Real-World Succession Planning

November 20, 2024Posted inStrategy
Most banks have a formal succession planning process. They have named successors for the truck scenario (short-term), medium-term, and long-term. The same names typically show up in many boxes. The process is intact, but the results are not entirely realistic.Many banks are also experiencing many impending retirements as a generation of bank leaders is aging out. At the same time, while showing much promise, many potential successors are not ready yet to take on the…

GENERATIVE AI

November 6, 2024Posted inMarketing, Risk, Sales Management
GenAI is a topic that keeps coming up at our forums. Like RPA before it, the question ripples throughout our groups: What are you doing about it? And, like RPA, the answer for the first three years is: we’re closely monitoring the situation. Then, for roughly two years, “we are testing a few bots.” Two years hence, “The technology didn’t live up to its promise and didn’t result in meaningful scale economies.” (Gen)AI is equally…

Scale and the Community Bank

October 21, 2024Posted inStrategy
A perennial topic at our forums in recent years has been M&A activities. Of course, every attendee is expected to be the acquirer, not the acquired. All mentioned scale is a critical competitive advantage in a consolidating industry where compliance and technology demands grow exponentially. In the distant past, the definition of “scale” was simple: whatever size you’re at, doubling it within 3-5 years will provide the scale you needed, whether you’re $100MM in assets…