western union digital transformation
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.. To ensure those approaches were safe and secure, we partnered with governmental organizations to find new and secure ways to verify customers. 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. Becoming digital first meant we needed to deliver fast, frictionless experiences, especially on mobile. Western Union must adapt to an increasingly mobile world: if Western Union doesnt develop low-cost mobile money transfers, Western Union wont be able to compete with new competitors like Ant Financial and Zelle. Commenting on the advantages of development on OutSystems, Tom says, "We estimate that we're getting new products . Safety starts with understanding how developers collect and share your data. ; With the solution, Western Union launched a state-of-the-art digital . of Use, Payment 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). 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. 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. Rica, Hong Provide value consistently every month and deliver new value and capabilities. Western Union. Sydney Mahan, The First Transcontinental Telegram was sent to DC 155 Years Ago, Washingtonian.com, Oct. 25, 2016. As the transformation gets embedded into the organization, the businesses start to run their own agile deployments. My role was to bring all of these different teams together and instil a culture that recognised it wasnt just about how fast we were going, but also about the quality of the product were delivering.. 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. ; Offering combines Deloitte's ConvergePROSPERITY BankingSuite solution and multiple AWS services. 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. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Want to learn more about technology and organizations? 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.. Updated on. By using our services, you agree to our use of cookies. Strategic partnerships working with platforms like Google is a critical piece of that. 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. Our App has grown to become one of the industrys most widely used international money transfer apps and a Top 20 finance app in the App Store., Not at all. Increasingly, digital technology and mobile devices play a key role in these transactions. Behind those market-shaper practices are the lean tools and behaviors we develop and encourage. & Publishing, Logistics Packaged Goods, Engineering 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. Divestiture Will Support Western Union's Strategic Focus on its Global Cross-Border Payments Platform and Digital Capabilities [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. Western Union has recently partnered with other digital platforms to expand its digital offerings. Some development teams suffer 100 percent attrition in two to three years., "OutSystems helps in many ways. The new generation of customers, especially Millennials, want to find us in the ecosystem of messaging apps.. 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. We have a lot of great ideas in terms of investments to drive that topline revenue growth, but we needed ways to fund those. Western Union's investment in India is part of a broader fintech and innovation strategy that is driving the company's digital transformation. Ericsson will help accelerate Econet's digital transformation journey. 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. your next, Infosys [6], However, regulators cant keep pace with the wave of new blockchain applications. Swanback said a . The author approaches the problem using public. Manufacturing, Communication This does have privacy implications and hence needs to be vetted out with regulatory authorities around the world. Three things were front-of-mind as we evaluated OutSystems, explains Tom Mazzaferro, Chief Data and Innovation Officer at Western Union. HELIX, Management Rapid growth in technology was making it easy for international money transfers to take place online, Fellahi recalls. This is a powerful tool for our business and one of the key capabilities of our new infrastructure.. Feb 7, 2023. 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.. And if Western Union doesnt embrace and transform along with those technologies, it will fade away just like the telegraph. [9]Clayton M. Christensen & Michael E. Raynor,The Innovators Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2003), Ch. 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. [9]Western Union recently dipped its toes into blockchain. [3] Shelly Freierman, Telegram Falls Silent Stop Era Ends Stop, NY Times, Feb. 6, 2006. 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. [5]. Experienced and certified (ACAMS) AML and Learning & Development professional with a proven track of records in compliance, people management, learning areas. Unless they can feasibly use technology to improve their cost structure, Im super bearish on Western Union. Western Union charges high fees since they need to cover rent and labor overhead. If Western Union tries to grow its blockchain capabilities within current operations, internal resistors may directly or indirectly sabotage the initiatives. 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. Fellahi sees the Messenger bot as a promising tool. Digital Bulletin exists to tell the story. Most popular: Free $20 Amazon.com e-gift code for every friend you refer (earn up to $500). 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're making content recommendations better for thousands of readers. In 2017, Western Union invested $200 million and 20% of its workforce on compliance functions. 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. The Western Union Foundation is actively supporting NGOs that help refugees and migrants around the globe through education and financial literacy. But theyve been hugely supportive and as weve hit milestones, such as moving significant infrastructure completely to the cloud or achieving significant savings with the Marketing Cloud, we have built that business case. Western Union uses a central team to build new capabilities across the business. 2023 Snowflake Inc. All Rights Reserved | If youd rather not receive future emails from Snowflake, unsubscribe here or customize your communication preferences, Snowflake for Advertising, Media, & Entertainment, unsubscribe here or customize your communication preferences. Jaffin: Western Union has a culture of innovating to meet customer needs, and the past 12 months have shown us that quick pivots can drive lasting change. Rapid iteration is a crucial capability for Western Union, especially when designing customer experiencesin over 200 countries with local customer and regulatory requirements. Navigate 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. | Learn more about Rokas kudas's work experience, education, connections & more by visiting their profile on . Navigating complex land title issues would also leverage Western Unions existing capabilities of dealing with a range of government regulations. (2017) Monitoring Media Pluralism in Europe: Application of the Media Pluralism Monitor 2016 in the European Union, Montenegro and Turkey. And on our website, we added new support and wayfinding tools to ensure customers could quickly and easily access information. Log in to help. Now data is the driver and applications are being developed to handle that data and represent it to business stakeholders to make it consumable. [5] 2017 Annual ReportCEO Letter (noting Western Union has expanded its fund payout network to billions of bank accounts). Security, Infosys She also has worked with ad agencies like Ogilvy and McCann. Western Union has gained a comprehensive view of the customer while running the Data Cloud on AWS. Their bread and butter business is charging hefty fees on remittances and their core advantage was a network of retail outlets and agents across the US and partners around the world to get cash from one family member to another. Mohua Das Gupta - Head of Marketing, Tata CliQ. Huawei believes digital talent is a key driver in achieving digital transformation, solid economic growth, and better quality of life. 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. 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]. Finance. It is far more stable than that and can be used for near instant settlements across the board, while providing liquidity to Reserve Banks.