Yesterday I received the e-mail quoted further down this message from Kirby Davidson, President and CEO of the Graduate School of Banking at Wisconsin. The testimonial in the e-mail was from one of the students that attended Financial Managers School in September, 2009, about a month ago. The program is a joint effort of the Graduate School of Banking and the Financial Managers Society. I am the faculty coordinator of the school. That means I have lead curriculum design responsibility and am the primary voice on who serves on the faculty. I also coordinate the content and sequence of presenters and case study to avoid duplication of material and make sure the program flows. Dave Koch and I serve on the faculty.
To: 2009 Financial Managers School Faculty
Below is an excerpt that a GSB Trustee received from a banker in his state regarding this year’s Financial Managers School. It definitely reinforces the ROI for the bank by sending someone to the program. Kathy and Jennifer are currently working on copy for the 2010 Financial Managers School brochure and are going to try and work in parts of the testimonial below. This year’s program really hit a home run. Congratulations to everyone involved!! Here is the excerpt.
“I can’t say enough good things about the program. The facilities are top notch, excellent instructors and support staff and most importantly relevant curriculum.
We are already using several of the takeaways from the course.
1) The capital planning model provided Mr. Farin is being utilized in our budget and strategic planning processes.
2) The Contingency Funding Plan provided by Mr. Nelson and modified for our institution was recently approved by our Board of Directors. In addition, we have established relationships with several new partners including, IDC, Community Bank Funding and Money Aisle.
3) We are developing several new deposit products and are using marginal cost analysis on our core deposit pricing.
4) Changed investment strategies.
5) Revamped our ALCO reporting package.
All of these items are a direct result of the materials presented at the Financial Managers School. We have more to do but it has only been one month since I attended the program.
While the cost seems expensive at first, you soon realize what a bargain it is as you are able to develop strategies that add to the bottom line almost immediately upon implementation.”
Kirby Davidson
President & CEO
Graduate School of Banking
We are operating in a period when many institutions have slashed their operating expense budgets including funds set aside for education and consulting. A common response we receive when attempting to sell education and consulting services is, “Great idea, but we don’t have the money in the budget.” What they should be asking is, “Great idea. What is the return on investment (ROI) from the program?” The above testimonial indicates the ROI from the Financial Managers School can be extremely high. Compare that to the Fed Funds rate of 0.25%. Which is the better investment?
What is interesting is that we used the 2009 Financial Managers School as the test ground for a number of tools we were developing for Liquidity/Capital management. Based on what we learned from the school we tuned those tools for delivery at our 2 Day “Liquidity and Funds Management Workshop” that will be delivered for the first time December 2 and 3 in Madison. Specific linkages between the school and the workshop include:
- An upgraded version of the Capital/Liquidity model used in the school will be delivered will be provided at no cost to those attending the workshop. They will use it as the model in building an institution specific capital and liquidity plan.
- The case study used at the school, is the same case study that will be used to present examples as concepts are introduced at the workshop.
- Karl Nelson is one of the experts that will be available at the workshop. Karl will be discussing funding options like MoneyAisle and IDC. An upgraded version of his Contingency Funding Plan will be provided to attendees.
- While at the school we provided a number of case examples of developing core funding strategies and left it to students to apply the material, at the workshop we will work with you in developing an institution specific core funding plan.
- We will provide what we consider to be a best practice ALCO and Liquidity Management policy. We will also review yours and provide recommendations on how to enhance both your policy and your ALCO process.
There are variety of educational presentations delivered at the school that are not provided at the workshop. For example, Jeff Goebel spends ½ day on investment portfolio management. Based on his presentations, the institution discussed in the testimonial made modifications to their investment policy.
But with that single exception, all of the other ROI deliverables discussed in the testimonial are available at the workshop along with implementation assistance. So when you review the workshop cost of $5,000, ask yourself, “What kind of return will I receive on this investment? “ The above testimonial will help you answer that question.
