Few planning sessions, conferences or even executive conversations end without explicitly referencing “relevance.” It is official. Relevance is trending industry terminology.
It is also clear that many industry leaders feel more than a little uneasy about the topic. And for good reason!
“Relevance” is routinely pitched as the next channel or platform or data warehouse. Que the violin music. Run screaming.
Despite the surface appeal of purported “plug and play” options, relevance cannot be outsourced, purchased, or patched in. Plug and play products and services, no matter how elegantly built, always fragment data, limiting your access to it; obscuring the insights that it holds.
Common practice, channels and platforms are the antithesis of “best practices.”
So, what is relevance?
Relevance is a process.
It starts with a strategy to make your institution the indispensable agent of economic health in the communities you serve.
This commitment will require…
the elimination of channels, platforms, and all possible data warehouses—we call this step “Next Practices.”
All possible data, consolidated to your core, will lead to data omniscience—the one essential asset and competency of the thriving modern business.
The impact of the “digital transformation” is not about data or even technology as such. It is the realization that what got your organization and community “here,” will not help you, or your consumer and business clients, thrive in this emerging, digital environment. The imperative now is to rededicate ourselves to the economic success of our communities by consolidating data, retaining it, and sharing it locally to advance community ecospheres.
