western union digital transformation

& Distribution, Media and It requires a change in process and culture, the adoption of a common lingo, executive buy-in, and a center . document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Want to learn more about technology and organizations? 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. How would this improve our agility, the need to deliver great digital experiences at scale, and the desire to use low-code across the whole stackfront-end, integration, and back-end core systems., Western Union became an OutSystems customer in November 2020. Increasingly, digital technology and mobile devices play a key role in these transactions. They tend to be younger, they live online and they prefer to do everything there, at the touch of a button, Fellahi observes. Provide value consistently every month and deliver new value and capabilities. The company considers local preferences, as well, accepting about 10 payment methods, such as Apple Pay in the U.S. 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 2011, Western Union opened an office in San Francisco to ramp up its digital operation. Gartner Magic Quadrant for Low-Code Application Platforms, 2023. Snowflake enables us to centralize our data and enable application and business processes to leverage it across the organization. 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. These initiatives will likely change Western Unions operating model, therefore they must be fully supported by CEO Hikmet Ersek and should occupy most of his time. Specifically, how Data, Editors note: This is part of a series of blogs about the data economy. Western Union International Bank GmbH is regulated by the Financial Markets Authority in Austria, [i] Agent location count valid as of 31 December 2017. 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. 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.. With OutSystems, we deploy twice every week. 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.. Part of this agility drive involved Western Union migrating its legacy on-prem IT infrastructure to the Cloud. The transformation of a legacy company whose roots lie in the era of the telegraph involves more than just lean deployments and agile methodologies. On May 17, 2018, at the Digital Assembly in Sofia, Bulgaria, the European Commission launched the Digital Agenda for the Western Balkans. We started function by function, looking at individual deployments across our different groups in the company. The Western Union Way of digital transformation. 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. Business Application Services, Service Experience Top-down prioritization of digital transformation. In [] Leaders across many industries and companies of all sizes report that one of their biggest challenges is siloed data. Leadership. Deep divides in digital connectivity, internet use, and access remain. 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. Hospitality, Waste To accelerate application development, improve agility, and provide great digital experiences, the company chose OutSystems as its high-performance low-code platform. 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 . Rica, Hong Mohua is a marketing leader with over 15 years of experience in building and leading brands across industries. This is just one example of how blockchain could be an opportunity for Western Union. 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. 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. 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. 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. One of its most high-profile hires was Harveer Singh, who was appointed as Chief Data Architect & Global Head of Engineering and previously co-led EYs Next Generation architecture & solutions for Financial Services. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Digital transformation starts with people, which is a useful reminder that . Open a free Western Union Digital Banking bank account to manage your international finances and make instant, transfer fee-free* money transfers to other Western Union Digital Banking account holders. Snowflake worked with Longitude to assess what it takes to lead in the data economy. Jaffin: Its important for us to continue trying new technology that gets us closer to customers and their changing needs, like advanced analytics and other tools. These strategies are paying off. 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. Its time to align your banks digital transformation strategy with the entire customer lifecycle by providing a personalized omnichannel experience. [5] 2017 Annual ReportCEO Letter (noting Western Union has expanded its fund payout network to billions of bank accounts). Seven months after Goldfinch Partners and The Baupost Group announced they were purchasing Western . Western Union's digital banking platform is a complex ecosystem of partnerships from across the technology and fintech landscape. Mazzaferro: Snowflake is enabling quite a bit around analytics, reporting, event triggers, and settlement across our card providers. 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. For example, we began offering an option for telephone money transfer. As an iconic brand for over 150 years, Western Union is constantly striving to innovate for their customers. Today, WU.com is available in 40 countries, with mobile apps in 18 of them. Knowledge Institute, Chemical The OutSystems platforms capabilities were immediately put to the test through 2021, as Western Union and its system integrator started development of its new digital banking app that includes a multicurrency bank account combined with money transfers, and other added benefits such as a Visa Platinum debit card. In this video, Shelly Swanback, president of product and platform at Western Union, discusses the three key . Wingspan, Infosys Nov 2011 - Present11 years 5 months. 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. First, Western Unions third party agents may try to thwart any concerted moves to digital platforms, seeing such a move as a threat to existing commission revenues. Its an ecosystem of complementary platforms that enable a seamless, single customer experience I think thats such a powerful proposition.. 