Future-Proofing Success: The Impact of the Right Association Management System

Future-Proofing Success: The Impact of the Right Association Management System

by Towsif Nasor, PMP

In the world of association management, the right or wrong tools can greatly impact your organization’s ability to effectively pursue its goals. Association professionals often see first hand how a well-implemented Association Management System (AMS) can help transform your operations, enable member engagement, and deliver measurable results. This allows the organization to streamline many processes and achieve internal and external efficiencies.

Benefits of an AMS

There are many benefits to using the right AMS for your organization. They include:

• Enhanced Member Engagement – Modern AMS will act as a central location for all your member data and integrates seamlessly with various tools to help drive member engagement. This can range from communication tools, to just better send out targeted emails and campaigns, to being able to provide your members with access to self-service member portals that can help turn passive members into ongoing participants.
  
  
• Streamline Operations – One of the biggest challenges I see organizations face is working through their current processes, many of which are often manual. The right AMS can help handle repetitive tasks, such as membership renewals, dues collection, event registrations and more. This frees up your team’s time to focus on more strategic priorities and day to day activities.

 

• Data-Driven Decision Making – Another common but impactful challenge organizations seem to face are often the inability to make real data-driven business decisions. A modern AMS will often allow you to track member behavior, assess program performance, and enable you with the ability to report and analyze data to make better informed decisions for your organization.
  
  
• Scalable Growth – As organizations grow, they find their needs change. All of a sudden, they no longer have to accommodate just 100 members, but rather 1000 members. This usually means the need for organizations to launch new programs and expand geographically. The right AMS solution can help organizations do just that, allowing them to grow its membership, resources and programs. This allows associations to adapt to new demands without any major operational disruptions.

Things to Consider

For an AMS to be utilized effectively and manage organizational change, there are a few things organizations should consider. This includes identifying their immediate and future needs. 

Immediate Needs – If an organization focuses very heavily on providing learning resources and continued education for their members, they should look to see if the AMS will integrate seamlessly with their current LMS. This ensures that the immediate member experience is not negatively affected. 

Future Needs – When an organization that has primarily live events is growing and wants to start branching out to hybrid and virtual events, they may find that their current system is limited in supporting that pivot. To ensure that upon implementation, they see the positive changes discussed in this article, they should look for an AMS that integrates with a reliable virtual platform, or has that ability to support the need. This ensures that the right AMS solution will have a positive impact as the system matures within the organization.

Conclusion

The right AMS is more than just a technological upgrade, it is a strategic action that positions  your organization for long term, ongoing success. It is important to understand, the AMS is a tool, and not a magic wand. It will require ongoing effort to configure, optimize and use effectively. By understanding your needs and planning thoughtfully organizations can embrace the full capabilities and benefits of such tools. Ultimately, used effectively, organizations can unlock incredible accomplishments, efficiencies, and set the stage for a vibrant future with the implementation of a new AMS.