it does best—member-facing technology marketing and technology enabled services,” he said. “We believe those things are critically important for the long-term success of credit unions.”