While Singh and his team have been occupied with the technology transformation taking place at Western Union, the breakneck speed at which the financial services and payments industry is changing means they also have to be planning for the longer-term. Its not done from the perspective of correction or a negative consequence. If Western Union tries to grow its blockchain capabilities within current operations, internal resistors may directly or indirectly sabotage the initiatives. Huawei believes digital talent is a key driver in achieving digital transformation, solid economic growth, and better quality of life. It is far more stable than that and can be used for near instant settlements across the board, while providing liquidity to Reserve Banks. 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 . & Publishing, Logistics 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. And on our website, we added new support and wayfinding tools to ensure customers could quickly and easily access information. To ensure those approaches were safe and secure, we partnered with governmental organizations to find new and secure ways to verify customers. 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. So its a real imperative across the top of the organization. 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. The fusion of the digital and the physical, the irrepressible rise of new technologies. Cortex, Infosys today more than 65% of Western Union's digital transactions originate on a mobile . 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. [9]Clayton M. Christensen & Michael E. Raynor,The Innovators Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2003), Ch. 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. 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. To accelerate application development, improve agility, and provide great digital experiences, the company chose OutSystems as its high-performance low-code platform. For example, we began offering an option for telephone money transfer. Chief Data and Innovation Officer, Western Union, Enterprise-grade scalability and security, Cloud-based IT architecture based on microservices. The reason for that is due to the huge increase in demand for our digital services as lockdowns were implemented across many different geographies. 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. First, for continuity of services. From the earliest days of the pandemic, innovating the companys services to meet new patterns of consumer demand was an urgent matter. I also agree with you that the competitive advantage of Western Union is a broad network of retail footprint across the world. Jaffin: Our company mission is to enable financial transfers between people anywhere and everywhere; we had a responsibility to continue to deliver on that. Services, Data Customers can send and receive money in a fast, reliable and convenient manner., We are proud to offer the same omnichannel choice in Austria. 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. Mazzaferro: Technology is a critical part of the equation, of course, but technology can never drive culture change. On March 1, Huawei held a "Digital Leadership Seminar" during Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2023 in Barcelona, Spain, attended by more than 60 high-level customers from global carriers, government enterprises, and KOL. New-found agility delivers growth and improved Customer Experience for partners and customers. Western Union will likely face internal resistance from three sources. COVID-19 has brought countless challenges, but its also caused us to focus all of our efforts around customers and reground ourselves in our mission. What we are talking about is not cryptocurrency, it is not something that has to be mined. Blockchain is technology that uses an open, distributed ledger to permanently verify and record transactions between two parties. Build customized, secure, and scalable mobile banking apps. Us, Terms We know there are certain systems that we cannot just move to the cloud straight away such as the AS400 IBM mainframe, but weve managed to take the ecosystem that surrounds our legacy technology and move it to the cloud and we think we can get everything to the cloud before the end of the year. . This is a powerful tool for our business and one of the key capabilities of our new infrastructure.. 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. Were talking 30 percent, 40 percent, and, in some cases, deployments with a 70 percent return on capacity. And that could be at an operation site or it could be more of a frontline thing like a sales executive. Fellahi sees the Messenger bot as a promising tool. Security, Infosys The culture change has to be driven across teams to show how technology has enabled different and better outcomes. A doctor in London taps an app on her phone to transfer 500 pounds. How did you navigate those early moments? 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.. Part of this agility drive involved Western Union migrating its legacy on-prem IT infrastructure to the Cloud. 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 . Ericsson will help accelerate Econet's digital transformation journey. Western Union can leverage such physical presence to win this new innovative space. That system is fine in a cash based economy, but is becoming increasingly cumbersome as digital payments take hold in emerging markets. 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 . 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. Every year or two we rescore ourselves in a company-wide exercise to see where were making progress and where were falling behind. [8]. What are the biggest lessons you learned? [2] Westar 1, Wikipedia, accessed April 2018. Professors from HEC, ESCP business school, and leading carriers shared insights on . 