western union digital transformation

These strategies are paying off. 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. Board of Directors. 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. 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. Receive rewards. Finally, shareholders may punish Western Union for moving away from its higher margin core business to focus instead on simpler, lower-cost digital money transfers. 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.. One of our most important tools is the floor walk. From apps that save lives to those that process loans in a Goldfinch Partners is a private equity firm investing in businesses specialising in digital transformation. Technology or Operations transformation . 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. Mazzaferro: In the past, the thinking in the industry has often been that applications are king, and that data flows through the applications. Knowledge Institute, Chemical To explore this content and receive communications from Google, please sign in with an existing Google account. Sector, Travel and The author approaches the problem using public. Please enable Javascript to see this feature. [6], However, regulators cant keep pace with the wave of new blockchain applications. Then think about the products you want to offer and how it can be a data-enabled product, such as being hyper-personalized. Huawei believes digital talent is a key driver in achieving digital transformation, solid economic growth, and better quality of life. However, Western Union would be wise to form a new, separate unit for exploring blockchain services. We offer consumers the choices they want, both for sending and receiving money, he stresses. 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. 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. Sources for images:Western Union vs. Bitcoin, Bitland,MyWU,Ripple Union. In addition to our digital banking app, there are at least 20 internal employee-facing apps that weve delivered that make work easier and more efficient for our employees., Asked what differences he sees in the development team, Tom says, With OutSystems, weve got a more cohesive and multi-talented development team because were using visual low-code development thats self-documenting. Youre starting to see that happen culturally. Complete your profile for personalized recommendations, Managing Director, U.S. Financial Services at Google. On May 17, 2018, at the Digital Assembly in Sofia, Bulgaria, the European Commission launched the Digital Agenda for the Western Balkans. Achieving that is going to give Western Union agility, stability and resilience and allow us to focus on product development, because we know that our technology is going to sit in the cloud and take up a lot less of our time. 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. Maybe it started out as more of a push, where we were looking to come in and work with a team. We position ourselves as creating opportunity for financial inclusion by bridging gaps in the financial services sector. 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. Its been a great combination. Group, Infosys Revenue Management Platform for Banking, About ; Offering combines Deloitte's ConvergePROSPERITY BankingSuite solution and multiple AWS services. Western Union uses a central team to build new capabilities across the business. Western Union Digital Banking is offered by Western Union International Bank GmbH. 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. Western Union operates in the increasingly competitive, rapidly changing payments sector, where new fintech players are changing how the market operates. Updated on. Revenue from Western Union's digital money transfer services spiked from $600 million in 2019 to over $850 million in 2020. In the past five years, theres been a leveling across applications and data. Leaders across many industries and companies of all sizes report that one of their biggest challenges is siloed data. 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 . Imagine what we can do if you let us work with your team as well.. The new generation of customers, especially Millennials, want to find us in the ecosystem of messaging apps.. Now its more pull. Though its too early for results, the response from consumers has been positive, he says. However, Western Union doesnt view its established retail business as totally separate from the digital world. 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. | Learn more about Rokas kudas's work experience, education, connections & more by visiting their profile on . be to drive digital transformation and . It took six months to do the bare minimum. 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. 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. The Transformation Story of Western Digital. Western Unions typical customers are migrants seeking a better life not just for themselves, but for their families back home who rely on fund transfers to meet basic needs. These are seismic factors currently redefining our world, earning their own epochal moniker: The Fourth Industrial Revolution. & Distribution, Media and We are also launching new products into the market, including a pilot for digital banking services in select markets in Europe and a revamped loyalty programme, which require us to capture data from our central warehouses to drive decision making, marketing and customer acquisition. Many CEOs are lured into spending too much time on legacy businesses, which don't need CEO oversight. That makes it much easier to go into other areas of the organization and say, We did this in this part of the company. To accelerate application development, improve agility, and provide great digital experiences, the company chose OutSystems as its high-performance low-code platform. By using our services, you agree to our use of cookies. Last year, the global-payment services giant completed 268 million consumer-to-consumer transactions worldwide, for a total of $80 billion. 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. In a report on ERP modernization, the global market intelligence firm highlights how Western Digital . But new innovators are highlighting a problem for Western Union: multi-homing is high with money transfers. Western Union charges high fees since they need to cover rent and labor overhead. The relationship with Talend has enabled Western Union to help its global customer base in times of real need. 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. That support has made it a lot easier to have the influence we need to make the transformation successful. 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. . 