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Were there tools or technology that were particularly helpful in your transformation? Western Union International Bank GmbH is regulated by the Financial Markets Authority in Austria, [i] Agent location count valid as of 31 December 2017. We set up virtual war rooms, met with our executive team daily to strategize, and spoke to customers every week to keep a pulse on their needs. Western Union has gained a comprehensive view of the customer while running the Data Cloud on AWS. 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. 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. your next, Infosys Wingspan, Infosys We continue to experiment with the technology and time will tell if it offers a better alternative to traditional rails.. Navigating complex land title issues would also leverage Western Unions existing capabilities of dealing with a range of government regulations. The Western Union Foundation is actively supporting NGOs that help refugees and migrants around the globe through education and financial literacy. 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.. New-found agility delivers growth and improved Customer Experience for partners and customers. Some development teams suffer 100 percent attrition in two to three years., "OutSystems helps in many ways. . Mazzaferro: In the past, the thinking in the industry has often been that applications are king, and that data flows through the applications. SEED aims to improve education and employability of students from low socio-economic backgrounds, especially children of refugees, migrants, and local families. Feb 7, 2023. Western Union powers your pursuit. We saw that our revenue and customer base didnt reflect the opportunity and size of the market.. So we established a set of what we call market-shaper practices that we wanted to focus on. InsurTech & Crypto projects as the world embraces CX, Business Transformation and Digital . 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. In 2017 SEED supported 20 projects, impacting 5,000 children and youth; we hope to support event more in 2018.. Board Committees. Western Union has innovated before. 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. 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. The relationship with Talend has enabled Western Union to help its global customer base in times of real need. Snowflake worked with Longitude to assess what it takes to lead in the data economy. This will enable the company to maintain its high . Download the Western Union (WU) money transfer app and quickly start sending cash to Mexico and worldwide, 24/7! Before OutSystems, we typically released every six weeks. 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. 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.. 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. 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. 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. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Want to learn more about technology and organizations? In the past several years, the Englewood, Colo.-based company has made a point to develop and [] People are asking us, Hey, can you come help me? Gartner Magic Quadrant for Low-Code Application Platforms, 2023. The new generation of customers, especially Millennials, want to find us in the ecosystem of messaging apps.. 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. 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. The second aspect is our agile work, where we spin up teams that have learned and are now experts in using agile methodologies for product launches or IT development. One moment later, in Shimla, a hill country city in India, close to the ridge of the Himalayan foothills, a cashier at the . Youre expected to find ways to optimize your processes and drive value. Chief Data and Innovation Officer, Western Union, Enterprise-grade scalability and security, Cloud-based IT architecture based on microservices. Denver, Colorado. Though its too early for results, the response from consumers has been positive, he says. | Learn more about Rokas kudas's work experience, education, connections & more by visiting their profile on . Over the last two years, Singh has been accelerating Western Union's tech plan. 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. And its not something you can achieve really quickly, its a multiple-year process. A hugely significant piece of the transformation has come from rethinking how Western Union communicates with its vast customer base. Commenting on the advantages of development on OutSystems, Tom says, "We estimate that we're getting new products . Western Union. Western Union. 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. Western Union (WU) is a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments. Western Union is working alongside Amazon Web Services (AWS) and AWS Partners to transform and expand its business, including the launch of a new digital bank. Unless they can feasibly use technology to improve their cost structure, Im super bearish on Western Union. How Your Small Business Can Be Managed With The Right Databases, Why Businesses Must Focus on Introducing Technology in the Workplace. 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 [8]David Thomas, Beyond the Hype: What Blockchain could mean for Africa, African Business Magazine, Feb. 26, 2018. 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. 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. In the past five years, theres been a leveling across applications and data. Entertainment, Professional The central transformation team helps do the capability building in training those resources up, and then they run their own scaled-out deployment. Cookies help us deliver our services. And that could be at an operation site or it could be more of a frontline thing like a sales executive. Western Union is the worlds first P2P company. The way we approached it was to use the central WU Way team for capability building. Institute, Infosys Innovation 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. Goldfinch Partners is a private equity firm investing in businesses specialising in digital transformation. 1 (March 1990), pp. Team members were drawn from different continents and operating on different time zones. Thats changing. Harare Responsible for . So we had to figure out how to continue to show up for customers while also ensuring everyones health and safely. There are 13 of these practices, and thats really how were assessing success with the transformation across the organization. So its a real imperative across the top of the organization. Cole heads the 169-year-old company's digital transformation efforts, including the design and development of the software powering those consumer-facing platforms. In the past, JSON storage and analysis required specific JSON databases. Thats the high performancewe rely on with OutSystems., Low-Code for Digital Financial Services Delivery. Since 2008, Huawei has offered a wide and expanding range of . Second, we increased our use of digital media to reach customers and build a feedback loop. For example, in 2016 Western Union integrated money transfer options with messanging apps WeChat and Viber, allowing users to send small amounts of money through the apps. We teach employees, and then they execute. Having found great success with its Marketing Cloud, Singh outlines his longer-term vision to connect a number of Western Unions central products. 