western union digital transformation

Were there tools or technology that were particularly helpful in your transformation? This does have privacy implications and hence needs to be vetted out with regulatory authorities around the world. Why Do Companies Choose to Outsource Work? Western Union has gained a comprehensive view of the customer while running the Data Cloud on AWS. Country/region, Costa OutSystems provides the innovation and agility to accelerate the digital transformation of Western Union. Jaffin: Digital was critical in a few ways. Inclusion, Bloomberg Its more about having the manager understand how the work actually gets done on the floor. Digital transformation starts with people, which is a useful reminder that . Western Union has the infrastructure to help make that a reality. 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. We caught up with Mazzaferro to dive deeper into how the Data Cloud enables ongoing digital . Imagine what we can do if you let us work with your team as well.. So, constant iteration and rapid delivery are crucial. Cookies help us deliver our 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. Not just front-end, but back office and our contact center. Today, WU.com is available in 40 countries, with mobile apps in 18 of them. 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. & Publishing, Logistics The EU is helping to boost Europe's digital capacities and create new opportunities for businesses and consumers while safeguarding basic rights. The map, Barmer and Newman say, is designed to do precisely that turn the western Pennsylvania fish-fry culture into an adventure stamped onto the landscape that fosters community engagement . To explore this content and receive communications from Google, please sign in with an existing Google account. As we get the pilots completed, the idea is to turn the WU Way team into more of a center of excellence. Learn about JSON storage. 2023Western Union Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved. People are asking us, Hey, can you come help me? 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. Reframe blockchain from a threat to an opportunity, by creating a new autonomous unit. Log in to help. 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. Navigating complex land title issues would also leverage Western Unions existing capabilities of dealing with a range of government regulations. 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. In the past, JSON storage and analysis required specific JSON databases. [9]Clayton M. Christensen & Michael E. Raynor,The Innovators Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2003), Ch. 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. 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. How did you navigate those early moments? As a company, Western Union is in the middle of a transformational moment. Divestiture Will Support Western Union's Strategic Focus on its Global Cross-Border Payments Platform and Digital Capabilities Poland followed later in 2022, while plans are at hand to launch Italy by the end of the year. If any of these should fit what you're looking for, consider exploring a career with Western Union. (2017) Monitoring Media Pluralism in Europe: Application of the Media Pluralism Monitor 2016 in the European Union, Montenegro and Turkey. 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. [3] Shelly Freierman, Telegram Falls Silent Stop Era Ends Stop, NY Times, Feb. 6, 2006. 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. 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. It requires a change in process and culture, the adoption of a common lingo, executive buy-in, and a center . [1] The first transcontinental telegraph was sent on October 24, 1861, from the Chief Justice of California to President Abraham Lincoln. Many of its 150 million customers worldwide depend on money transfers to pay for food, electricity, medication, and other necessities. Western Union operates in the increasingly competitive, rapidly changing payments sector, where new fintech players are changing how the market operates. 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. Western Union (NYSE: WU), a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments and Zain Cash, the award-winning mobile financia . 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. 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. And still others want to do it all online.. Most of the customers for remittance service (e.g. Knowledge Institute, Chemical One moment later, in Shimla, a hill country city in India, close to the ridge of the Himalayan foothills, a cashier at the . 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.. The company wanted to improve the digital experiences offered to customers and build new digital bankingproducts to extend its relationship with customers. Seven months after Goldfinch Partners and The Baupost Group announced they were purchasing Western . Western Union also is uniquely positioned to explore blockchain applications in emerging markets by leveraging Western Unions retail footprint, regulatory compliance learning, and global brand. Western Union uses a central team to build new capabilities across the business. Does it offer a more seamless customer experience? ene. 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. 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. today more than 65% of Western Union's digital transactions originate on a mobile . OutSystems High-Performance Low-Code Platform Powers Western Union Digital Banking Solution 2 min. He also praises Snowflakes adaptability when it came to dealing with huge capacity increases. 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. Strategic partnerships working with platforms like Google is a critical piece of that. 