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. They can include creating strategy placemats (one-page strategy overviews that are easily shared), frequent team huddles, one-on-one coaching, and process confirmation. Western Union launched its digital banking app in Germany and Romania in Spring 2022, following 11 months of iterative development. One moment later, in Shimla, a hill country city in India, close to the ridge of the Himalayan foothills, a cashier at the . Sydney Mahan, The First Transcontinental Telegram was sent to DC 155 Years Ago, Washingtonian.com, Oct. 25, 2016. We believe in the work we do, why we do it, and who we hire to get it done. 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. . ene. That system is fine in a cash based economy, but is becoming increasingly cumbersome as digital payments take hold in emerging markets. He reveals that Western Union was using multiple companies for each of its email, in-app and SMS communication channels. Seven months after Goldfinch Partners and The Baupost Group announced they were purchasing Western . 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. NICE have announced Western Union, a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement, has advanced customer experience through improved . Learn about JSON storage. Meeting the moment with solutions required Western Union to accelerate its own digital transformation. 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. 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. Western Union. Whats really nice about that is that its so visually obvious. Nov 2011 - Present11 years 5 months. Mazzaferro: Technology is a critical part of the equation, of course, but technology can never drive culture change. It is far more stable than that and can be used for near instant settlements across the board, while providing liquidity to Reserve Banks. When people send money to friends or family across the country or around the world, chances are good that Western Union is involved. Western Union powers your pursuit. Manufacturing, Information Services Jay Jaffin was just starting his role as Western Unions chief marketing officer when the pandemic arrived. The network upgrade will pave the way for Econet to deliver 5G connectivity in more . Discover the latest data, insights, and inspiration from Think with Google. 9-30 (describing four types of innovations incremental, modular, architectural and radical classified by their impact on a business core components and the relationships between those core components). We wanted plug-and-play convenience to integrate any technology.. Snowflake enables us to centralize our data and enable application and business processes to leverage it across the organization. . Behind those market-shaper practices are the lean tools and behaviors we develop and encourage. We started function by function, looking at individual deployments across our different groups in the company. 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. As we get the pilots completed, the idea is to turn the WU Way team into more of a center of excellence. Unless they can feasibly use technology to improve their cost structure, Im super bearish on Western Union. Western Union can leverage such physical presence to win this new innovative space. One of the benefits that weve really seen as weve gone through these first two years of our journey is what happens when we get everyone speaking the same language. In 1861 it sent the first transcontinental telegraph. Western Union Uses AWS to Create Company-Wide Digital Transformation. This is just one example of how blockchain could be an opportunity for Western Union. 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 . Experts at TCS and Western Union share the trends that are affecting digital transformation in financial services. Cookies help us deliver our services. Gartner Magic Quadrant for Low-Code Application Platforms, 2023. Jaffin: Digital was critical in a few ways. Having got the right people in place, Singh and his team set about building a partner network to supercharge Western Unions technology evolution. This does have privacy implications and hence needs to be vetted out with regulatory authorities around the world. Jay Jaffin was just starting his role as Western Union's chief marketing officer when the pandemic arrived. A doctor in London taps an app on her phone to transfer 500 pounds. 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. [9]Clayton M. Christensen & Michael E. Raynor,The Innovators Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2003), Ch. The pilots help get buy-in across the organization, and then once we have that buy-in, it provides the resources necessary to scale. Heute nutzen bereits rund 150.000 Anwender in Deutschland sowie in Rumnien, Polen und Italien die Western Union Digital Banking App fr ihre finanziellen Angelegenheiten - immer mit dem Ziel . Country/region, Costa But for all its success, Western Union is undoubtedly a legacy player in a market that has been truly disrupted in recent years, with smaller and more agile outfits making waves in the increasingly digitised payments space. Assignment: Driving Digital Transformation, AIG & Cyber Insurance Learning to Insure a Digital World, The First Transcontinental Telegram was sent to DC 155 Years Ago, Form 10-K for the year ended December 2017, How Blockchain Could Help Emerging Markets Leap Ahead, Beyond the Hype: What Blockchain could mean for Africa, Western Union is Testing Ripple and XRP for Money Transfers, Western Union Brings Money Transfer and Its Tricky Fees to Chat Apps, Emirates NBD, an almost perfect digital transformation, B2B business solutions (cross-border and cross-currency). Western Union now has more than 550,000 agent locations in more than 200 countries. Technology, Industrial There are 13 of these practices, and thats really how were assessing success with the transformation across the organization. I have successfully directed virtual teams working on Mastercard integrations, Western Union and MoneyGram. Digital Bulletin exists to tell the story. The organisation was looking for somebody with a fresh perspective who could challenge the norms, bring people together to show them the value of what were doing and basically create an environment thats a little bit different to your usual corporate set-up. They have also triggered profound changes within global banking, demanding that lenders remain flexible, nimble, and innovative in their digital-banking strategies to meet customers' rapidly . 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. Many of its 150 million customers worldwide depend on money transfers to pay for food, electricity, medication, and other necessities. Really understand the business stakeholders problem and how you can fix or enable it. Western Union will likely face internal resistance from three sources. <br><br>My Leadership Philosophy<br><br>I am an . 