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]. We do that both in-line, so you as a manager go and visit your own organization, but also visit other functions. Western Union began a mission to transform the settlement platform with streamlined retail and digital cross-border money transfer operations to overcome the challenges and constraints of their legacy settlement systems. What we are talking about is not cryptocurrency, it is not something that has to be mined. 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. Second, Western Unions employees may not have the knowledge or training to effectively lead Western Unions digital transformation, and may resist digital initiatives or operational changes. Western Union has the infrastructure to help make that a reality. 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. [12]These kind of digital initiatives are good pursuits for current operational leaders, since they represent incremental or modular innovations to Western Unions existing product offerings. 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. A lot of our big data environment is still on-prem and the mission is to move that completely to the cloud by the end of the year. Second, we increased our use of digital media to reach customers and build a feedback loop. 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. 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 . That allowed us to go from ten people to about 50 change agents in the first wave, which will be able to support 2,500 employees and 4,000 vendor full-time employees within two years. While the pace of change has been considerable, the leadership team at Western Union has been focused on implementing a large-scale technology transformation. Group, Infosys Revenue Management Platform for Banking, About 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. Here is Swamy Sivasubramaniyan, Head of Financial Services and Settlement Platform for Western Union, discussing the digital transformation experience with Infosys and Oracle. ", Tom adds, In fast-moving customer-facing scenarios, development is never build-once-and-doneyoure always iterating to refine the customer experience. Western Union (WU) is a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments. People. Its in our DNA to think about global operations because Western Union covers the world.. 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. | Learn more about Rokas kudas's work experience, education, connections & more by visiting their profile on . Build customized, secure, and scalable mobile banking apps. The international roll-out continues to other countries at pace. That helps us refocus on the particular market-shaper practices that we need to double down on in order to continue improving during our transformation journey. today more than 65% of Western Union's digital transactions originate on a mobile . Top retailers use AI-powered campaigns to engage their most valuable customers. Learn about JSON storage. The aim of this paper is to sketch a brief history of complex digital transformation of media and . Services, Data Transformation, Cyber The company wanted to improve the digital experiences offered to customers and build new digital bankingproducts to extend its relationship with customers. Western Union can leverage such physical presence to win this new innovative space. Contributed to establishing Quality Assurance, Training and Documentation strategy and processes for AML Operations functions. Start Time: 16:30 January 1, 0000 5:32 PM ETThe Western Union Company (NYSE:NYSE:WU)Q3 2022 Earnings Conference CallNovember 01, 2022, 16:30 PM ETCompany ParticipantsDevin McGranahan -. Sub-Saharan Africa 3G and 4G mobile broadband coverage stands at 86% and 57% of the population, respectively. 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. 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. The primary reason we decided to go through with this transformation is that we saw an opportunity to positively impact revenue through our daily operations and behaviors. Snowflake: What are a few highlights of how Snowflake is helping with digital transformation? Singh was given autonomy to mould his teams, combining the skills already at Western Union with external talent, many of which were from a consulting background, resulting in a diverse and varied team, which he says proved invaluable. So well go from maybe four pilot teams to a plan to scale out across 400 people and maybe 30 teams next year. NICE have announced Western Union, a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement, has advanced customer experience through improved . Thank you for this great post, Hans. 12. How did you navigate those early moments? W ith the outbreak of a crippling global pandemic and a pronounced global economic slowdown, the last few years have been rather tumultuous for the world. 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. His career span includes working with organizations like FIS, Western Union, HCL Technologies, CGI, Mahindra Satyam and iGate Global Solutions. Cortex, Infosys Does it offer a more seamless customer experience? Media, Madison Square . Western Union is the worlds first P2P company. Download the Western Union (WU) money transfer app and quickly start sending cash to Mexico and worldwide, 24/7! Singh describes the team he assembled as being super-powerful, and says he often refers to it as his three-in-box strategy, owing to the various areas for which he recruited. 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. Deloitte announces multi-year collaboration with AWS to co-innovate and engineer solutions that help institutions expedite the launch of digital banking services and modernize their legacy core banking stacks. 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. Introducing the next-generation operating model, Winning with your talent-management strategy. Western Union must adapt to an increasingly mobile world: if Western Union doesnt develop low-cost mobile money transfers, Western Union wont be able to compete with new competitors like Ant Financial and Zelle. 