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 . 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. Industry experts were also drafted in to create the army that was required for this technology mission. It requires a change in process and culture, the adoption of a common lingo, executive buy-in, and a center of excellence to ensure enterprise-wide success. [8]David Thomas, Beyond the Hype: What Blockchain could mean for Africa, African Business Magazine, Feb. 26, 2018. Leadership Team - Western Union | Corporate Western Union digital integrates UAE Pass - Gulf Business (PDF-165 KB) The transformation of a legacy company whose roots lie in the era of the telegraph involves more than just lean deployments and agile methodologies. Western Union agrees sale of Business Solutions division for $910m I want to see those same results in my organization. I think thats an indication of how well its really working across the company. IT and engineering under one leader drives an exceptional customer of Use, Payment Harveer Singh Leads Western Union's Digital Transformation - Profile People are asking us, Hey, can you come help me? The executive team has done a great job of making it really clear across the company that this is something thats expected of you. Digital transformation in Western Union must be driven from the top-down. Dan Nordlander, senior vice president of Western Union Way Operations at Western Union, discusses his companys unique transformation journey with McKinseys Barr Seitz. You have to recognise that youre taking a massive journey as a company because it has always relied on data centres. 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. Manufacturing, Information Services Specifically,. Last year, the global-payment services giant completed 268 million consumer-to-consumer transactions worldwide, for a total of $80 billion. 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. Western Union, MFS Africa Partner to Enable Money Transfers into We saw that our revenue and customer base didnt reflect the opportunity and size of the market.. 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. 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. OutSystems provides the innovation and agility to accelerate the digital transformation of Western Union. Blockchain is technology that uses an open, distributed ledger to permanently verify and record transactions between two parties. Western Union is to shed its Business Solutions unit, with investment firms Goldfinch and Baupost set to acquire the business for $910 million in cash. The international roll-out continues to other countries at pace. Join us to learn how your organization can become a leader in the Data Economy and the business benefits that result. 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. Not just front-end, but back office and our contact center. The central transformation team helps do the capability building in training those resources up, and then they run their own scaled-out deployment. Sydney Mahan, The First Transcontinental Telegram was sent to DC 155 Years Ago, Washingtonian.com, Oct. 25, 2016. When people send money to friends or family across the country or around the world, chances are good that Western Union is involved. 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. 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. Contributed to establishing Quality Assurance, Training and Documentation strategy and processes for AML Operations functions. Western Union Digital Banking - Apps on Google Play Prior to implementing Snowflake in 2021, Western Unions data spanned 34 on-premises data warehouses, resulting in latency and operational burdens. So youre really talking about game-changing differences between how processes worked before and after. Last year, the global-payment services giant completed 268 million consumer-to-consumer transactions worldwide, for a total of $80 billion. The digital transformation is helping Western Union emerge from a challenging two-year era. 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. Policy . Behind those market-shaper practices are the lean tools and behaviors we develop and encourage. Western Union is renowned for its unparalleled international network, with over 500,000 agent locations spanning 200 countries and territories. As we get the pilots completed, the idea is to turn the WU Way team into more of a center of excellence. And the new business model may require a very different RPP (traditional money transfer process vs. transfer via blockchain). 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. Its in our DNA to think about global operations because Western Union covers the world.. 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). Jaffin: Digital was critical in a few ways. We will expand our Messenger bot to other countries and add other languages, he adds. Thats really enabled a lot more collaboration across groups. Western Union's Customer Journey Digital Transformation Fueled by NICE Western Union built its platform by assembling a global network of third party agents. 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. Now Departing: Union Pacific's 40-Year-Old Mainframe | CIO Digital transformation & economic opportunities - Blog - Western Union The aim of this paper is to sketch a brief history of complex digital transformation of media and . The Western Union Foundation is actively supporting NGOs that help refugees and migrants around the globe through education and financial literacy. However, Western Union doesnt view its established retail business as totally separate from the digital world. In 2011, Western Union opened an office in San Francisco to ramp up its digital operation. Product Director, United States Money Transfer. be to drive digital transformation and . We developed the whole front-end for the app in less than four months., Western Union uses OutSystems for customer-facing apps, back office, and workflow solutions. If Western Union tries to grow its blockchain capabilities within current operations, internal resistors may directly or indirectly sabotage the initiatives. We started function by function, looking at individual deployments across our different groups in the company. 2021. 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 is a partner of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and is a leading voice in the conversation of how to build a global payments ecosystem, which is stable and where remittances can be made much faster. If you are a new customer: now you can transfer your FIRST money transfer for FREE*. Chief Data and Innovation Officer, Western Union, Enterprise-grade scalability and security, Cloud-based IT architecture based on microservices. As an iconic brand for over 150 years, Western Union is constantly striving to innovate for their customers. 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. Huawei believes digital talent is a key driver in achieving digital transformation, solid economic growth, and better quality of life. . Salesforce has been such an important part of the digital experience journey.. 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. Download the Western Union (WU) money transfer app and quickly start sending cash to Mexico and worldwide, 24/7! Learn about JSON storage. Western Unions platform provides seamless cross-border flows and its leading global financial network bridges more than 200 countries and territories and over 130 currencies and 500K partner networks. 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. [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. Reflecting on the transformation to-date, Singh is clear that it hasnt come without its challenges. This entails a leader or a manager being on the floor with people doing their day-to-day jobs, just observing the way they work. 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. 12. They tend to be younger, they live online and they prefer to do everything there, at the touch of a button, Fellahi observes. McKinsey's Kausik Rajgopal and Lang Davison recently sat down with Western Union's CEO to talk about its multicultural customer base (and . 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. Manufacturing, Communication 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. Now we are on track to achieve those gains and benefits that come with being more agile and being able to grow at scale, we can really begin to look forward and reap the rewards of the transformation.. By using our services, you agree to our use of cookies. Part of this agility drive involved Western Union migrating its legacy on-prem IT infrastructure to the Cloud. Knowledge Institute, Chemical To address this new competitive landscape, Western Union sought an agility boost to accelerate innovation. The paper analyzes the issues of digital transformation in the European Union in such key dimensions as financing digitalization and implementing public policy to bridge the digital divide in the EU member countries. Discover the latest software purchases and digital transformation initiatives being undertaken by Western Union and its business and technology executives. To ensure those approaches were safe and secure, we partnered with governmental organizations to find new and secure ways to verify customers. Women in Marketing: Executives who are building brand narratives The CDO needs to drive digital transformation by enabling data to power product development and the company. 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. Enterprise Technology Operations Center Manager. That means we can onboard new developers and have them productive much faster, and weve got fewer knowledge silos in the development team., Moreover, low-code development on OutSystems helps Tom fight back in the war for digital talent. Why Do Companies Choose to Outsource Work? Gartner Magic Quadrant for Low-Code Application Platforms, 2023. The culture change has to be driven across teams to show how technology has enabled different and better outcomes. A hugely significant piece of the transformation has come from rethinking how Western Union communicates with its vast customer base. Western Union is working alongside Amazon Web Services (AWS) and AWS Partners to transform and expand its business, including the launch of a new digital bank.