Continue to partner with popular digital platforms to provide legacy C2C money transfer services. Similarly, Western Union's ethos is based on empowering the aspiring populations of the world with accessible financial tools to improve the lives of their loved ones and communities. These strategies are paying off. ene. Western Union has recently partnered with other digital platforms to expand its digital offerings. 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. People are enthusiastic about the results of the pilot, and they want to see that in their own area. There were definitely times I was looking at costs and thinking how I was going to explain to finance, or my CFO, he says. [7]While cryptocurrencies are an obvious threat to Western Unions cross-border money transfers, Blockchain also can be used in a range of imaginative ways. How Western Union Became a Global Digital Front-Runner for Cross-Border Payments Money By Jay Jaffin, Head of Global Digital, Western Union May 24, 2021. Jaffin: Evolution meant expanding the ways in which customers experience the brand digitally. When people send money to friends or family across the country or around the world, chances are good that Western Union is involved. Each quarter our research team identifies on-prem and cloud applications that are being used by the 11000 Western Union employees from the public (Press Releases, Customer References . Having found great success with its Marketing Cloud, Singh outlines his longer-term vision to connect a number of Western Unions central products. Markets are perpetually shifting and change is unavoidable, but to keep up with those shifting tides companies need to stay focused on digital transformation. 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. A large proportion of Western Unions infrastructure has been migrated to the cloud, and Singh reveals a timeline to complete the programme of work. [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. Western Union is a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments. The new generation of customers, especially Millennials, want to find us in the ecosystem of messaging apps.. Consumers can 'Send Now, Pay Later' by borrowing up to AUD 2000 through Beforepay's wage-advance product on Western Union's digital channels. 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. Learn what is a data platform, which encompass a range of elements required to support the data management cycle. Swanback said a . Digital transformation in Western Union must be driven from the top-down. 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. Banco Santander Consumer Portugal Adopts OutSystems as its Digital Transformation Platform. In this video, Shelly Swanback, president of product and platform at Western Union, discusses the three key . The aim of this paper is to sketch a brief history of complex digital transformation of media and . Youre starting to see that happen culturally. I want to see those same results in my organization. I think thats an indication of how well its really working across the company. One moment later, in Shimla, a hill country city in India, close to the ridge of the Himalayan foothills, a cashier at the . The organisation was looking for somebody with a fresh perspective who could challenge the norms, bring people together to show them the value of what were doing and basically create an environment thats a little bit different to your usual corporate set-up. 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. New-found agility delivers growth and improved Customer Experience for partners and customers. Think of Western Union, and its yellow placard advertising an agent location comes to mind. Since 2008, Huawei has offered a wide and expanding range of . The partnership will enable funds to be sent from countries around the world to mobile wallets across Africa through the organization's licensed payment rails. Watch this tech inequality series featuring scholars, practitioners, & activists, Sign up for the Digital Initiative Newsletter. Digital transformation in the EU. Something that is ripe for discussion among many of these discussion groups is the idea of a digital dollar, which could be made transferable all around the world with vendors and partners.. 2021. s full anLearn more about the data lake, a repository for structured, unstructured, and semi-structured data that provided direct access to raw organizational data. The Western Union Way of digital transformation. Imagine what we can do if you let us work with your team as well.. So youre really talking about game-changing differences between how processes worked before and after. UnionDigital Bank is the trusted bridge between innovation and regulation. After exceeding expectations in 2020 despite the outbreak of COVID-19, the world's largest currency exchange service Western Union looks set to exceed US$1 billion in total annual revenues for its digital business segment in 2021 a major milestone for the company and a first in the world of digital cross-border payments.. Western Union's shift toward digital shows little sign of relenting. Prior to implementing Snowflake in 2021, Western Unions data spanned 34 on-premises data warehouses, resulting in latency and operational burdens. Team members were drawn from different continents and operating on different time zones. In [] We serve all customer segments: from digital natives who are never without their smartphones to the 4 billion people on earth the World Bank estimates arent online yet., Western Union is strongly committed to migrants and to refugees: migration is at the heart of our business. Leadership. Industry experts were also drafted in to create the army that was required for this technology mission. We caught up with Mazzaferro to dive deeper into how the Data Cloud enables ongoing digital transformation at Western Union: Snowflake: Tom, as CDIO you lead the charge on keeping Western Union at the forefront of data economy leadership. 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 . Three things were front-of-mind as we evaluated OutSystems, explains Tom Mazzaferro, Chief Data and Innovation Officer at Western Union. We have a lot of great ideas in terms of investments to drive that topline revenue growth, but we needed ways to fund those. Increasingly, digital technology and mobile devices play a key role in these transactions. Today, WU.com is available in 40 countries, with mobile apps in 18 of them. Most popular: Free $20 Amazon.com e-gift code for every friend you refer (earn up to $500). As the transformation gets embedded into the organization, the businesses start to run their own agile deployments. My role was to bring all of these different teams together and instil a culture that recognised it wasnt just about how fast we were going, but also about the quality of the product were delivering.. Western Union International Bank's CEO Peter Bucher firmly believes you can drive successful, innovative business while creating a better world for the community you live in. Garden, The Economist Digital is all about how we reach the customer. Our goal was to build a new Cloud-based IT architecture based on microservicesthat would allow us to integratemany different systems quicklyboth internal and external vendors, explains Tom. Society Updated: 01-06-2022 - 11:45. Were talking 30 percent, 40 percent, and, in some cases, deployments with a 70 percent return on capacity. 