Every bank executive is well-versed in the cyclical nature of strategic planning. Periodic reviews, an annual session to drive formal updates, and approval by the board. That is typically how things go, and no one really questions it. But what if we began to think about strategic planning differently? What if we began to think of it more like product development, pulling in data to drive decisions and approaching the process iteratively?

The idea here is that, if strategic planning always follows the same formulaic course, it’s easy to miss opportunities. But, by turning strategic planning into ongoing, data-driven work, financial institutions (FIs) may be able to take things to a whole other level.

For example, say a bank committed to surveying its customers and conducting focus groups quarterly, and collating as well as reviewing that data throughout the year — it’s very likely the bank’s leaders would come into their next strategic planning session armed with far more knowledge, and thus far more prepared. Now, say that same bank also committed to evaluating its position relative to its strategic plan throughout the year using that data, suddenly, you’ve got a far more powerful proposition.

The key to this is really data and insight. Ask yourself, to what extent do we leverage data in our strategic planning sessions? And if the answer is very little, ask, why is that? In a survey we ran a couple of years ago, we asked 122 C-level bank executive respondents how valuable they felt it was to conduct end customer research through tools such as interviews, surveys, useability testing, and other feedback loops. While a majority said it was either very valuable or somewhat valuable (90%), only a little more than a third reported conducting such research on an ongoing, iterative basis.

What I am proposing is that we close that gap.

Strategic planning is extremely important to FIs because it sets the stage for progress, so if the decisions made in that process are not backed by anything concrete, risk of failure increases. It is the echo chamber conundrum — everyone likes to talk, but they don’t know what they don’t know. Taking a data-centric approach, especially one that is perpetual in nature, reduces this issue. Moreover, such an approach can be applied to other planning processes, such as business planning or technology planning. And, perhaps most of all, it sets the stage for greater use of data throughout the organization, helping to drive more-informed decision-making across all levels of the bank.