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. Western Union has gained a comprehensive view of the customer while running the Data Cloud on AWS. Part of this agility drive involved Western Union migrating its legacy on-prem IT infrastructure to the Cloud. We go where our customers go, says Khalid Fellahi, senior vice president and general manager for Western Union Digital, based in San Francisco. Discover the latest software purchases and digital transformation initiatives being undertaken by Western Union and its business and technology executives. 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. Transfers can be delivered in cash or into a digital wallet or a bank account via electronic funds transfer. After exceeding expectations in 2020 despite the outbreak of COVID-19, the world's largest currency exchange service Western Union looks set to exceed US$1 billion in total annual revenues for its digital business segment in 2021 a major milestone for the company and a first in the world of digital cross-border payments.. Western Union's shift toward digital shows little sign of relenting. Convera. 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. your next, Infosys When we started the transformation project, we came at it from the perspective of this being a cultural transformation just as much as a process transformation. Industry experts were also drafted in to create the army that was required for this technology mission. Africa, South 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. This will enable the company to maintain its high . Arab Emirates. 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. Jaffin: Evolution meant expanding the ways in which customers experience the brand digitally. 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. Its not done from the perspective of correction or a negative consequence. Top-down prioritization of digital transformation. Youre expected to come up with new ways of innovation to drive revenue growth across the organization. 28+ active Western Union coupons, discount codes & coupon codes for June 2021. . Most of the customers for remittance service (e.g. 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. During its February 2018 earnings call, CEO Hikmet Ersek announced that Western Union is experimenting with Ripple for settling transactions and for capital optimization, and is also testing Ripples native currency (XRP).[10]. How Western Union achieved Digital Transformation with Infosys and Oracle. Youre expected to find ways to optimize your processes and drive value. Does it offer a more seamless customer experience? 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 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. Increasingly, digital technology and mobile devices play a key role in these transactions. . Thats really enabled a lot more collaboration across groups. After the catastrophic explosion in Lebanon in 2020, the two companies worked together to build data pipelines to help those affected by the incident and provide support to agents in the area. Its in our DNA to think about global operations because Western Union covers the world.. We embrace the white canvas and first principles design, breaking away from legacy systems to create smart . For more than 170 years Western Union has been helping people send money all over the world. When people send money to friends or family across the country or around the world, chances are good that Western Union is involved. We're making content recommendations better for thousands of readers. Introducing the next-generation operating model, Winning with your talent-management strategy. It&#39;s a physical branding and marketing component that few money-transfer providers can match but one that&#39;s of diminishing value in a digital world. 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. Wingspan, Infosys Western Union's digital banking platform is a complex ecosystem of partnerships from across the technology and fintech landscape. We scored ourselves as an organization on these market-shaper practices when we started the transformation in 2016. When you see those people who are proactive and have aspirations, you are able to almost make them role models and build really effective ecosystems around them.. Western Union and Beforepay Offer 'Send Now, Pay Later' Service to Consumers for International Money Transfers Cortex, Infosys 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. Leading fintech, Mambu, provides the platform and engine that drives the core of Western Union's new digital bank. For more details about how Western Union went from 34 on-prem data warehouses to pursuing a multi-cloud strategy based on Snowflake, read our case study. How did you evolve for digital convenience and safety? 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. Deep divides in digital connectivity, internet use, and access remain. 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. 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. Rica, Hong Contributed to establishing Quality Assurance, Training and Documentation strategy and processes for AML Operations functions. 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. How do you start there and end up with a fully embedded transformation across a company of 12,000 people? [7]While cryptocurrencies are an obvious threat to Western Unions cross-border money transfers, Blockchain also can be used in a range of imaginative ways. - Access cash back rewards at the WU store. The gap between access and use is growing, with 56% of people in . today more than 65% of Western Union's digital transactions originate on a mobile . Western Union International Bank is licensed by the Austrian Financial Market Authority. He shares his views on digital transformation and economic opportunities for all. There were definitely times I was looking at costs and thinking how I was going to explain to finance, or my CFO, he says. As the transformation gets embedded into the organization, the businesses start to run their own agile deployments. 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. Automation, Microsoft Its an ecosystem of complementary platforms that enable a seamless, single customer experience I think thats such a powerful proposition.. Western Union has innovated before. Experience in leading digital products from either the financial services, payment, or fintech industries. Data privacy and security practices . 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. Packaged Goods, Engineering 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. To address this new competitive landscape, Western Union sought an agility boost to accelerate innovation. Western Union's investment in India is part of a broader fintech and innovation strategy that is driving the company's digital transformation. His career span includes working with organizations like FIS, Western Union, HCL Technologies, CGI, Mahindra Satyam and iGate Global Solutions. 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.

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western union digital transformation