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Deep divides in digital connectivity, internet use, and access remain. Western Union has the infrastructure to help make that a reality. Were there tools or technology that were particularly helpful in your transformation? I want to see those same results in my organization. I think thats an indication of how well its really working across the company. Safety starts with understanding how developers collect and share your data. If Western Union tries to grow its blockchain capabilities within current operations, internal resistors may directly or indirectly sabotage the initiatives. How do you start there and end up with a fully embedded transformation across a company of 12,000 people? We are also launching new products into the market, including a pilot for digital banking services in select markets in Europe and a revamped loyalty programme, which require us to capture data from our central warehouses to drive decision making, marketing and customer acquisition. For example, we began offering an option for telephone money transfer. Its an ecosystem of complementary platforms that enable a seamless, single customer experience I think thats such a powerful proposition.. If you are a new customer: now you can transfer your FIRST money transfer for FREE*. That created a need to act. Western Union can leverage such physical presence to win this new innovative space. Jaffin: Digital was critical in a few ways. Experienced and certified (ACAMS) AML and Learning & Development professional with a proven track of records in compliance, people management, learning areas. My team and I had thought of the future being digital, of course, but the pandemic really forced us to make it a reality for the business. Receive rewards. But new innovators are highlighting a problem for Western Union: multi-homing is high with money transfers. Experts at TCS and Western Union share the trends that are affecting digital transformation in financial services. I have successfully directed virtual teams working on Mastercard integrations, Western Union and MoneyGram. The difference with OutSystems is that we can do that fast and at scale, deploying experiences that are fast to load, reliable, and secure. If CDIOs dont have the right culture on their teams, how can they help drive a data-first culture throughout their organization? We believe in the work we do, why we do it, and who we hire to get it done. Reliable for over 170 years. Think of Western Union, and its yellow placard advertising an agent location comes to mind. Western Union (NYSE: WU), a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments and Zain Cash, the award-winning mobile financia . Digital transformation in Western Union must be driven from the top-down. Learn about JSON storage. How Western Union achieved Digital Transformation with Infosys and Oracle. Heute nutzen bereits rund 150.000 Anwender in Deutschland sowie in Rumnien, Polen und Italien die Western Union Digital Banking App fr ihre finanziellen Angelegenheiten - immer mit dem Ziel . Part of this agility drive involved Western Union migrating its legacy on-prem IT infrastructure to the Cloud. We built the Western Union Way team, or the WU Way team as we call it, with ten high-potential individuals from around the company. After the catastrophic explosion in Lebanon in 2020, the two companies worked together to build data pipelines to help those affected by the incident and provide support to agents in the area. [7]For a helpful overview of how Blockchain is being used in emerging markets, see Vinay Gupta & Rob Knight, How Blockchain Could Help Emerging Markets Leap Ahead, Harvard Business Review, May 17, 2017. Poland followed later in 2022, while plans are at hand to launch Italy by the end of the year. So we established a set of what we call market-shaper practices that we wanted to focus on. This would help Western Union objectively pursue new blockchain opportunities, even if those opportunities eventually cannibalize or destroy its existing C2C business. However, Western Union doesnt view its established retail business as totally separate from the digital world. Western Union's investment in India is part of a broader fintech and innovation strategy that is driving the company's digital transformation. Patrick Gauthier, CEO of Convera, formerly known as Western Union Business Solutions. Digital transformation starts with people, which is a useful reminder that . 35, No. In 2017, Western Union invested $200 million and 20% of its workforce on compliance functions. While the pace of change has been considerable, the leadership team at Western Union has been focused on implementing a large-scale technology transformation. We continue to experiment with the technology and time will tell if it offers a better alternative to traditional rails.. Once a customer notarises their documents, they can be stored in a safe location and distributed across the blockchain network, so any regulatory authority or government can access that information. Snowflake worked with Longitude to assess what it takes to lead in the data economy. He also praises Snowflakes adaptability when it came to dealing with huge capacity increases. Western Union. Rapid iteration is a crucial capability for Western Union, especially when designing customer experiencesin over 200 countries with local customer and regulatory requirements. Looking back at the results of our work over the last couple of years across all of our deployments, you see some really impressive gains. Western Union's digital transformation efforts may fail to drive earnings growth, but they may be enough to keep earnings steady going forward. The Data Cloud is