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. [8]David Thomas, Beyond the Hype: What Blockchain could mean for Africa, African Business Magazine, Feb. 26, 2018. 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. As consumer expectations continue to evolve, digital will play an ongoing role in helping financial services brands deliver value to their customers and drive business growth. Many of its 150 million customers worldwide depend on money transfers to pay for food, electricity, medication, and other necessities. Increasingly, digital technology and mobile devices play a key role in these transactions. Entertainment, Professional Jaffin: Our company mission is to enable financial transfers between people anywhere and everywhere; we had a responsibility to continue to deliver on that. In the past, JSON storage and analysis required specific JSON databases. The role of CDO needs to encompass more than data management and data governance, more than even enabling the pipeline and managing the environments. Leading fintech, Mambu, provides the platform and engine that drives the core of Western Union's new digital bank. 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. We're making content recommendations better for thousands of readers. Over the last two years, Singh has been accelerating Western Union's tech plan. Jay Jaffin was just starting his role as Western Unions chief marketing officer when the pandemic arrived. People who knew how a team or a group worked before can come in and see its night-and-day different. 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. We started function by function, looking at individual deployments across our different groups in the company. Sources for images:Western Union vs. Bitcoin, Bitland,MyWU,Ripple Union. Rapid growth in technology was making it easy for international money transfers to take place online, Fellahi recalls. Heres how, Customers want control over their data and wont hesitate to switch brands to get it, Global Insights Briefing: Holiday takeaways for marketers, From solar panels to spa days, see how 2022s top searches set the stage for 2023. Commenting on the advantages of development on OutSystems, Tom says, We estimate that were getting new products to market at least twice as fast as competitors, and were probably using a tenth of the resources they are on front-end development. 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. Chief Data and Innovation Officer, Western Union, Enterprise-grade scalability and security, Cloud-based IT architecture based on microservices. So we had to figure out how to continue to show up for customers while also ensuring everyones health and safely. 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. Complete your profile for personalized recommendations, Managing Director, U.S. Financial Services at Google. NICE have announced Western Union, a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement, has advanced customer experience through improved . In 2017, Western Union invested $200 million and 20% of its workforce on compliance functions. Singh was brought in to help facilitate that leap, drawing on his expertise with business transformations, technology management, data architecture and collaborative working, backed up by various consulting roles at Deloitte, IBM and Accenture. Its an ecosystem of complementary platforms that enable a seamless, single customer experience I think thats such a powerful proposition.. ; With the solution, Western Union launched a state-of-the-art digital . We embrace the white canvas and first principles design, breaking away from legacy systems to create smart . In order to fund the investments, we decided that it was really important to do a transformation exercise, look for ways to gain efficiencies and effectiveness across our processes and procedures, and then use those efficiencies to fund the growth investments. Beyond the public health crisis, COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on personal finances, causing poverty levels and inequality to rise globally. Not just front-end, but back office and our contact center. Engaged in problem resolution of complex . I have successfully directed virtual teams working on Mastercard integrations, Western Union and MoneyGram. We also innovated to make our services more inclusive for customers by creating new ways to send funds digitally and offering real-time digital account payouts. Manufacturing, Information Services 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. 1 (March 1990), pp. 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. Best practices were also key. . <br><br>My Leadership Philosophy<br><br>I am an . 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.. But for all its success, Western Union is undoubtedly a legacy player in a market that has been truly disrupted in recent years, with smaller and more agile outfits making waves in the increasingly digitised payments space. These agents typically manage retail stores across the world, and offer Western Union money transfer services in exchange for a commission. (2013) Comparing Media Systems beyond the Western World. Manufacturing, Communication Lean deployments are a big piece of our overall transformation program. It&#39;s a physical branding and marketing component that few money-transfer providers can match but one that&#39;s of diminishing value in a digital world. As the figure below shows, five components are needed to execute an organization's digital transformation: 1. Reflecting on the transformation to-date, Singh is clear that it hasnt come without its challenges. Youre expected to find ways to optimize your processes and drive value. SEED aims to improve education and employability of students from low socio-economic backgrounds, especially children of refugees, migrants, and local families. We saw that our revenue and customer base didnt reflect the opportunity and size of the market.. [2] Westar 1, Wikipedia, accessed April 2018. Western Union. 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. Build customized, secure, and scalable mobile banking apps. Migrants, who typically are the link between cash economies underserved by financial institutions, and highly bancarized, digital economies, benefit from Western Unions unique ability to combine the physical and the digital. Services, High Strategic partnerships working with platforms like Google is a critical piece of that. In 2017 SEED supported 20 projects, impacting 5,000 children and youth; we hope to support event more in 2018.. In the past several years, the Englewood, Colo.