western union digital transformation western union digital transformation

January 25, 2019 | Video. Mohua is a marketing leader with over 15 years of experience in building and leading brands across industries. Today, structured and semi-structured data can easily coincide. ; Offering combines Deloitte's ConvergePROSPERITY BankingSuite solution and multiple AWS services. 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. 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 International Bank is licensed by the Austrian Financial Market Authority. Theyve complemented each other really well and been able to almost mentor each other, as well as building great relationships with the product groups. Manufacturing, Information Services Western Union. 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. The relationship with Talend has enabled Western Union to help its global customer base in times of real need. Created: 05-05-2021 - 17:15. Procurement & Construction, Financial Something we could take forward is a digital dollar, which we could make transferable all around the world with our vendors. So, constant iteration and rapid delivery are crucial. 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. Marketing tactics evolved to attract digital customers, who have a different profile from traditional retail customers. In 2017 SEED supported 20 projects, impacting 5,000 children and youth; we hope to support event more in 2018.. Beyond the public health crisis, COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on personal finances, causing poverty levels and inequality to rise globally. Finance. 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. 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. . We have a lot of great ideas in terms of investments to drive that topline revenue growth, but we needed ways to fund those. They essentially sponsor a team and loan the resources that are necessary. 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. Jaffin: Digital was critical in a few ways. Digital Transformation. Seven months after Goldfinch Partners and The Baupost Group announced they were purchasing Western . Western Union has recently partnered with other digital platforms to expand its digital offerings. Having got the right people in place, Singh and his team set about building a partner network to supercharge Western Unions technology evolution. Zealand, South 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. 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. 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. These are things like rewards and recognition, top-down innovation, and consequence management. Though its too early for results, the response from consumers has been positive, he says. Youre now a year into your role as CMO and leading through a prolonged global crisis. Patrick Gauthier, CEO of Convera, formerly known as Western Union Business Solutions. They tend to be younger, they live online and they prefer to do everything there, at the touch of a button, Fellahi observes. Ericsson will help accelerate Econet's digital transformation journey. 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. Hearing from customers helped us focus our messaging on two key ideas: digital convenience and staying safe through contactless funds transfer. Strategic partnerships working with platforms like Google is a critical piece of that. Every year or two we rescore ourselves in a company-wide exercise to see where were making progress and where were falling behind. of Use, Payment Hiring experienced developers was already hard, and the skills drought got even worse with the great resignation. Others see blockchain as an opportunity to help emerging governments become efficient and transparent, for example, by serving as the official land title registration. Transfers can be delivered in cash or into a digital wallet or a bank account via electronic funds transfer. 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. Sydney Mahan, The First Transcontinental Telegram was sent to DC 155 Years Ago, Washingtonian.com, Oct. 25, 2016. Finacle, Infosys Western Union and Beforepay Offer 'Send Now, Pay Later' Service to Consumers for International Money Transfers One moment later, in Shimla, a hill country city in India, close to the ridge of the Himalayan foothills, a cashier at the . For decades, Western Union has defended its global position by investing in regulatory compliance. The gap between access and use is growing, with 56% of people in . One of our most important tools is the floor walk. Reliable for over 170 years. Please enable Javascript to see this feature. Top retailers use AI-powered campaigns to engage their most valuable customers. Denver, Colorado. InsurTech & Crypto projects as the world embraces CX, Business Transformation and Digital . Experience in leading digital products from either the financial services, payment, or fintech industries. How did you navigate those early moments? This is just one example of how blockchain could be an opportunity for Western Union. In the past five years, theres been a leveling across applications and data. However, Western Union would be wise to form a new, separate unit for exploring blockchain services. 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's digital banking platform is a complex ecosystem of partnerships from across the technology and fintech landscape. 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). 2023Western Union Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Society Updated: 01-06-2022 - 11:45. The international roll-out continues to other countries at pace. And if Western Union doesnt embrace and transform along with those technologies, it will fade away just like the telegraph. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press As the transformation gets embedded into the organization, the businesses start to run their own agile deployments. 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. Western Union's digital transformation efforts may fail to drive earnings growth, but they may be enough to keep earnings steady going forward. Its more about having the manager understand how the work actually gets done on the floor. 