increasingly becoming a facilitator for digital transformation initiatives, and while there are many facets to that story, our customers often tell us how three critical elements play a central role: being able to access and share live data; being able to share data without having to move it; and the ability to securely access third-party data. There were definitely times I was looking at costs and thinking how I was going to explain to finance, or my CFO, he says. Marketing tactics evolved to attract digital customers, who have a different profile from traditional retail customers. [9]Western Union recently dipped its toes into blockchain. This does have privacy implications and hence needs to be vetted out with regulatory authorities around the world. Hearing from customers helped us focus our messaging on two key ideas: digital convenience and staying safe through contactless funds transfer. Head of Information Technology & Digital Transformation Econet Wireless Zimbabwe Oct 2015 - Present 7 years 6 months. Now its more pull. The idea is to orient the company around improving these market-shaper practices, really getting the health of our organization strong, and becoming confident that if we can improve the health of the organization, the financial results will follow. That means we can onboard new developers and have them productive much faster, and weve got fewer knowledge silos in the development team., Moreover, low-code development on OutSystems helps Tom fight back in the war for digital talent. This is just one example of how blockchain could be an opportunity for Western Union. Instead, Western Union should fund and fully staff a separate unit that has preferential access to Western Unions resources, but is not restricted by legacy operators within Western Union. Business Application Services, Service Experience Weve been able to increase the amount and frequency of relevant data we can share with our agents, and they have started to build new processes based on that. . With my work with WEF, I was lucky enough to sit around a table recently with some important people and talk about how we can take this forward. Western Union must adapt to an increasingly mobile world: if Western Union doesn't develop low-cost mobile money transfers, Western Union won't be able to compete . Western Union has gained a comprehensive view of the customer while running the Data Cloud on AWS. Gartner Magic Quadrant for Low-Code Application Platforms, 2023. Having to maintain two sets of procedures on-prem and cloud for 18 months to ensure business continuity is chief among them, while teams have had to escalate a company-wide transformation during a pandemic. Governments pay close attention to cross-border money transfers, and heavily regulate these services to prevent fraud, tax evasion, and other criminal activities. Strategic partnerships working with platforms like Google is a critical piece of that. Profiles, Infosys Knowledge Build customized, secure, and scalable mobile banking apps. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Western Union Digital Services Enhanced in the UAE with Mobile App and Online Access; ITFC and Dubai Exports host B2B Forum to Promote Agri-Food Trade between Arab and African Countries under the Arab Africa Trade Bridges Program; GBM and Banfico partner to support the Kingdom's efforts for a more digitalized financial sector Africa's largest payment gateway, MFS Africa, has partnered with Western Union to enable individuals and businesses across the continent to receive money from over 200 countries and territories. Product Director, United States Money Transfer. We scored ourselves as an organization on these market-shaper practices when we started the transformation in 2016. To address this new competitive landscape, Western Union sought an agility boost to accelerate innovation. On March 1, Huawei held a "Digital Leadership Seminar" during Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2023 in Barcelona, Spain, attended by more than 60 high-level customers from global carriers, government enterprises, and KOL. This aims to support the transition of the region into a digital economy and bring the benefits of digital transformation, such as faster economic growth, more jobs, and better services. Entertainment, Professional Unless they can feasibly use technology to improve their cost structure, Im super bearish on Western Union. The network upgrade will pave the way for Econet to deliver 5G connectivity in more . [6], However, regulators cant keep pace with the wave of new blockchain applications. Western Union's digital services align with the UAE government's policy to create an economy driven by innovation and technology," said Salma Massoud, head of digital, Middle East and Africa . In the same way that they say it takes a whole village to raise a child, it takes an army of people with the right skillsets and approaches to undertake a challenge like this. 2023 Snowflake Inc. All Rights Reserved | If youd rather not receive future emails from Snowflake, unsubscribe here or customize your communication preferences, Snowflake for Advertising, Media, & Entertainment, unsubscribe here or customize your communication preferences. Meeting the moment with solutions required Western Union to accelerate its own digital transformation. Looking ahead, the Sales Cloud will be connected to the Marketing Cloud, which in turn is connected to our Care Cloud, so that whenever something happens across any of those products we are able to react in a way that suits that customer. And the new business model may require a very different RPP (traditional money transfer process vs. transfer via blockchain). Analytics, API Economy & Zealand, South [3] Shelly