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. Western Union operates in the increasingly competitive, rapidly changing payments sector, where new fintech players are changing how the market operates. Introducing the next-generation operating model, Winning with your talent-management strategy. Snowflake: What are a few highlights of how Snowflake is helping with digital transformation? How Western Union achieved Digital Transformation with Infosys and Oracle. Packaged Goods, Engineering Sub-Saharan Africa 3G and 4G mobile broadband coverage stands at 86% and 57% of the population, respectively. 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. 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 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. InsurTech & Crypto projects as the world embraces CX, Business Transformation and Digital . 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. The network upgrade will pave the way for Econet to deliver 5G connectivity in more . 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. Digital Transformation. And still others want to do it all online.. Western Union is a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments. Were there tools or technology that were particularly helpful in your transformation? He shares his views on digital transformation and economic opportunities for all. 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. Analytics, API Economy & Snowflake enables us to centralize our data and enable application and business processes to leverage it across the organization. We wanted plug-and-play convenience to integrate any technology.. Think of Western Union, and its yellow placard advertising an agent location comes to mind. In just 11 months, we delivered a full-service digital banking experience that expands our relationship with customers.. Jay Jaffin was just starting his role as Western Unions chief marketing officer when the pandemic arrived. Digital transformation in Western Union must be driven from the top-down. Our technology platform is founded on a Hadoop big data technology cluster that is used for conversion analysis, risk statistical modeling, payments and risk data processing, Fellahi explains. Western Union. There was a need to accelerate the process we wanted to undertake, I have that experience of transformation projects happening on a massive scale. Transformation, Cyber Because if you dont have the right data, your applications will struggle to provide the right business outcomes and customer experiences. 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. Reliable for over 170 years. He reveals that Western Union was using multiple companies for each of its email, in-app and SMS communication channels. And the new business model may require a very different RPP (traditional money transfer process vs. transfer via blockchain). 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. Entertainment, Professional The Western Union Way of digital transformation. Our digital-first crisis response is helping us evolve into the future. Seven months after Goldfinch Partners and The Baupost Group announced they were purchasing Western . Many CEOs are lured into spending too much time on legacy businesses, which dont need CEO oversight. Leadership. As the transformation gets embedded into the organization, the businesses start to run their own agile deployments. 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. Western Union is a partner of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and is a leading voice in the conversation of how to build a global payments ecosystem, which is stable and where remittances can be made much faster. Leadership Team. The company considers local preferences, as well, accepting about 10 payment methods, such as Apple Pay in the U.S. The executive team has done a great job of making it really clear across the company that this is something thats expected of you. Institute, Infosys Innovation Rapid iteration is a crucial capability for Western Union, especially when designing customer experiencesin over 200 countries with local customer and regulatory requirements. 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. Whats really nice about that is that its so visually obvious. "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. - Earn My WU points. Patrick Gauthier, CEO of Convera, formerly known as Western Union Business Solutions. What does "digital transformation" mean to Western Union? [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. Guide for Suppliers, Select Really understand the business stakeholders problem and how you can fix or enable it. Divestiture Will Support Western Union's Strategic Focus on its Global Cross-Border Payments Platform and Digital Capabilities 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. Best practices were also key. So we had to figure out how to continue to show up for customers while also ensuring everyones health and safely. We go where our customers go, says Khalid Fellahi, senior vice president and general manager for Western Union Digital, based in San Francisco. Maybe it started out as more of a push, where we were looking to come in and work with a team. The term is widely used in public-sector organizations to refer to modest initiatives such as putting services online or legacy modernization. Enterprise Technology Operations Center Manager. Having found great success with its Marketing Cloud, Singh outlines his longer-term vision to connect a number of Western Unions central products. However, Western Union doesnt view its established retail business as totally separate from the digital world. 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. 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. One of our most important tools is the floor walk. Sources for images:Western Union vs. Bitcoin, Bitland,MyWU,Ripple Union. When people from different departments do these floor walks together, theyre realizing that they actually have a lot more in common with each other or notice areas where they can collaborate that they didnt realize before. In the past several years, the Englewood, Colo.-based company has made a point to develop and [] These are more tactical, day-to-day ways to implement lean across the organization. 