People are enthusiastic about the results of the pilot, and they want to see that in their own area. 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. What does "digital transformation" mean to Western Union? be to drive digital transformation and . 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. My mission is to empower people to become economically self-reliant. Western Union is a partner of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and is a leading voice in the conversation of how to build a global payments ecosystem, which is stable and where remittances can be made much faster. few clicks, you can use OutSystems to bring your visions to life. Guide for Suppliers, Select Western Union is doing that. Security, Infosys How Western Union achieved Digital Transformation with Infosys and Oracle The service, which is set to launch in Madagascar, will see funds from around the world move through payment rails operated by MFS Africa, the continent's largest payment gateway.. MFS Africa's digital payments network connects more than 400 million mobile money wallets, more than 200 million bank accounts across Africa, and more than 200,000 agents in Nigeria, to enable cross-platform and . Mazzaferro: Snowflake is enabling quite a bit around analytics, reporting, event triggers, and settlement across our card providers. Western Union also is uniquely positioned to explore blockchain applications in emerging markets by leveraging Western Unions retail footprint, regulatory compliance learning, and global brand. Zealand, South Were there tools or technology that were particularly helpful in your transformation? Reframe blockchain from a threat to an opportunity, by creating a new autonomous unit. Need a Lenten fish fry? There's an interactive map for that Recipients can choose to pick up the sent money at a Western Union location, or send the money to a digital wallet or bank account. Western Union also opened franchise stores, which offer money transfer services as well as onsite currency exchanges. He praises the vendor support and namechecks first AWS for enabling the organisation to quicken the pace of its procurement process and spin up workloads to the cloud faster than had originally been anticipated. As a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments, Western Union has to comply with a huge number of financial regulations. The term is widely used in public-sector organizations to refer to modest initiatives such as putting services online or legacy modernization. Mohua Das Gupta - Head of Marketing, Tata CliQ. We're making content recommendations better for thousands of readers. UnionDigital Bank is the trusted bridge between innovation and regulation. Western Union. Korea, United 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. [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. [9]Western Union recently dipped its toes into blockchain. And that could be at an operation site or it could be more of a frontline thing like a sales executive. The Western Union Foundation is actively supporting NGOs that help refugees and migrants around the globe through education and financial literacy. Western Union (WU) is a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments. Theyll be there to help you stay on track or course correct when you have troubles. Western Union International Banks CEO Peter Bucher firmly believes you can drive successful, innovative business while creating a better world for the community you live in. So, constant iteration and rapid delivery are crucial. Now its more pull. How did you navigate those early moments? Services, High That support has made it a lot easier to have the influence we need to make the transformation successful. We offer consumers the choices they want, both for sending and receiving money, he stresses. 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 . Infosys accelerated Western Union's digital transformation by harmonizing agent operations, implementing billing and collection standards, enabling modular growth, accelerating new product launches, enabling digital on-demand procedures, designing global accounting solutions based on one single template, supporting highly complex pricing and multiple business models, and massive management processes as a strategic technology partner. It requires a change in process and culture, the adoption of a common lingo, executive buy-in, and a center . This does have privacy implications and hence needs to be vetted out with regulatory authorities around the world. Western Union built its platform by assembling a global network of third party agents. Learn what is a data platform, which encompass a range of elements required to support the data management cycle. In just 11 months, we delivered a full-service digital banking experience that expands our relationship with customers.. Digital transformation of journalism and media in Serbia: What has gone As we get the pilots completed, the idea is to turn the WU Way team into more of a center of excellence. Financing Digital Transformation and Bridging Digital Divide: The Case Accelerating Digital Transformation in Western and Central Africa And when that happens, they start to see further opportunities for continuous improvement, leading them to new ideas about things they can do to improve efficiency or effectiveness. [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. For decades, Western Union has defended its global position by investing in regulatory compliance. Goldfinch Partners is a private equity firm investing in businesses specialising in digital transformation. Engaged in problem resolution of complex . We do that both in-line, so you as a manager go and visit your own organization, but also visit other functions. As the centerpiece of Western Unions omnichannel vision, the Western Union App is increasingly the primary touchpoint for customers: today more than 65% of Western Unions digital transactions originate on a mobile device globally. 