The MemberWise Digital Excellence (2022) Report identified that one of the Top 10 things getting in your way is “Inadequate reporting tools”. With unprecedented industry cost pressures, affecting not just your business, but your members too. The decisions you make for your business are more critical than ever before.
The key to the best decision making is obtaining the best information.
Here’s how you can make your Financial Data work for you!
Multiple Data Point KPIs
We are all aware of our main financial KPIs;
- Surplus / Deficit
- Member Income
- Cash Flow
- Reserves
But how do they interlink with our Operational Performance?
Membership Benefits: Which are the most value for money?
Teaming up with industry leading accounts professionals can turn your boring, one dimensional management reports into a powerful membership performance analysis tool.
Allowing for your KPIs to factor non-financial information as well as income and expenditure can give a powerful insight into what your members really value from your organisation.
By sitting alongside your CRM, multiple point KPIs can show you correlations in your membership you never knew existed, and help identify the underlying drivers of your business.
Allowing you to invest in the right areas and maximise your potential for your members.
Strategic Reporting
Does it feel like your strategy is written and viewed once at conception and then not looked at again until the next strategic review?
Do you find it difficult to convert strategic objectives into Operational and Financial Targets?
Convert your reporting standard from income and expenditure by service, to performance by strategic objective.
Each of your strategic objectives can be broken down into key performance drivers, work with your finance professionals to deliver Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant Timely (SMART) targets.
Allowing your accountants to combine your multiple point KPIs with real strategic direction will allow your team to focus on delivering the strategy, and encourage your board to stay strategic and avoid the operational detail.
Changing Our Views From Financial Years to Project Horizons
It is easy to live in the here and now, and forget about our longer term planning. Particularly in the volatile political and economic environment we find ourselves operating in.
This can lead to members of SMT or board members focusing on one-year performance rather than seeing the wider picture.
Projects that are worth doing, are worth doing right, and sacrificing the long term objectives for in year performance is a waste of potential, and also damaging to your members!
Changing your thinking and reporting from financial year focus to a project horizon focus can help your SMT and Board focus on what really matters – acting strategically to provide serious value to your members.
Hint: These Horizons can be One, Three or even Five years!
What Really Drives Membership Performance?
It is easy to just think that membership is just sales and retention. But these are outcomes of performance, not drivers.
Identifying the key drivers for new member numbers is essential for maximising the sales team’s performance and growing the membership.
Consequently, understanding the key drivers for member lapses and resignations, and understanding what benefits your members’ value, allows early intervention to maximise your retention percentages.
Adding these subsects into your KPI analysis for member statistics alongside your financial KPIs allows you to enhance your engagement with your membership.
Don’t wait for your finances to catch up with your strategy, stay SMART, change the focus and drive your organisation!
Want to hear more about how to make your financial reports work harder, and give the best value to your members? – click here to speak to a dedicated membership finance professional.
Crossley Third Sector offers a fully – or partially – outsourced, bespoke accounts department specific to the needs of Third Sector and Membership Organisations.
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