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. Western Union's investment in India is part of a broader fintech and innovation strategy that is driving the company's digital transformation. The development speedand deployment easeprovided by OutSystems accelerates change and feedback cycles, which paves the way for continuous innovation. (2013) Comparing Media Systems beyond the Western World. (PDF-165 KB) The transformation of a legacy company whose roots lie in the era of the telegraph involves more than just lean deployments and agile methodologies. Sydney Mahan, The First Transcontinental Telegram was sent to DC 155 Years Ago, Washingtonian.com, Oct. 25, 2016. Automation, Microsoft Salesforce has been such an important part of the digital experience journey.. 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]. The author approaches the problem using public. . Talend is our backbone for that work and have really evolved their product to meet our needs.. Some development teams suffer 100 percent attrition in two to three years., "OutSystems helps in many ways. 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. 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. Specifically,. 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. A hugely significant piece of the transformation has come from rethinking how Western Union communicates with its vast customer base. Thank you for this great post, Hans. [2]But today, new technologies are threatening Western Unions entire business model. The Transformation Story of Western Digital. 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 . 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. 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. McKinsey's Kausik Rajgopal and Lang Davison recently sat down with Western Union's CEO to talk about its multicultural customer base (and . Jaffin: Digital was critical in a few ways. But it becomes more self-driven, and that really enables the scale. 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.. - Access cash back rewards at the WU store. People who knew how a team or a group worked before can come in and see its night-and-day different. Recently I talked to him about the companys rapid pivot to digital this past year, his biggest learnings, and what the future holds. Western Union's cross-functional tech teams pushed out expanded digital options and real-time visibility on the status of its retail locations worldwide. Media, Madison Square We continue to experiment with the technology and time will tell if it offers a better alternative to traditional rails.. Western Union is also focused on the global remittance market. I want to see those same results in my organization. I think thats an indication of how well its really working across the company. Western Union has recently partnered with other digital platforms to expand its digital offerings. Mohua Das Gupta - Head of Marketing, Tata CliQ. Strategic partnerships working with platforms like Google is a critical piece of that. 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. 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. . And, Fellahi points out, When you look at customer acquisition on our digital channel, 80 percent of the customers we acquired in the past 12 months are new to usnot migrated from our traditional customer base., He expects digital money transfer and mobile technology to be the major driver of overall growth in coming years, adding, In the U.S., over 65 percent of WU.com transactions are initiated on a mobile device, and globally it is nearly 60 percent.. Thats really enabled a lot more collaboration across groups. 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. 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. 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. Discover the latest software purchases and digital transformation initiatives being undertaken by Western Union and its business and technology executives. 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. 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. One moment later, in Shimla, a hill country city in India, close to the ridge of the Himalayan foothills, a cashier at the . Join us to learn how your organization can become a leader in the Data Economy and the business benefits that result. ; With the solution, Western Union launched a state-of-the-art digital . OutSystems provides the innovation and agility to accelerate the digital transformation of Western Union. Consumers can 'Send Now, Pay Later' by borrowing up to AUD 2000 through Beforepay's wage-advance product on Western Union's digital channels. Western Union Digital Services Enhanced in the UAE with Mobile App and Online Access; ITFC and Dubai Exports host B2B Forum to Promote Agri-Food Trade between Arab and African Countries under the Arab Africa Trade Bridges Program; GBM and Banfico partner to support the Kingdom's efforts for a more digitalized financial sector 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. 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. 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 . Created: 05-05-2021 - 17:15. [5]. For more than 170 years Western Union has been helping people send money all over the world. If any of these should fit what you're looking for, consider exploring a career with Western Union. 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. (2017) Monitoring Media Pluralism in Europe: Application of the Media Pluralism Monitor 2016 in the European Union, Montenegro and Turkey. Harare Responsible for . Western Union offers digital transactions in 70 countries to move money around the world. As a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments, Western Union has to comply with a huge number of financial regulations. And its not something you can achieve really quickly, its a multiple-year process. 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.
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