Harland Clarke: CBA's Newest Strategic Partner
From time to time in business you reach a fork in the road that presents two alternative paths forward. Standing still is usually not an option, yet the simple decision of which route to take can have major implications that forever affect the growth and success of the organization. It’s serious stuff.
The theme of Robert Frost’s famous poem, The Road Not Taken, runs parallel to a major business decision we confronted last year at the California Bankers Association. For several years, the CBA maintained an endorsement with Deluxe, a respected check printing company. The relationship between the CBA and Deluxe was akin to a well traveled path, a comfortable roadway that our organizations had journeyed along for a few years.
Since our endorsement agreement with Deluxe was coming to the end of its term in late 2009, we initiated a comprehensive process to carefully assess our business partnership. Like any prudent business manager, we also looked outward to determine what other suppliers, if any, might be a good fit for the CBA and merit consideration. One company, Harland Clarke, quickly rose to the top of this list. Like Deluxe, Harland Clarke had a long history serving the banking industry and was a well-respected name to bankers everywhere.
The stage was then set - Deluxe versus Harland Clarke. Two good companies and two paths forward from which to choose. Our Robert Frost moment was upon us, “two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both.” But which path forward? And what difference would the decision make to our association and our members?
Answering these questions would require careful, thoughtful consideration, and that’s when the real due-diligence work began. We carefully examined and compared the two companies. The closer we looked the more evident it became that each company had mapped a strikingly distinct, yet different path forward. At Deluxe, the focus of the company increasingly tilted toward directly serving small businesses and consumers. As a consequence, the reliance and relationship that Deluxe maintains with banking industry has become weaker and more diluted over time.
In contrast, at Harland Clarke, the business model has always been, and continues to be, centered on the banking industry. The firm’s impressive string of business acquisitions, along with numerous new product and service offerings, all have a common thread. In every case, the client is the bank itself and the goal is to help the bank acquire, retain and grow profitable relationships within its customer base.
This steadfast commitment to keeping the bank at the center of the Harland Clarke business model is an important distinction with Deluxe and a difference that has become increasingly apparent in the products available from each company.
Harland Clarke, building on a century of service to the banking industry, has developed a full portfolio of marketing and business intelligence solutions that will contribute to the profitability and success of your bank. Growing core deposits, improving efficiency, raising levels of customer satisfaction, improving the visibility of the bank within the community – these are just a few of the solutions that are available at Harland Clarke.
It is comforting to note that Harland Clarke hasn’t lost sight of check printing services, either. The quality, accuracy and timeliness of this key service hasn’t suffered one bit, even as the firm has surrounded this core offering with a vast slate of new capabilities.
As the year ended, our exhaustive due diligence review came to a conclusion. With the differences between Deluxe and Harland Clarke now clearly outlined, any doubt of which path forward we should take was cast aside. Like Frost expresses in the conclusion of his poem, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
To celebrate the beginning of a new decade, we are proud to announce an exciting new alliance with Harland Clarke, our newest strategic partner. In the coming weeks, we’ll begin sharing the particulars of the new CBA partnership. For now, suffice it to say that your bank will gain access to a valuable cadre of solutions that will contribute in a meaningful way to the business goals in place at your bank.
We hope that you’ll be interested in learning more about our new CBA strategic partnership with Harland Clarke, and the benefits this relationship can provide your bank in 2010.
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