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. The reason for that is due to the huge increase in demand for our digital services as lockdowns were implemented across many different geographies. Pay for your transfer instantly with a debit or credit card** or start a money transfer and complete the payment in cash at a nearby agent location. 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. ", Tom adds, In fast-moving customer-facing scenarios, development is never build-once-and-doneyoure always iterating to refine the customer experience. Western Union charges high fees since they need to cover rent and labor overhead. The aim of this paper is to sketch a brief history of complex digital transformation of media and . 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. [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. The top challenge for businesses with digital transformation goals in 2023 is determining where their companies should direct spending on technologies, according to a BCG X report. Blockchain is technology that uses an open, distributed ledger to permanently verify and record transactions between two parties. Western Union is renowned for its unparalleled international network, with over 500,000 agent locations spanning 200 countries and territories. [2]But today, new technologies are threatening Western Unions entire business model. Many of its 150 million customers worldwide depend on money transfers to pay for food, electricity, medication, and other necessities. [1] The first transcontinental telegraph was sent on October 24, 1861, from the Chief Justice of California to President Abraham Lincoln. Technology or Operations transformation . 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. The term is widely used in public-sector organizations to refer to modest initiatives such as putting services online or legacy modernization. Digital transformation in Western Union must be driven from the top-down. 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. With a strong base of over 4 million customers and an established regional brand in the fast-growing digital wallet market, Western Union believes that stc pay is poised to experience strong growth in the future. Revenue from Western Union's digital money transfer services spiked from $600 million in 2019 to over $850 million in 2020. 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. Dan Nordlander is senior vice president of Western Union Way Operations at Western Union, and Barr Seitz is senior manager of editorial and digital communications in McKinseys New York office. 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. Board Committees. Western Union operates in the increasingly competitive, rapidly changing payments sector, where new fintech players are changing how the market operates. 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. 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. In 2017, Western Union invested $200 million and 20% of its workforce on compliance functions. 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. And the new business model may require a very different RPP (traditional money transfer process vs. transfer via blockchain). Its not done from the perspective of correction or a negative consequence. 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 Digital is all about how we reach the customer. The central transformation team helps do the capability building in training those resources up, and then they run their own scaled-out deployment. This would help Western Union objectively pursue new blockchain opportunities, even if those opportunities eventually cannibalize or destroy its existing C2C business. Services, Consumer Country/region, Costa The new generation of customers, especially Millennials, want to find us in the ecosystem of messaging apps.. So youre really talking about game-changing differences between how processes worked before and after. We continue to experiment with the technology and time will tell if it offers a better alternative to traditional rails.. In [] We saw that our revenue and customer base didnt reflect the opportunity and size of the market.. [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. The transformation of a legacy company whose roots lie in the era of the telegraph involves more than just lean deployments and agile methodologies. Professors from HEC, ESCP business school, and leading carriers shared insights on . 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. Discover the latest data, insights, and inspiration from Think with Google. 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. 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. Automation, Microsoft Snowflake enables us to centralize our data and enable application and business processes to leverage it across the organization. - Earn My WU points. Many CEOs are lured into spending too much time on legacy businesses, which don't need CEO oversight. As a company, Western Union is in the middle of a transformational moment. Behind those market-shaper practices are the lean tools and behaviors we develop and encourage. 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. Swanback said a . 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 -. His career span includes working with organizations like FIS, Western Union, HCL Technologies, CGI, Mahindra Satyam and iGate Global Solutions. 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. In 2011, Western Union opened an office in San Francisco to ramp up its digital operation. Log in to help. 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. Provide value consistently every month and deliver new value and capabilities. Policy . We believe in the work we do, why we do it, and who we hire to get it done. The EU is helping to boost Europe's digital capacities and create new opportunities for businesses and consumers while safeguarding basic rights. And when you have that, it becomes easier to have a stronger level of influence than you might otherwise expect with a small team, because everyone in the organization is clear that, whether youre working directly with the WU Way team or not, your job is to find ways for continuous improvement. Western Union Digital Banking is offered by Western Union International Bank GmbH. You stepped in as CMO just as COVID-19 was emerging, and I cant imagine that a global health crisis was what youd envisioned for your first 100 days. 