COMPLIANCE: A VALUE-ADDED SERVICE TO THE ORGANIZATION

“It’s a sign of troubled times when the concept of ‘pressure’ becomes an acceptable excuse for ethical shortcuts and moral shortcomings. Pressures are just temptations in disguise and it’s never been acceptable to give in to temptation.”  ~Michael Josephson

As a profession, we have worked diligently to shed the stereotype that long-plagued us, that of being a legalistic cost-center who impeded organizational growth. [While you may not have ever personally experienced the stereotype, let me assure you that many of us have received the sarcastic “oh, here comes Audit/Compliance…”]

Like me, many of you regularly engage in projects within your organizations to provide the compliance and ethics (C&E) perspective.  In some organizations, we are routinely invited to project planning sessions and kick-off meetings, remaining to consult with the project team until implementation. In other instances, we become aware of an in-process initiative that contains elements of regulatory risk and invite ourselves into the project. Either way, C&E professionals provide valuable subject matter expertise to ensure that the organization’s we represent are well-grounded in compliant activities.

That being said, I was reminded recently that our work is not over. A colleague had relayed to me a situation at her organization that continues to cause dismay to C&E professionals. During a stakeholder meeting to explore system integration and replacement options, my colleague put forth a variety of system security and operational suggestions to strengthen the information security and consumer compliance framework from inception. After dismissively alluding to costs associated with these suggestions more than a few times during the meeting, the project leader looked up at my colleague and replied, “Well, we may not be able to incorporate each of these items, but—you know—sometimes you just have to go along to get along…” Apparently, the project leader even slyly winked at my colleague as this was said.

I get a little choked up as I recount my colleague’s reply, as with a spine of steel she looked back (without a wink) across the table and said, “Well, no. This organization doesn’t knowingly build non-compliance into its new initiatives, so I wouldn’t sign off without the controls in place.” When the project leader published the next version of the system requirements, each of the compliance components had been incorporated as submitted, and had been risk scored accordingly.

We are going to be asked to participate in many initiatives over the course of our C&E careers. Certainly we will always seek the most cost-effective and internally-conducive methods to achieve compliant outcomes, because we believe in our organizations and wish to help them succeed in the marketplace.

But occasionally we are going to be asked to step beyond the fiduciary responsibility with which our Board has entrusted us, and which society expects of us. It is in those moments when our fidelity to doing the right thing will supplant simply bowing to doing the popular thing. It is in that moment of fortitude and loyalty to duty that we will have added true value to our organization…

Embrace YOUR Gen Z Strategy

"We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive." -C. S. Lewis
 
"Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be." -Khalil Gibran

Many organizations--perhaps YOURS--have increasingly been finding religion in "launching a Gen Y marketing strategy" over the past couple years. Really? Given the tens of thousands of advertisements that Gen Y had been exposed to over the past three decades, their consumer preferences for traditional products & services (YES, this includes financial institutions) were largely formed a decade or more ago. You are too late to that party unless you attracted them in the prior decade. You may not care YET about Gen Z because you're large, growing, financially stable, diversified, etc....but you WILL care when Gen Z mothballs you in cyberspace over the coming decade. But why?

As Spire Research & Consulting detail, Generation Z is comprised of approximately 1.8 billion consumers, comprising 26.57% of the population. Aged between 7-16 years old, Gen Z only knows a world built upon a mobile multi-channel platform. Extreme comfort with social networking technology and its inherent culture of transparency and immediacy represent the Gen Z lingua franca. They don't hear your radio ads or see your print advertisements about great auto loan rates, and while you may not think that's important because most of them cannot purchase a vehicle YET...your competitors who already buy ad space on Facebook or Google, and post relevant videos to YouTube have already built brand recognition with them. And, contrary to the conventional wisdom, Gen Z is brand loyal and are becoming increasingly bigger spenders than even Gen Y was at the comparative age.

Gen Z is communicating with one another 24/7/365. Good, bad or just plain dull, YOUR organization's service, employee behavior, decor, convenience, inconvenience, lack of web chat, lack of mobile banking, etc. will be posted to blogs, social networking sites, and streamed globally by the most enterprising of their members. As Galia Myron chronicles, the most common activities the teens described while blogging "were playing video games (65 percent); watching television (45 percent); doing homework (40 percent); going to music, dance, or martial arts lessons (38 percent); browsing the Internet (29 percent); and participating in faith-based activities (22 percent)." But pay particular attention that a large population of the teens were "apt to record feeling of boredom (65 percent)" while blogging, because if YOUR organization's social media presence remains bland and uninviting, you (and your target audience) could find yourself hearing all about it on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

What is YOUR organization doing differently than YOUR competitors to differentiate yourself from the financial institution morass? Gen Z will bank with their parents' bank or credit union, but only if their members perceive a relevant relationship between the institution and themselves. You won't be able to simply count on the legacy effect.

Do you feature culturally relevant individuals and phrasing in your youth marketing efforts?

Do you adequately staff your social networking presence, or like many institutions do you give lip service to social networking, tossing an occasional lame blog post or tweet out there like a crumb to the masses?

Do you employ a member of Gen Z in an active advisory and communications role? Pick yourself up off the floor and give it some serious consideration...because YOUR competition already has that individual on their team.

Are YOU ready to embrace your Gen Z strategy...or will you simply continue to dress an old Gen Y marketing strategy in chic clothing and expect it to look like anything other than grandma in a mini-skirt...the numbers won't lie.