Freierman, Telegram Falls Silent Stop Era Ends Stop, NY Times, Feb. 6, 2006. Markets are perpetually shifting and change is unavoidable, but to keep up with those shifting tides companies need to stay focused on digital transformation. Faced with numerous applications to deliver, the need to rapidly iterate customer experiences, and the steep learning curve for new Cloud DevOps toolchains, Western Union decided to evaluate low-code platforms. We offer consumers the choices they want, both for sending and receiving money, he stresses. So its a real imperative across the top of the organization. Improvements that we made to our apps digital customer experience, for example, helped it become one of the most downloaded apps among our peer set in 2020. For more than 170 years Western Union has been helping people send money all over the world. [10]Jeff John Roberts, Western Union is Testing Ripple and XRP for Money Transfers, Fortune, Feb. 14, 2018. It requires a change in process and culture, the adoption of a common lingo, executive buy-in, and a center of excellence to ensure enterprise-wide success. As we get the pilots completed, the idea is to turn the WU Way team into more of a center of excellence. Africa, South Furthermore, a chain of retail outlets is expensive. Having found great success with its Marketing Cloud, Singh outlines his longer-term vision to connect a number of Western Unions central products. The gap between access and use is growing, with 56% of people in . OutSystems provides the innovation and agility to accelerate the digital transformation of Western Union. Jaffin: Western Union has a culture of innovating to meet customer needs, and the past 12 months have shown us that quick pivots can drive lasting change. Singh estimates that the project has reduced how much it spends on talking to its customers by a quarter, while markedly improving this critical function. Us, Terms Business Unit Represents Approximately 7% of Company Revenue . Its created a need for financial sector brands to step up and help by democratizing access to their services via mobile phones. Western Union's Customer Journey Digital Transformation Fueled by NICE - Innovative NICE Nexidia Customer Journey Optimisation provides powerful analytics to enhance customer experience. With OutSystems, we deploy twice every week. Behind those market-shaper practices are the lean tools and behaviors we develop and encourage. Leaders across many industries and companies of all sizes report that one of their biggest challenges is siloed data. [3], Western Union operates in three segments, with most of its revenues (79%) coming from the C2C segment: [4], Western Union became the dominant player in cross-border C2C money transfers through a platform strategyit connected people who wanted to send money across borders. Western Union has gained a comprehensive view of the customer while running the Data Cloud on AWS. Engaged in problem resolution of complex . [1] The first transcontinental telegraph was sent on October 24, 1861, from the Chief Justice of California to President Abraham Lincoln. Does it offer a more seamless customer experience? In 2011, Western Union opened an office in San Francisco to ramp up its digital operation. The aim of this paper is to sketch a brief history of complex digital transformation of media and . Not just front-end, but back office and our contact center. The strategy is also to reduce costs; on-prem infrastructure and people running it is expensive and you need back-ups of everything, especially in financial services. Filipino workers abroad), they need to bring physical money somewhere, and most of the fintech companies in remittance space dont have their own channels (they often partner with local kiosks). The international roll-out continues to other countries at pace. These strategies are paying off. In addition to our digital banking app, there are at least 20 internal employee-facing apps that weve delivered that make work easier and more efficient for our employees., Asked what differences he sees in the development team, Tom says, With OutSystems, weve got a more cohesive and multi-talented development team because were using visual low-code development thats self-documenting. They essentially sponsor a team and loan the resources that are necessary. Their bread and butter business is charging hefty fees on remittances and their core advantage was a network of retail outlets and agents across the US and partners around the world to get cash from one family member to another. Introducing the next-generation operating model, Winning with your talent-management strategy. Commenting on the speed comparison of OutSystems compared to previous traditional development, Tom said, "On an earlier project, we had ten people working on a pricing and UX project. [8]. Its one of the most widely used platforms from a data perspective and were expanding our relationship with Talend to start using some of its data quality products as well. Reframe blockchain from a threat to an opportunity, by creating a new autonomous unit. But it becomes more self-driven, and that really enables the scale. So, constant iteration and rapid delivery are crucial. Western Union launched its digital banking app in Germany and Romania in Spring 2022, following 11 months of iterative development. Top retailers use AI-powered campaigns to engage their most valuable customers. Something we could take forward is a digital dollar, which we could make transferable all around the world with our vendors. And on our website, we added new support and wayfinding tools to ensure customers could quickly and easily access information. To that end, Singh has built on an existing relationship to