Mazzaferro: Snowflake is enabling quite a bit around analytics, reporting, event triggers, and settlement across our card providers. Manufacturing, Communication In a report on ERP modernization, the global market intelligence firm highlights how Western Digital . 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. But it becomes more self-driven, and that really enables the scale. Others prefer to prepare a transaction online and then go to a retail location to pay cash. few clicks, you can use OutSystems to bring your visions to life. Manufacturing, Information Services The digital transformation is helping Western Union emerge from a challenging two-year era. 1 (March 1990), pp. Media, Madison Square arrow_forward. 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 Security, Infosys 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.. Poland followed later in 2022, while plans are at hand to launch Italy by the end of the year. 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. At its core is a migration from on-prem to a cloud-based infrastructure, which it believes is key to allowing the organisation to scale and evolve into a company with the clout of an established financial institution combined with the agility and flexibility of a modern FinTech. The role of CDO needs to encompass more than data management and data governance, more than even enabling the pipeline and managing the environments. Zealand, South As the transformation gets embedded into the organization, the businesses start to run their own agile deployments. Its not done from the perspective of correction or a negative consequence. Meridian, Infosys Big data has helped Western Union merge data across multiple channels for years, for marketing and promotion, customer lifecycle management, compliance and fraud modeling. Everest Group Low-Code Application Development Platforms PEAK Matrix 2022. Mazzaferro: Keep it simple. 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. 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. We use OutSystems in multiple layers of our tech stack, says Tom. 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. For example, helping African countries develop official land registers could eliminate a huge barrier to investment and capital inflows (e.g., by resolving uncertain and disputed land titles). Western Union's cross-functional tech teams pushed out expanded digital options and real-time visibility on the status of its retail locations worldwide. Salesforce has been such an important part of the digital experience journey.. Professors from HEC, ESCP business school, and leading carriers shared insights on . These are more tactical, day-to-day ways to implement lean across the organization. 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. 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. 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. Chief Data and Innovation Officer, Western Union, Enterprise-grade scalability and security, Cloud-based IT architecture based on microservices. What we are talking about is not cryptocurrency, it is not something that has to be mined. People. Western Union is a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments. . (2013) Comparing Media Systems beyond the Western World. Western Union launched its digital banking app in Germany and Romania in Spring 2022, following 11 months of iterative development. Each quarter our research team identifies on-prem and cloud applications that are being used by the 11000 Western Union employees from the public (Press Releases, Customer References . Best practices were also key. 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. Business Unit Represents Approximately 7% of Company Revenue . These are seismic factors currently redefining our world, earning their own epochal moniker: The Fourth Industrial Revolution. Contributed to establishing Quality Assurance, Training and Documentation strategy and processes for AML Operations functions. 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 . Watch this tech inequality series featuring scholars, practitioners, & activists, Sign up for the Digital Initiative Newsletter. 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. Thank you for this great post, Hans. His career span includes working with organizations like FIS, Western Union, HCL Technologies, CGI, Mahindra Satyam and iGate Global Solutions. Snowflake: What do you see changing now that your organization is better able to share data? [1] One hundred years later, Western Union launched the first domestic commercial geostationary satellite (Westar 1). Why Do Companies Choose to Outsource Work? To ensure those approaches were safe and secure, we partnered with governmental organizations to find new and secure ways to verify customers. 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. 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. In 2017 SEED supported 20 projects, impacting 5,000 children and youth; we hope to support event more in 2018.. Gartner Magic Quadrant for Low-Code Application Platforms, 2023. <br><br>My Leadership Philosophy<br><br>I am an . Group, Infosys Revenue Management Platform for Banking, About And still others want to do it all online.. To accelerate application development, improve agility, and provide great digital experiences, the company chose OutSystems as its high-performance low-code platform. Over the last two years, Singh has been accelerating Western Union's tech plan. How did you evolve for digital convenience and safety? Today, structured and semi-structured data can easily coincide. This is a powerful tool for our business and one of the key capabilities of our new infrastructure.. Join us to learn how your organization can become a leader in the Data Economy and the business benefits that result. We believe in the work we do, why we do it, and who we hire to get it done. & Publishing, Logistics 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 . InsurTech & Crypto projects as the world embraces CX, Business Transformation and Digital . 