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. Manager of a Team responsible for First Level Support, Event monitoring and Major Incident Management to internal and external clients that affects core processes and clients. 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 . Hospitality, Waste | Learn more about Rokas kudas's work experience, education, connections & more by visiting their profile on . Western Union will likely face internal resistance from three sources. Procurement & Construction, Financial Some development teams suffer 100 percent attrition in two to three years., "OutSystems helps in many ways. Jay Jaffin was just starting his role as Western Unions chief marketing officer when the pandemic arrived. Manufacturing, Information Services Learn what is a data platform, which encompass a range of elements required to support the data management cycle. Team members were drawn from different continents and operating on different time zones. Here is Swamy Sivasubramaniyan, Head of Financial Services and Settlement Platform for Western Union, discussing the digital transformation experience with Infosys and Oracle. They tend to be younger, they live online and they prefer to do everything there, at the touch of a button, Fellahi observes. Lean deployments are a big piece of our overall transformation program. Data safety. The transformation of a legacy company whose roots lie in the era of the telegraph involves more than just lean deployments and agile methodologies. 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 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. 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 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. Discover the latest data, insights, and inspiration from Think with Google. 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. be to drive digital transformation and . Really understand the business stakeholders problem and how you can fix or enable it. The author approaches the problem using public. Snowflake: What do you see changing now that your organization is better able to share data? Its an ecosystem of complementary platforms that enable a seamless, single customer experience I think thats such a powerful proposition.. Western Union now has more than 550,000 agent locations in more than 200 countries. Marketing tactics evolved to attract digital customers, who have a different profile from traditional retail customers. Everest Group Low-Code Application Development Platforms PEAK Matrix 2022. [1] One hundred years later, Western Union launched the first domestic commercial geostationary satellite (Westar 1). Theyll be there to help you stay on track or course correct when you have troubles. But its really all about allowing the manager to observe the way their employee works, whats easy about that job and whats hard about that job. Western Union's digital banking platform is a complex ecosystem of partnerships from across the technology and fintech landscape. Leadership. That created a need to act. Most popular: Free $20 Amazon.com e-gift code for every friend you refer (earn up to $500). 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. - Access cash back rewards at the WU store. Western Union is a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments. Professors from HEC, ESCP business school, and leading carriers shared insights on . ; With the solution, Western Union launched a state-of-the-art digital . Using OutSystems for customer-facing digital experiences, back office, and workflow solutions, Western Union launched new digital banking services in two countries in just 11 months. [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. 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. Sub-Saharan Africa 3G and 4G mobile broadband coverage stands at 86% and 57% of the population, respectively. Western Union charges high fees since they need to cover rent and labor overhead. Meeting the moment with solutions required Western Union to accelerate its own digital transformation. Jay Jaffin was just starting his role as Western Union's chief marketing officer when the pandemic arrived. 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. your next, Infosys There was a need to accelerate the process we wanted to undertake, I have that experience of transformation projects happening on a massive scale. An undisputed leader in the global payments space, Western Union is driving a company-wide technology transformation, underpinned by migrating its infrastructure from on-prem to the cloud. Part of this agility drive involved Western Union migrating its legacy on-prem IT infrastructure to the Cloud. Digital Transformation. 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. We saw that our revenue and customer base didnt reflect the opportunity and size of the market.. 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. We wont bug you too much because thats more work for all of us. 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. We believe in the work we do, why we do it, and who we hire to get it done. Navigate Leading fintech, Mambu, provides the platform and engine that drives the core of Western Union's new digital bank. Thank you for this great post, Hans. In the past several years, the Englewood, Colo.-based company has made a point to develop and [] 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.. Jaffin: Our company mission is to enable financial transfers between people anywhere and everywhere; we had a responsibility to continue to deliver on that. They essentially sponsor a team and loan the resources that are necessary. The scale of change this represents for a business like Western Union is not to be underestimated; the company employs around 11,000 people and has more than 550,000 retail agents locations within its global financial network, as well as a global online presence.