forge a highly valuable partnership with Salesforce and oversee the roll-out of its industry-leading Marketing Cloud. We teach employees, and then they execute. Jaffin: Our company mission is to enable financial transfers between people anywhere and everywhere; we had a responsibility to continue to deliver on that. To learn more about the data economy, what your organization stands to gain from using data effectively, and how to become a Data Economy Leader, download the report overview, How to Win in Todays Data Economy. That system is fine in a cash based economy, but is becoming increasingly cumbersome as digital payments take hold in emerging markets. The company considers local preferences, as well, accepting about 10 payment methods, such as Apple Pay in the U.S. 1 (March 1990), pp. "As a digital enabler and a pioneer in the digital transformation, we aspire to play a vital role in the vision of the Saudi . Were talking 30 percent, 40 percent, and, in some cases, deployments with a 70 percent return on capacity. With a history of more than 170 years, the company has a presence in more than 200 countries and territories, connecting more than 120m people to one another and to the global economy, through cross-border money transfers in approximately 130 currencies. The Baupost Group is a $31 billion Boston-based investment firm. Really understand the business stakeholders problem and how you can fix or enable it. Western Union powers your pursuit. Jay Jaffin was just starting his role as Western Union's chief marketing officer when the pandemic arrived. Board Committees. [11] Western Unions footprint of retail locations gives it a worldwide laboratory for experimenting with blockchain applications. As the figure below shows, five components are needed to execute an organization's digital transformation: 1. In the past five years, theres been a leveling across applications and data. . Industry experts were also drafted in to create the army that was required for this technology mission. Convera. An undisputed leader in the global payments space, Western Union is driving a company-wide technology transformation, underpinned by migrating its infrastructure from on-prem to the cloud. Western Union also opened franchise stores, which offer money transfer services as well as onsite currency exchanges. Thats the high performancewe rely on with OutSystems., Low-Code for Digital Financial Services Delivery. Leading fintech, Mambu, provides the platform and engine that drives the core of Western Union's new digital bank. As such, when Western Union embarked on its technology transformation, it was keen to recruit personnel who could help achieve its vision. Policy . [11]See generally Rebecca M. Henderson & Kim B. Clark, Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and the Failure of Established Firms, Administrative Science Quarterly Vol. When people send money to friends or family across the country or around the world, chances are good that Western Union is involved. Meanwhile, new fintech players like Transferwise are able to offer cash transfer services for a fraction of the price since their operations are 100% online. Most popular: Free $20 Amazon.com e-gift code for every friend you refer (earn up to $500). Western Union (WU) is a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments. Western Union is doing that. today more than 65% of Western Union's digital transactions originate on a mobile . During its February 2018 earnings call, CEO Hikmet Ersek announced that Western Union is experimenting with Ripple for settling transactions and for capital optimization, and is also testing Ripples native currency (XRP).[10]. When people from different departments do these floor walks together, theyre realizing that they actually have a lot more in common with each other or notice areas where they can collaborate that they didnt realize before. Before OutSystems, we typically released every six weeks. Team members were drawn from different continents and operating on different time zones. Others prefer to prepare a transaction online and then go to a retail location to pay cash. For decades, Western Union benefited from network effects as it added density and new geographies. Our digital-first crisis response is helping us evolve into the future. Thats not to say cloud is always cheap, it can be expensive but we have a very stringent Review Board to keep our costs in check, so cost reduction is something about which we are confident.. - Access cash back rewards at the WU store. A large proportion of Western Unions infrastructure has been migrated to the cloud, and Singh reveals a timeline to complete the programme of work. Western Union's cross-functional tech teams pushed out expanded digital options and real-time visibility on the status of its retail locations worldwide. And being with the people that are actually doing the work really helps the management get a better sense of where they can use their leadership and influence to make that process easier for the employee and better for the customer. Inclusion, Bloomberg In this video, Shelly Swanback, president of product and platform at Western Union, discusses the three key . Sector, Travel and To explore this content and receive communications from Google, please sign in with an existing Google account. The company, which has been in the money-transfer business since 1871, launched online transfers via WU.com in 2000 and got into mobile money transfers in 2007. The partnership with Talend has evolved over the last few years and was originally established to provide our business and technology teams a fast and efficient way to build data pipelines. Some want to go to a retail store and pay cash. WU's platform