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 Funds can be picked up in cash at half a million Western Union agent locations worldwide or transferred electronically to the recipients bank account or to a debit card linked to a digital wallet. . As weve done that, everyone has started to speak the same language, whether its talking about going to huddles, doing process confirmations, conducting one-on-one coaching, or maybe doing floor walks. 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. Western Union's stock price continued to climb the week of April 12 reaching $25.89, compared to a low of $21.66 in January. Manufacturing, Communication [12]Josh Constine, Western Union Brings Money Transfer and Its Tricky Fees to Chat Apps, TechCrunch.com, Feb. 4, 2016. For decades, Western Union benefited from network effects as it added density and new geographies. Snowflake worked with Longitude to assess what it takes to lead in the data economy. Board of Directors. Jaffin: Our company mission is to enable financial transfers between people anywhere and everywhere; we had a responsibility to continue to deliver on that. Salesforce has been such an important part of the digital experience journey.. Most of the customers for remittance service (e.g. Because if you dont have the right data, your applications will struggle to provide the right business outcomes and customer experiences. Transformation, Cyber Download the Western Union (WU) money transfer app and quickly start sending cash to Mexico and worldwide, 24/7! What Ive tried to do is look at each of the groups and find out who the strong players in each of them are, the leaders that are vocal and very straightforward in conversation. One of our most important tools is the floor walk. Beyond the public health crisis, COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on personal finances, causing poverty levels and inequality to rise globally. Western Union digital integrates UAE Pass - Gulf Business Finance. Its reach is staggering: present in more than 200 countries and territories, transacting in 130+ currencies, with approximately 150 million people having used Western Union to either send or receive funds over the last year. Digital transformation in Western Union must be driven from the top-down. But its really all about allowing the manager to observe the way their employee works, whats easy about that job and whats hard about that job. That system is fine in a cash based economy, but is becoming increasingly cumbersome as digital payments take hold in emerging markets. 9-30 (describing four types of innovations incremental, modular, architectural and radical classified by their impact on a business core components and the relationships between those core components). Updated on. today more than 65% of Western Union's digital transactions originate on a mobile . Top-down prioritization of digital transformation. Today, structured and semi-structured data can easily coincide. Although retail business declined during . We embrace the white canvas and first principles design, breaking away from legacy systems to create smart . When people send money to friends or family across the country or around the world, chances are good that Western Union is involved. My Career Summary Anil Santhapuri is a values-based and results-oriented Talent professional, with 20 years of professional experience in the areas of talent management, learning & leadership development. 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 . How did you evolve for digital convenience and safety? 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 . If CDIOs dont have the right culture on their teams, how can they help drive a data-first culture throughout their organization? Business Unit Represents Approximately 7% of Company Revenue . Over the last two years, Singh has been accelerating Western Union's tech plan. Microservices, Digital Process While the pace of change has been considerable, the leadership team at Western Union has been focused on implementing a large-scale technology transformation. A hugely significant piece of the transformation has come from rethinking how Western Union communicates with its vast customer base. 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. In 2017, Western Union invested $200 million and 20% of its workforce on compliance functions. Theyve complemented each other really well and been able to almost mentor each other, as well as building great relationships with the product groups. 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, Singh tells Digital Bulletin. The transition from legacy systems to Oracle Solutions was critical to the strategy's success. By using our services, you agree to our use of cookies. Western Union's investment in India is part of a broader fintech and innovation strategy that is driving the company's digital transformation. Receive rewards. . Finally, shareholders may punish Western Union for moving away from its higher margin core business to focus instead on simpler, lower-cost digital money transfers. The central transformation team helps do the capability building in training those resources up, and then they run their own scaled-out deployment. The center of excellence keeps things on track and makes sure we follow a framework and are tracking the results, so that we can measure the impact of the transformation across the whole organization. Our technology platform is founded on a Hadoop big data technology cluster that is used for conversion analysis, risk statistical modeling, payments and risk data processing, Fellahi explains. Technology, Industrial We caught up with Mazzaferro to dive deeper into how the Data Cloud enables ongoing digital . document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Want to learn more about technology and organizations? 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. 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. 