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. Harare Responsible for . Digital Transformation. However, Western Union doesnt view its established retail business as totally separate from the digital world. - Earn My WU points. This will enable the company to maintain its high . 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. What does "digital transformation" mean to Western Union? In Austria our employees have put in place numerous initiatives such as German courses and mentoring programs, and we celebrated in March the first anniversary of SEED, a project supported by the Western Union Foundation in collaboration with the Austrian Ministry of Education and Teach for Austria Alumni Association. 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. An advantage of Western Unions omnichannel approach is that it includes all customers, whether they are integrated or not in the financial system: the banked, the underbanked, and the unbanked. [2] Westar 1, Wikipedia, accessed April 2018. Today, our omnichannel platform places Western Union in a unique position where our physical network and our digital efforts combine to provide customers with a host of options to transfer money, whether in cash, card into billions of bank accounts, online, using our App or one of our 17 mobile wallet partners. [11] Western Unions footprint of retail locations gives it a worldwide laboratory for experimenting with blockchain applications. Continue to partner with popular digital platforms to provide legacy C2C money transfer services. Talends technology was used to bring various sources of data from different locations into a single place in rapid fashion, helping make decisions such as waiving fees for those sending funds to people caught up in the explosion. In the past several years, the Englewood, Colo.-based company has made a point to develop and [] Most popular: Free $20 Amazon.com e-gift code for every friend you refer (earn up to $500). . Sources for images:Western Union vs. Bitcoin, Bitland,MyWU,Ripple Union. Chief Data and Innovation Officer, Western Union, Enterprise-grade scalability and security, Cloud-based IT architecture based on microservices. Discover the latest software purchases and digital transformation initiatives being undertaken by Western Union and its business and technology executives. 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. Key takeaways. Guide for Suppliers, Select As mobile payments and blockchain tech challenge the status quo of cross-border money transfers, Western Union must digitally transform itself at the right pace or risk going the way of the telegraph. Reflecting on the transformation to-date, Singh is clear that it hasnt come without its challenges. It works with Talend to streamline data movement in compliance with GDPR across financial, reconciliation, auditing and trading partners. Recently I talked to him about the companys rapid pivot to digital this past year, his biggest learnings, and what the future holds. Its important to understand that business stakeholders are customers of our data. Western Union's platform provides seamless cross-border flows and its leading global financial network bridges more than 200 countries and territories and over 130 currencies . Western Union is one of the largest digital money firms, uniquely positioned to connect the cash and digital worlds across platforms, devices, borders, and currencies. The role of CDO needs to encompass more than data management and data governance, more than even enabling the pipeline and managing the environments. There was a need to accelerate the process we wanted to undertake, I have that experience of transformation projects happening on a massive scale. 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. This does have privacy implications and hence needs to be vetted out with regulatory authorities around the world. Arab Emirates. Experts at TCS and Western Union share the trends that are affecting digital transformation in financial services. The fusion of the digital and the physical, the irrepressible rise of new technologies. What are the biggest lessons you learned? We continue to experiment with the technology and time will tell if it offers a better alternative to traditional rails.. Prior to implementing Snowflake in 2021, Western Unions data spanned 34 on-premises data warehouses, resulting in latency and operational burdens. How Your Small Business Can Be Managed With The Right Databases, Why Businesses Must Focus on Introducing Technology in the Workplace. First, for continuity of services. 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. We recently delivered a similar requirement to a higher standard using one OutSystems developer in just 15 days. Western Union uses a central team to build new capabilities across the business. Western Union is also focused on the global remittance market. Mazzaferro: In the past, the thinking in the industry has often been that applications are king, and that data flows through the applications. January 25, 2019 | Video. Business Unit Represents Approximately 7% of Company Revenue . Western Union is doing that. 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. 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 EU is helping to boost Europe's digital capacities and create new opportunities for businesses and consumers while safeguarding basic rights. By John Manning, International Banker. 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. 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 is to shed its Business Solutions unit, with investment firms Goldfinch and Baupost set to acquire the business for $910 million in cash. Western Union's cross-functional tech teams pushed out expanded digital options and real-time visibility on the status of its retail locations worldwide. Western Union launched its digital banking app in Germany and Romania in Spring 2022, following 11 months of iterative development.

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