But new innovators are highlighting a problem for Western Union: multi-homing is high with money transfers. We wanted plug-and-play convenience to integrate any technology.. Africa's largest payment gateway, MFS Africa, has partnered with Western Union to enable individuals and businesses across the continent to receive money Discover the latest data, insights, and inspiration from Think with Google. Digital transformation can refer to anything from IT modernization (for example, cloud computing), to digital optimization, to the invention of new digital business models. The aim of this paper is to sketch a brief history of complex digital transformation of media and . Meridian, Infosys The gap between access and use is growing, with 56% of people in . 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. If any of these should fit what you're looking for, consider exploring a career with Western Union. We go where our customers go, says Khalid Fellahi, senior vice president and general manager for Western Union Digital, based in San Francisco. 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. The pandemics economic stressors created a situation where more people suddenly needed to send money to family and friends around the world, many of whom rarely use financial services. Western Union built its platform by assembling a global network of third party agents. A doctor in London taps an app on her phone to transfer 500 pounds. 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. For example, we began offering an option for telephone money transfer. We believe in the work we do, why we do it, and who we hire to get it done. The Baupost Group is a $31 billion Boston-based investment firm. The transformation of a legacy company whose roots lie in the era of the telegraph involves more than just lean deployments and agile methodologies. I have successfully directed virtual teams working on Mastercard integrations, Western Union and MoneyGram. For example, in 2016 Western Union integrated money transfer options with messanging apps WeChat and Viber, allowing users to send small amounts of money through the apps. 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. Institute, Infosys Innovation Western Union has had a compound annual growth rate above 25 percent over the past five years, since the launch of the digital division. Commenting on the advantages of development on OutSystems, Tom says, "We estimate that we're getting new products . Western Union International Bank GmbH is regulated by the Financial Markets Authority in Austria, [i] Agent location count valid as of 31 December 2017. 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. And that could be at an operation site or it could be more of a frontline thing like a sales executive. Others see blockchain as an opportunity to help emerging governments become efficient and transparent, for example, by serving as the official land title registration. Procurement & Construction, Financial . Security, Infosys Three things were front-of-mind as we evaluated OutSystems, explains Tom Mazzaferro, Chief Data and Innovation Officer at Western Union. Mazzaferro: Keep it simple. 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. All of that is dependent on people in the organization putting resources behind this kind of an agile transformation. Were there tools or technology that were particularly helpful in your transformation? Western Union can leverage such physical presence to win this new innovative space. Its been a great combination. The central transformation team helps do the capability building in training those resources up, and then they run their own scaled-out deployment. Navigate The Foundation is supported by the Western Union Company, its employees, Agents, and business partners, working to support education and disaster relief efforts as pathways toward a better future. 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]. 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. These are seismic factors currently redefining our world, earning their own epochal moniker: The Fourth Industrial Revolution. ene. Consumers can 'Send Now, Pay Later' by borrowing up to AUD 2000 through Beforepay's wage-advance product on Western Union's digital channels. The company wanted to improve the digital experiences offered to customers and build new digital bankingproducts to extend its relationship with customers. Africa, South Created: 05-05-2021 - 17:15. To ensure those approaches were safe and secure, we partnered with governmental organizations to find new and secure ways to verify customers. Having got the right people in place, Singh and his team set about building a partner network to supercharge Western Unions technology evolution. 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. OutSystems provides the innovation and agility to accelerate the digital transformation of Western Union. 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. The transition from legacy systems to Oracle Solutions was critical to the strategy's success. But you say its about more than technology? Western Union has the infrastructure to help make that a reality. Western Union's cross-functional tech teams pushed out expanded digital options and real-time visibility on the status of its retail locations worldwide. We continue to experiment with the technology and time will tell if it offers a better alternative to traditional rails.. [1] One hundred years later, Western Union launched the first domestic commercial geostationary satellite (Westar 1). Thank you for this great post, Hans. However, Western Union would be wise to form a new, separate unit for exploring blockchain services. 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. The fusion of the digital and the physical, the irrepressible rise of new technologies. One trend that has emerged as a result is the growing role of digital money transfers among people who may not otherwise use those services. And still others want to do it all online.. The network upgrade will pave the way for Econet to deliver 5G connectivity in more . On May 17, 2018, at the Digital Assembly in Sofia, Bulgaria, the European Commission launched the Digital Agenda for the Western Balkans. (2013) Comparing Media Systems beyond the Western World. They tend to be younger, they live online and they prefer to do everything there, at the touch of a button, Fellahi observes. We wont bug you too much because thats more work for all of us. We caught up with Mazzaferro to dive deeper into how the Data Cloud enables ongoing digital . 