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 . Leaders across many industries and companies of all sizes report that one of their biggest challenges is siloed data. This is just one example of how blockchain could be an opportunity for Western Union. These agents typically manage retail stores across the world, and offer Western Union money transfer services in exchange for a commission. Now that these pilots are winding down, its been easy to get the support across the organization to find the resources necessary to establish teams that can scale it out in different areas across the company. According to the terms of the transaction . Stephanie Pankau - Product Director, United States Money Transfer Leadership Team. Western Union Embraces Digital Transformation - BaselineMag.com Western Union Advances Its Digital Growth Strategy With - Wire19 The resulting report, How to Win in the Data Economy, includes anecdotes from dozens of customers, analysts, and influencers about how to succeed, all in addition to the survey itself, based on feedback from 1,000 senior business, technology, and data managers across five industries and from all over the world. Imagine what we can do if you let us work with your team as well.. [2]But today, new technologies are threatening Western Unions entire business model. Almost immediately, it was clear that with retail stores temporarily closed, digital would need to play a larger role in delivering service to customers. 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. Digital transformation starts with people, which is a useful reminder that . But new innovators are highlighting a problem for Western Union: multi-homing is high with money transfers. Western Union's digital banking platform is a complex ecosystem of partnerships from across the technology and fintech landscape. Board Committees. DENVER-(BUSINESS WIRE)-The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU), a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments, today announced that the Company has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a minority stake in fast growing Saudi Digital Payments Company, or stc pay, a fully owned subsidiary of Saudi Telecom Company. Consumers are less aware that we have transformed ourselves into one of the largest digital money transfer firms in the world, with our digital activity generating well over $400 million revenues in 2017. 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. Garden, The Economist He shares his views on digital transformation and economic opportunities for all. Us, Terms Western Uniona global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and paymentsis driving a company-wide transformation, which includes migrating its infrastructure from on-prem to the Cloud. Prior to implementing Snowflake in 2021, Western Unions data spanned 34 on-premises data warehouses, resulting in latency and operational burdens. Many CEOs are lured into spending too much time on legacy businesses, which don't need CEO oversight. Best practices were also key. A doctor in London taps an app on her phone to transfer 500 pounds. 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. When we started the transformation project, we came at it from the perspective of this being a cultural transformation just as much as a process transformation. So we had to figure out how to continue to show up for customers while also ensuring everyones health and safely. 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. It's a physical branding and marketing component that few money-transfer providers can match but one that's of diminishing value in a digital world. New-found agility delivers growth and improved Customer Experience for partners and customers. However, Western Union would be wise to form a new, separate unit for exploring blockchain services. Discover the latest software purchases and digital transformation initiatives being undertaken by Western Union and its business and technology executives. 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. Achieving that is going to give Western Union agility, stability and resilience and allow us to focus on product development, because we know that our technology is going to sit in the cloud and take up a lot less of our time. These are seismic factors currently redefining our world, earning their own epochal moniker: The Fourth Industrial Revolution. Every year or two we rescore ourselves in a company-wide exercise to see where were making progress and where were falling behind. Wingspan, Infosys In 2016, Western Union completed 268 million consumer-to-consumer transactions and 523 million business payments world-wide, moving more than $150 billion of principal for consumers and businesses. Data safety. Finacle, Infosys 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. The international roll-out continues to other countries at pace. What is the Best High-Yield Dividend Stock to Buy Now? Our 7 Top Picks Western Union is a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments. One trend that has emerged as a result is the growing role of digital money transfers among people who may not otherwise use those services. First, for continuity of services. Its not done from the perspective of correction or a negative consequence. Mazzaferro: In the past, the thinking in the industry has often been that applications are king, and that data flows through the applications. Digital is all about how we reach the customer. "As a digital enabler and a pioneer in the digital transformation, we aspire to play a vital role in the vision of the Saudi . Packaged Goods, Engineering ; Offering combines Deloitte's ConvergePROSPERITY BankingSuite solution and multiple AWS services. Experience in leading digital products from either the financial services, payment, or fintech industries. . With the blockchain environment, there may be value in the technology as it becomes more mature and efficient. Consumers can 'Send Now, Pay Later' by borrowing up to AUD 2000 through Beforepay's wage-advance product on Western Union's digital channels. With OutSystems, we deploy twice every week. Talends technology has been used similarly in response to people impacted by floods in Haiti and to Indian citizens at the height of the countrys COVID-19 crisis. Digital transformation in Western Union must be driven from the top-down.