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. 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. Services, Public She has extensive experience in leading strategic marketing and has worked with brands like Myntra, Arrow, and Amante. The Western Union Way of digital transformation. Digital transformation in Western Union must be driven from the top-down. We have a lot of great ideas in terms of investments to drive that topline revenue growth, but we needed ways to fund those. However, Western Union would be wise to form a new, separate unit for exploring blockchain services. Reframe blockchain from a threat to an opportunity, by creating a new autonomous unit. Youre starting to see that happen culturally. A hugely significant piece of the transformation has come from rethinking how Western Union communicates with its vast customer base. [8]David Thomas, Beyond the Hype: What Blockchain could mean for Africa, African Business Magazine, Feb. 26, 2018. Arab Emirates. Western Union has had a compound annual growth rate above 25 percent over the past five years, since the launch of the digital division. In 2017, Western Union invested $200 million and 20% of its workforce on compliance functions. 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. Theyll be there to help you stay on track or course correct when you have troubles. 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. [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 will expand our Messenger bot to other countries and add other languages, he adds. So its a real imperative across the top of the organization. It requires a change in process and culture, the adoption of a common lingo, executive buy-in, and a center . Something we could take forward is a digital dollar, which we could make transferable all around the world with our vendors. Western Union is doing that. As we get the pilots completed, the idea is to turn the WU Way team into more of a center of excellence. The new generation of customers, especially Millennials, want to find us in the ecosystem of messaging apps.. Every year or two we rescore ourselves in a company-wide exercise to see where were making progress and where were falling behind. Marketing tactics evolved to attract digital customers, who have a different profile from traditional retail customers. 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. Jaffin: Evolution meant expanding the ways in which customers experience the brand digitally. [9]Clayton M. Christensen & Michael E. Raynor,The Innovators Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2003), Ch. | Learn more about Rokas kudas's work experience, education, connections & more by visiting their profile on . 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. As an iconic brand for over 150 years, Western Union is constantly striving to innovate for their customers. 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. That makes it much easier to go into other areas of the organization and say, We did this in this part of the company. ene. Many of its 150 million customers worldwide depend on money transfers to pay for food, electricity, medication, and other necessities. Thats changing. What are the biggest lessons you learned? Secure, touchless, digital money transfers were a safe, reliable way for people to send funds where they needed to, so we leaned in there. Western Union charges high fees since they need to cover rent and labor overhead. Western Union has gained a comprehensive view of the customer while running the Data Cloud on AWS. Digital Bulletin exists to tell the story. Finance. All of that is dependent on people in the organization putting resources behind this kind of an agile transformation. Singh is a proponent for a Central Bank Digital Currency, which he says is significantly different to the digital assets such as BitCoin and Ethereum, which can fluctuate wildly in value over short periods of time. By using our services, you agree to our use of cookies. Western Union is renowned for its unparalleled international network, with over 500,000 agent locations spanning 200 countries and territories. 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. Its time to align your banks digital transformation strategy with the entire customer lifecycle by providing a personalized omnichannel experience. Top retailers use AI-powered campaigns to engage their most valuable customers. 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. Many of its 150 million customers worldwide depend on money transfers to pay for food, electricity, medication, and other necessities. 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. 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. Three things were front-of-mind as we evaluated OutSystems, explains Tom Mazzaferro, Chief Data and Innovation Officer at Western Union. Feb 7, 2023. Complete your profile for personalized recommendations, Managing Director, U.S. Financial Services at Google. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Snowflake worked with Longitude to assess what it takes to lead in the data economy. This aims to support the transition of the region into a digital economy and bring the benefits of digital transformation, such as faster economic growth, more jobs, and better services. Second, we increased our use of digital media to reach customers and build a feedback loop. . Now data is the driver and applications are being developed to handle that data and represent it to business stakeholders to make it consumable. [2] Westar 1, Wikipedia, accessed April 2018. 