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. 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. Think of Western Union, and its yellow placard advertising an agent location comes to mind. Rica, Hong 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. Management, Digital Workplace The CDO needs to drive digital transformation by enabling data to power product development and the company. What we are talking about is not cryptocurrency, it is not something that has to be mined. Product Director, United States Money Transfer. I want to see those same results in my organization. I think thats an indication of how well its really working across the company. Lean deployments are a big piece of our overall transformation program. In the latest step in its digital journey, Western Union recently launched a bot that enables Facebook Messenger users in the United States to send money to more than 200 countries, across 130 currencies, from within the messaging app. He shares his views on digital transformation and economic opportunities for all. And still others want to do it all online.. 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. Continue to partner with popular digital platforms to provide legacy C2C money transfer services. 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. Africa, South [9]Western Union recently dipped its toes into blockchain. 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. Rapid growth in technology was making it easy for international money transfers to take place online, Fellahi recalls. 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. Many of its 150 million customers worldwide depend on money transfers to pay for food, electricity, medication, and other necessities. The transition from legacy systems to Oracle Solutions was critical to the strategy's success. We use OutSystems in multiple layers of our tech stack, says Tom. 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. So youre really talking about game-changing differences between how processes worked before and after. Services, High Companies like Venmo(PayPal) and Zelle(joint venture by several large U.S. banks) have deep pockets, but so far are mostly competing in domestic payment markets. 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. Reliable for over 170 years. Harveer Singh, Chief Data Architect & Global Head of Engineering, reveals how the initiative will give the organisation the speed and agility it needs to . We wanted plug-and-play convenience to integrate any technology.. It requires a change in process and culture, the adoption of a common lingo, executive buy-in, and a center . Meanwhile, innovators like Ant Financial(China) and M-Pesa(Kenya) are leveraging high mobile penetration rates in emerging markets, and are beginning to experiment with cross-border money transfers. 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]. He shares his views on digital transformation and economic opportunities for all. Seven months after Goldfinch Partners and The Baupost Group announced they were purchasing Western . 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. This seems to be a typical BSSE case in which it is hard for the incumbent to disrupt its business, since the innovation may threaten the current profitable business. Reflecting on the transformation to-date, Singh is clear that it hasnt come without its challenges. Experience in leading digital products from either the financial services, payment, or fintech industries. Talend is our backbone for that work and have really evolved their product to meet our needs.. Prior to implementing Snowflake in 2021, Western Unions data spanned 34 on-premises data warehouses, resulting in latency and operational burdens. Youre now a year into your role as CMO and leading through a prolonged global crisis. 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. 2021. We go where our customers go, says Khalid Fellahi, senior vice president and general manager for Western Union Digital, based in San Francisco. 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. 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. Sub-Saharan Africa 3G and 4G mobile broadband coverage stands at 86% and 57% of the population, respectively. 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. People. 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. UnionDigital Bank is the trusted bridge between innovation and regulation. . Head of Information Technology & Digital Transformation Econet Wireless Zimbabwe Oct 2015 - Present 7 years 6 months. Swanback said a . In 1861 it sent the first transcontinental telegraph. (2017) Monitoring Media Pluralism in Europe: Application of the Media Pluralism Monitor 2016 in the European Union, Montenegro and Turkey. When people send money to friends or family across the country or around the world, chances are good that Western Union is involved. This would help Western Union objectively pursue new blockchain opportunities, even if those opportunities eventually cannibalize or destroy its existing C2C business. The Transformation Story of Western Digital. 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. Its time to align your banks digital transformation strategy with the entire customer lifecycle by providing a personalized omnichannel experience. Specifically,. Last year, the global-payment services giant completed 268 million consumer-to-consumer transactions worldwide, for a total of $80 billion. 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. arrow_forward. Western Union must adapt to an increasingly mobile world: if Western Union doesn't develop low-cost mobile money transfers, Western Union won't be able to compete . Our digital-first crisis response is helping us evolve into the future. [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. 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). 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. Now its more pull. . 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. 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 Baupost Group is a $31 billion Boston-based investment firm. Business Unit Represents Approximately 7% of Company Revenue Divestiture Will Support Western Union's Strategic Focus on its Global Cross-Border Payments Platform and Digital Capabilities The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU), a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments, together with Goldfinch Partners, LLC ("Goldfinch"), a private equity firm investing in . 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. Arab Emirates. Ericsson will help accelerate Econet's digital transformation journey. 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. Mazzaferro: Keep it simple. Western Union will likely face internal resistance from three sources. 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. 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 .