I was sitting in a consulting workshop a few weeks ago being led by Alan Weiss. Alan was making the point that the most valuable consulting is the kind that focuses on transformational behavior, rather than transactional behavior. That is, there is more value in helping an organization move to a higher level of performance (transformational) than there is helping an organization to better manage its current state (transactional).
The same applies to managing your association management system. For most organizations, the focus is on the transactions taking place in the database (e.g., sales being made, is the contact data correct, etc.). But to really get value from your database, you have to focus on the transformational. By that I mean leveraging the data within your system to really transform your organization. One way to do this is through business intelligence.
At the recent ASAE Marketing and Membership Conference, I spoke about business intelligence and how associations are using BI to leverage the data they have for improved marketing and membership activities. I presented four case studies on associations successfully using BI, and I’m going to use those four case studies as examples of moving from transactional to transformational. Stay tuned…