provides seamless cross-border flows, and its leading global financial network bridges more than 200 countries and territories and over 130 currencies. Maybe it started out as more of a push, where we were looking to come in and work with a team. For more details about how Western Union went from 34 on-prem data warehouses to pursuing a multi-cloud strategy based on Snowflake, read our case study. The Western Union Foundation is actively supporting NGOs that help refugees and migrants around the globe through education and financial literacy. Increasingly, digital technology and mobile devices play a key role in these transactions. For example, helping African countries develop official land registers could eliminate a huge barrier to investment and capital inflows (e.g., by resolving uncertain and disputed land titles). Secure, touchless, digital money transfers were a safe, reliable way for people to send funds where they needed to, so we leaned in there. While WU is considered a global leader in their space, competitive insights and . At its core is a migration from on-prem to a cloud-based infrastructure, which it believes is key to allowing the organisation to scale and evolve into a company with the clout of an established financial institution combined with the agility and flexibility of a modern FinTech. In the past several years, the Englewood, Colo.-based company has made a point to develop and [] Fellahi sees the Messenger bot as a promising tool. Digital transformation in Western Union must be driven from the top-down. Having got the right people in place, Singh and his team set about building a partner network to supercharge Western Unions technology evolution. One of these customers is Tom Mazzaferro, Chief Data & Innovation Officer of Western Union, which serves more than 100 million global customers through approximately 600,000 retail locations, and via its digital platforms. Rapid growth in technology was making it easy for international money transfers to take place online, Fellahi recalls. Our App has grown to become one of the industrys most widely used international money transfer apps and a Top 20 finance app in the App Store., Not at all. They have also triggered profound changes within global banking, demanding that lenders remain flexible, nimble, and innovative in their digital-banking strategies to meet customers' rapidly . Thank you for this great post, Hans. Western Union. 2021. Our leadership team remains true to our vision and values, putting customers' evolving needs at the center of our innovation and holding up trust and convenience as the hallmarks of our business. Solutions enabled - Oracle Revenue Management and Billing, Oracle Business Intelligence, Infosys Transaction Reconciliation System, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Solution and Services, Infosys Oracle Services, part of Infosys Cobalt. Western Union has recently partnered with other digital platforms to expand its digital offerings. Snowflake: What do you see changing now that your organization is better able to share data? To ensure those approaches were safe and secure, we partnered with governmental organizations to find new and secure ways to verify customers. And, Fellahi points out, When you look at customer acquisition on our digital channel, 80 percent of the customers we acquired in the past 12 months are new to usnot migrated from our traditional customer base., He expects digital money transfer and mobile technology to be the major driver of overall growth in coming years, adding, In the U.S., over 65 percent of WU.com transactions are initiated on a mobile device, and globally it is nearly 60 percent.. As an iconic brand for over 150 years, Western Union is constantly striving to innovate for their customers. One moment later, in Shimla, a hill country city in India, close to the ridge of the Himalayan foothills, a cashier at the . With the blockchain environment, there may be value in the technology as it becomes more mature and efficient. Salesforce has been such an important part of the digital experience journey.. One of the benefits that weve really seen as weve gone through these first two years of our journey is what happens when we get everyone speaking the same language. McKinsey's Kausik Rajgopal and Lang Davison recently sat down with Western Union's CEO to talk about its multicultural customer base (and . Teams that may not previously have interacted with each other are now doing floor walks with each other. We see ourselves as becoming a FinTech that can move quickly while being sure that our infrastructure and processes allow us to work at scale. The paper analyzes the issues of digital transformation in the European Union in such key dimensions as financing digitalization and implementing public policy to bridge the digital divide in the EU member countries. Union Pacific, the railroad company that transports chemicals, coal, food, minerals and automobiles in and around 23 Western U.S. states, has had two workhorses that toiled tirelessly for the past . Data quality is so important to us, we need to know who we are marketing to and that means our data has to be of the highest quality.. For decades, Western Union has defended its global position by investing in regulatory compliance. Tom Mazzaferro, Chief Data Officer at Western Union together with Nick Halsey, CEO at Okera talk about the technology that Western Union has adopted to help build new products and Western Union, Chief Data Officer: Digital Transformation Initiatives (Part 3) | Cloud | cdomagazine.tech The pandemic really accelerated the digital transformation journey; the plan was for it to be rolled out in three years but that timeframe became 18 months.