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. [8]David Thomas, Beyond the Hype: What Blockchain could mean for Africa, African Business Magazine, Feb. 26, 2018. Western Union Uses AWS to Create Company-Wide Digital Transformation. We caught up with Mazzaferro to dive deeper into how the Data Cloud enables ongoing digital . 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. Rica, Hong Manufacturing, Communication Updated on. (2013) Comparing Media Systems beyond the Western World. And on our website, we added new support and wayfinding tools to ensure customers could quickly and easily access information. Meeting the moment with solutions required Western Union to accelerate its own digital transformation. We embrace the white canvas and first principles design, breaking away from legacy systems to create smart . 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. 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]. Transformation, Cyber From apps that save lives to those that process loans in a [9]Western Union recently dipped its toes into blockchain. 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.. 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. He also praises Snowflakes adaptability when it came to dealing with huge capacity increases. 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. According to the terms of the transaction . Data and insights gave us the ability to make important strategic decisions in the throes of what could have been a panic. Thank you for this great post, Hans. [6], However, regulators cant keep pace with the wave of new blockchain applications. As the figure below shows, five components are needed to execute an organization's digital transformation: 1. Meeting the moment with solutions required Western Union to accelerate its own digital transformation. 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. My mission is to empower people to become economically self-reliant. 2021. Specifically,. Many of its 150 million customers worldwide depend on money transfers to pay for food, electricity, medication, and other necessities. Salesforce has a value proposition that was immediately interesting because it allows you to build a single omnichannel journey that can be managed really efficiently when I want to make a change I only need to do so in one place. 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. Now we are on track to achieve those gains and benefits that come with being more agile and being able to grow at scale, we can really begin to look forward and reap the rewards of the transformation.. Feb 7, 2023. Guide for Suppliers, Select As an iconic brand for over 150 years, Western Union is constantly striving to innovate for their customers. We wanted plug-and-play convenience to integrate any technology.. Digital transformation starts with people, which is a useful reminder that . HELIX, Management Jaffin: We engaged with tech partners like Google almost immediately to refine our go-to-market strategy. We developed the whole front-end for the app in less than four months., Western Union uses OutSystems for customer-facing apps, back office, and workflow solutions. How did you evolve for digital convenience and safety? Convera. 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. Singh also sees huge potential in the use of blockchain for specific use cases within financial services and payments, for example, helping with the Know Your Customer (KYC) process that is important to stopping money laundering and fraud and eliminating many of the checks that currently hold up cross-border payments. UnionDigital Bank is the trusted bridge between innovation and regulation. & Distribution, Media and Learn about JSON storage. Specifically, how Data, Editors note: This is part of a series of blogs about the data economy. Hospitality, Waste That system is fine in a cash based economy, but is becoming increasingly cumbersome as digital payments take hold in emerging markets. We will expand our Messenger bot to other countries and add other languages, he adds. . They can include creating strategy placemats (one-page strategy overviews that are easily shared), frequent team huddles, one-on-one coaching, and process confirmation. Snowflake: What are a few highlights of how Snowflake is helping with digital transformation? We teach employees, and then they execute. 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. People are asking us, Hey, can you come help me? It took six months to do the bare minimum. 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. Business Unit Represents Approximately 7% of Company Revenue . These agents typically manage retail stores across the world, and offer Western Union money transfer services in exchange for a commission. The Baupost Group is a $31 billion Boston-based investment firm. For example, we began offering an option for telephone money transfer. 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 . But Western Union is missing the true potential of blockchain for its business. 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. 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. To ensure those approaches were safe and secure, we partnered with governmental organizations to find new and secure ways to verify customers. Over the last two years, Singh has been accelerating Western Union's tech plan. 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 more than 170 years Western Union has been helping people send money all over the world. Microservices, Digital Process That created a need to act. Management, Digital Workplace 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. 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. 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. Automation reduces development toil, were more productive, so we dont need so many developers, and we dont end up with orphaned code when developers leave. arrow_forward. Download the Western Union (WU) money transfer app and quickly start sending cash to Mexico and worldwide, 24/7!