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. Increasingly, digital technology and mobile devices play a key role in these transactions. 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. 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. Many CEOs are lured into spending too much time on legacy businesses, which dont need CEO oversight. Western Union has recently partnered with other digital platforms to expand its digital offerings. To explore this content and receive communications from Google, please sign in with an existing Google account. DENVER-(BUSINESS WIRE)-The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU), a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments, today announced that the Company has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a minority stake in fast growing Saudi Digital Payments Company, or stc pay, a fully owned subsidiary of Saudi Telecom Company. today more than 65% of Western Union's digital transactions originate on a mobile . Rapid iteration is a crucial capability for Western Union, especially when designing customer experiencesin over 200 countries with local customer and regulatory requirements. 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 position ourselves as creating opportunity for financial inclusion by bridging gaps in the financial services sector. 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. Build customized, secure, and scalable mobile banking apps. 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]. Its created a need for financial sector brands to step up and help by democratizing access to their services via mobile phones. Our research identified 10 attributes of an organizations data infrastructure that enable it to take full advantage of the data economy, the global supply and, Editors note: This is part of a series about the data economy. . With OutSystems, we deploy twice every week. 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. Sector, Travel and This is just one example of how blockchain could be an opportunity for Western Union. Beyond the public health crisis, COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on personal finances, causing poverty levels and inequality to rise globally. 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. Heres how, Customers want control over their data and wont hesitate to switch brands to get it, Global Insights Briefing: Holiday takeaways for marketers, From solar panels to spa days, see how 2022s top searches set the stage for 2023. Its been a great combination. [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. Were there tools or technology that were particularly helpful in your transformation? Technology or Operations transformation . Analytics, API Economy & Engaged in problem resolution of complex . Not just front-end, but back office and our contact center. We started function by function, looking at individual deployments across our different groups in the company. 12. Mohua Das Gupta - Head of Marketing, Tata CliQ. That support has made it a lot easier to have the influence we need to make the transformation successful. Swanback said a . 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 can leverage such physical presence to win this new innovative space. But new innovators are highlighting a problem for Western Union: multi-homing is high with money transfers. [3] Shelly Freierman, Telegram Falls Silent Stop Era Ends Stop, NY Times, Feb. 6, 2006. 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 . 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 . We recently delivered a similar requirement to a higher standard using one OutSystems developer in just 15 days. But Western Union is missing the true potential of blockchain for its business. 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. Seven months after Goldfinch Partners and The Baupost Group announced they were purchasing Western . He praises the vendor support and namechecks first AWS for enabling the organisation to quicken the pace of its procurement process and spin up workloads to the cloud faster than had originally been anticipated. 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 . Here is Swamy Sivasubramaniyan, Head of Financial Services and Settlement Platform for Western Union, discussing the digital transformation experience with Infosys and Oracle. Denver, Colorado. 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 Uses AWS to Create Company-Wide Digital 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. 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. of Use, Payment 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. For decades, Western Union has defended its global position by investing in regulatory compliance. My mission is to empower people to become economically self-reliant. Digital transformation in the EUBenefitting people, the economy and the environment. 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. Rapid growth in technology was making it easy for international money transfers to take place online, Fellahi recalls. 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. Western Union's investment in India is part of a broader fintech and innovation strategy that is driving the company's digital transformation. . Leading fintech, Mambu, provides the platform and engine that drives the core of Western Union's new digital bank. 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. Fellahi sees the Messenger bot as a promising tool. Talend is our backbone for that work and have really evolved their product to meet our needs..
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