-based company has made a point to develop and [] Its been a great combination. Business Application Services, Service Experience Cookies help us deliver our services. Unless they can feasibly use technology to improve their cost structure, Im super bearish on Western Union. Convera. It has become one of the leaders in Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) technology and the majority of the data moving across our ecosystem is now powered by Talend. Discover the latest data, insights, and inspiration from Think with Google. Mazzaferro: Snowflake is enabling quite a bit around analytics, reporting, event triggers, and settlement across our card providers. Security, Infosys Before OutSystems, we typically released every six weeks. 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. Mohua Das Gupta - Head of Marketing, Tata CliQ. Were there tools or technology that were particularly helpful in your transformation? 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 . 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. [1] The first transcontinental telegraph was sent on October 24, 1861, from the Chief Justice of California to President Abraham Lincoln. ; Offering combines Deloitte's ConvergePROSPERITY BankingSuite solution and multiple AWS services. 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. your next, Infosys To ensure those approaches were safe and secure, we partnered with governmental organizations to find new and secure ways to verify customers. Today customers can commence their journey on our mobile App, pay for their transaction digitally or opt to pay cash from any of our participating Western Union retail locations, use wu.com or go directly to any of the 1,200 agent locations or Western Union-owned locations in Austria[i]. . Originally, the capacity of our on-prem environments wasnt projected to hit capacity until 2022, but we could see that point was going to be reached in 2020, so that meant a real acceleration.. Its time to align your banks digital transformation strategy with the entire customer lifecycle by providing a personalized omnichannel experience. As we get the pilots completed, the idea is to turn the WU Way team into more of a center of excellence. 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]. OutSystems High-Performance Low-Code Platform Powers Western Union Digital Banking Solution 2 min. Hiring experienced developers was already hard, and the skills drought got even worse with the great resignation. The pandemics economic stressors created a situation where more people suddenly needed to send money to family and friends around the world, many of whom rarely use financial services. Here are 4 steps they follow, Why durable solutions are needed to build the future of audiences, A data-privacy team can support your privacy transformation. In Western and Central Africa, only 36% of the population has access to broadband connectivity. 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). Media, Madison Square 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. Western Union International Bank is licensed by the Austrian Financial Market Authority. We continue to experiment with the technology and time will tell if it offers a better alternative to traditional rails.. Western Union is trying to use Blockchain as an incremental or modular innovation, when in fact it could be an architectural orradical innovation (see chart below) introducing entirely new businesses that fit well into Western Unions existing capabilities. . How Western Union achieved Digital Transformation with Infosys and Oracle. The Western Union Way of digital transformation. The company considers local preferences, as well, accepting about 10 payment methods, such as Apple Pay in the U.S. But theyve been hugely supportive and as weve hit milestones, such as moving significant infrastructure completely to the cloud or achieving significant savings with the Marketing Cloud, we have built that business case. . [11] Western Unions footprint of retail locations gives it a worldwide laboratory for experimenting with blockchain applications. Patrick Gauthier, CEO of Convera, formerly known as Western Union Business Solutions. Western Union has gained a comprehensive view of the customer while running the Data Cloud on AWS. Western Union reduced data warehousing costs by 50% and has saved millions through streamlined data engineering and administration after moving more than 30 data stores, including on-premises data, into Snowflake. 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. McKinsey's Kausik Rajgopal and Lang Davison recently sat down with Western Union's CEO to talk about its multicultural customer base (and . of Use, Payment 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. Most of the customers for remittance service (e.g. We will expand our Messenger bot to other countries and add other languages, he adds. The way we approached it was to use the central WU Way team for capability building. From the CEO down through his executive team, you see a real commitment to this transformation exercise and a real commitment to finding ways to optimize our processes, to get efficiencies, and to fund those investments that will drive topline revenue growth. 28+ active Western Union coupons, discount codes & coupon codes for June 2021. People. This would help Western Union objectively pursue new blockchain opportunities, even if those opportunities eventually cannibalize or destroy its existing C2C business. This will enable the company to maintain its high . 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. Then think about the products you want to offer and how it can be a data-enabled product, such as being hyper-personalized. With the blockchain environment, there may be value in the technology as it becomes more mature and efficient. "As users turn to our services in bigger numbers and as many new digital players come to the market, we know we have to change," he says. [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 powers your pursuit. Western Union now has more than 550,000 agent locations in more than 200 countries. A hugely significant piece of the transformation has come from rethinking how Western Union communicates with its vast customer base. Western Union could use existing retail outlets as nodes on a land register blockchain, which could bring in new sources of revenue to those retail stores. Sub-Saharan Africa 3G and 4G mobile broadband coverage stands at 86% and 57% of the population, respectively. The Western Union Foundation is a separate charitable corporation that is tax-exempt under 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, contributions to which are tax-deductible for US income tax purposes. Over the last two years, Singh has been accelerating Western Union's tech plan. You have to recognise that youre taking a massive journey as a company because it has always relied on data centres. Part of this agility drive involved Western Union migrating its legacy on-prem IT infrastructure to the Cloud. Specifically, how Data, Editors note: This is part of a series of blogs about the data economy.