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 . Think of Western Union, and its yellow placard advertising an agent location comes to mind. Hearing from customers helped us focus our messaging on two key ideas: digital convenience and staying safe through contactless funds transfer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press . Digital is all about how we reach the customer. Feb 7, 2023. So we had to figure out how to continue to show up for customers while also ensuring everyones health and safely. Top retailers use AI-powered campaigns to engage their most valuable customers. These agents typically manage retail stores across the world, and offer Western Union money transfer services in exchange for a commission. Digital Transformation. 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. According to the terms of the transaction . So, constant iteration and rapid delivery are crucial. Western Union has innovated before. These are things like rewards and recognition, top-down innovation, and consequence management. Tom Mazzaferro, Chief Data Officer at Western Union together with Nick Halsey, CEO at Okera talk about the technology that Western Union has adopted to help build new products and Western Union, Chief Data Officer: Digital Transformation Initiatives (Part 3) | Cloud | cdomagazine.tech The center of excellence keeps things on track and makes sure we follow a framework and are tracking the results, so that we can measure the impact of the transformation across the whole organization. & Publishing, Logistics today more than 65% of Western Union's digital transactions originate on a mobile . Convera. The resulting report, How to Win in the Data Economy, includes anecdotes from dozens of customers, analysts, and influencers about how to succeed, all in addition to the survey itself, based on feedback from 1,000 senior business, technology, and data managers across five industries and from all over the world. The executive team has done a great job of making it really clear across the company that this is something thats expected of you. Western Union and Beforepay Offer 'Send Now, Pay Later' Service to Consumers for International Money Transfers He reveals that Western Union was using multiple companies for each of its email, in-app and SMS communication channels. With the blockchain environment, there may be value in the technology as it becomes more mature and efficient. It is our responsibility to enable businesses, problem solvers, regulators and communities to leverage fintech for the betterment of lives. Entertainment, Professional Korea, United 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. [10]Jeff John Roberts, Western Union is Testing Ripple and XRP for Money Transfers, Fortune, Feb. 14, 2018. [8]David Thomas, Beyond the Hype: What Blockchain could mean for Africa, African Business Magazine, Feb. 26, 2018. 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. [5]. Many CEOs are lured into spending too much time on legacy businesses, which don't need CEO oversight. WU's platform provides seamless cross-border flows, and its leading global financial network bridges more than 200 countries and territories and over 130 currencies. Improvements that we made to our apps digital customer experience, for example, helped it become one of the most downloaded apps among our peer set in 2020. 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.. Leading fintech, Mambu, provides the platform and engine that drives the core of Western Union's new digital bank. Rica, Hong Sub-Saharan Africa 3G and 4G mobile broadband coverage stands at 86% and 57% of the population, respectively. Top-down prioritization of digital transformation. People who knew how a team or a group worked before can come in and see its night-and-day different. Learn what is a data platform, which encompass a range of elements required to support the data management cycle. 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. Singh estimates that the project has reduced how much it spends on talking to its customers by a quarter, while markedly improving this critical function. 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. Western Union now has more than 550,000 agent locations in more than 200 countries. 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. Prior to implementing Snowflake in 2021, Western Unions data spanned 34 on-premises data warehouses, resulting in latency and operational burdens. SEED aims to improve education and employability of students from low socio-economic backgrounds, especially children of refugees, migrants, and local families. The CDO needs to drive digital transformation by enabling data to power product development and the company. Business Application Services, Service Experience NICE have announced Western Union, a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement, has advanced customer experience through improved . Consumers are less aware that we have transformed ourselves into one of the largest digital money transfer firms in the world, with our digital activity generating well over $400 million revenues in 2017. Digital transformation in Western Union must be driven from the top-down. 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.. Arab Emirates. 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. One moment later, in Shimla, a hill country city in India, close to the ridge of the Himalayan foothills, a cashier at the . Some want to go to a retail store and pay cash. few clicks, you can use OutSystems to bring your visions to life. Almost immediately, it was clear that with retail stores temporarily closed, digital would need to play a larger role in delivering service to customers. With my work with WEF, I was lucky enough to sit around a table recently with some important people and talk about how we can take this forward. 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]. 12. 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. Best practices were also key. Mazzaferro: Snowflake is enabling quite a bit around analytics, reporting, event triggers, and settlement across our card providers. 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. Youre now a year into your role as CMO and leading through a prolonged global crisis. This is a powerful tool for our business and one of the key capabilities of our new infrastructure.. What we are talking about is not cryptocurrency, it is not something that has to be mined. Cookies help us deliver our services. Talend is our backbone for that work and have really evolved their product to meet our needs.. 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. We do that both in-line, so you as a manager go and visit your own organization, but also visit other functions. Experience in leading digital products from either the financial services, payment, or fintech industries. Teams that may not previously have interacted with each other are now doing floor walks with each other. 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. First, for continuity of services. Sector, Travel and
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