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. These are things like rewards and recognition, top-down innovation, and consequence management. 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. 35, No. Definition of Digital Transformation - IT Glossary | Gartner SEED aims to improve education and employability of students from low socio-economic backgrounds, especially children of refugees, migrants, and local families. 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 top challenge for businesses with digital transformation goals in 2023 is determining where their companies should direct spending on technologies, according to a BCG X report. The transformation of a legacy company whose roots lie in the era of the telegraph involves more than just lean deployments and agile methodologies. 12. 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. Western Union's Customer Journey Digital Transformation Fueled by NICE [5] 2017 Annual ReportCEO Letter (noting Western Union has expanded its fund payout network to billions of bank accounts). That created a need to act. Revenue from Western Union's digital money transfer services spiked from $600 million in 2019 to over $850 million in 2020. [9]Clayton M. Christensen & Michael E. Raynor,The Innovators Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2003), Ch. (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. Log in to help. Digital transformation in the EU | News | European Parliament Accelerating Digital Transformation in Western and Central Africa Business Application Services, Service Experience Board of Directors. He shares his views on digital transformation and economic opportunities for all. So, constant iteration and rapid delivery are crucial. 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. These agents typically manage retail stores across the world, and offer Western Union money transfer services in exchange for a commission. Alonso Calderon - Enterprise Technology Operations Center Manager 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. The digital transformation is helping Western Union emerge from a challenging two-year era. Western Union is the worlds first P2P company. 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. We position ourselves as creating opportunity for financial inclusion by bridging gaps in the financial services sector. Leadership Team. Almost immediately, it was clear that with retail stores temporarily closed, digital would need to play a larger role in delivering service to customers. Prior to implementing Snowflake in 2021, Western Unions data spanned 34 on-premises data warehouses, resulting in latency and operational burdens. And its not something you can achieve really quickly, its a multiple-year process. Mazzaferro: Technology is a critical part of the equation, of course, but technology can never drive culture change. Now Departing: Union Pacific's 40-Year-Old Mainframe | CIO document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Want to learn more about technology and organizations? Financing Digital Transformation and Bridging Digital Divide: The Case Media, Madison Square Now its more pull. Western Union. 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]. Stephanie Pankau - Product Director, United States Money Transfer Automation reduces development toil, were more productive, so we dont need so many developers, and we dont end up with orphaned code when developers leave. We saw that our revenue and customer base didnt reflect the opportunity and size of the market.. Western Union's digital transformation efforts may fail to drive earnings growth, but they may be enough to keep earnings steady going forward. Theyve complemented each other really well and been able to almost mentor each other, as well as building great relationships with the product groups. The Baupost Group is a $31 billion Boston-based investment firm. 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. He reveals that Western Union was using multiple companies for each of its email, in-app and SMS communication channels. [12]Josh Constine, Western Union Brings Money Transfer and Its Tricky Fees to Chat Apps, TechCrunch.com, Feb. 4, 2016. 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. Digital transformation in Western Union must be driven from the top-down. He shares his views on digital transformation and economic opportunities for all. Western Union (NYSE: WU), a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments and Zain Cash, the award-winning mobile financia . Meridian, Infosys But new innovators are highlighting a problem for Western Union: multi-homing is high with money transfers. Anil Santhapuri - Director of Skills Solutions, Global Talent But Western Union is missing the true potential of blockchain for its business. Jay Jaffin was just starting his role as Western Unions chief marketing officer when the pandemic arrived. And if Western Union doesnt embrace and transform along with those technologies, it will fade away just like the telegraph. Technology powers the data economy. Jaffin: Our company mission is to enable financial transfers between people anywhere and everywhere; we had a responsibility to continue to deliver on that. Ein Jahr Western Union Digital Banking in Deutschland: 6 % Zinsen fr A doctor in London taps an app on her phone to transfer 500 pounds. 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. Western Union has the infrastructure to help make that a reality. First, for continuity of services. On May 17, 2018, at the Digital Assembly in Sofia, Bulgaria, the European Commission launched the Digital Agenda for the Western Balkans. Navigating complex land title issues would also leverage Western Unions existing capabilities of dealing with a range of government regulations. (2013) Comparing Media Systems beyond the Western World. Digital Bulletin exists to tell the story. 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. Profiles, Infosys Knowledge 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. <br><br>My Leadership Philosophy<br><br>I am an . 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 . Last year, the global-payment services giant completed 268 million consumer-to-consumer transactions worldwide, for a total of $80 billion. Western Union is a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments. Digital transformation starts with people, which is a useful reminder that . 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. His career span includes working with organizations like FIS, Western Union, HCL Technologies, CGI, Mahindra Satyam and iGate Global Solutions. With the blockchain environment, there may be value in the technology as it becomes more mature and efficient. Join us to learn how your organization can become a leader in the Data Economy and the business benefits that result. These are seismic factors currently redefining our world, earning their own epochal moniker: The Fourth Industrial Revolution. What are the biggest lessons you learned? In a report on ERP modernization, the global market intelligence firm highlights how Western Digital . The international roll-out continues to other countries at pace. Driving Western Union's tech transformation - Digital Bulletin ; With the solution, Western Union launched a state-of-the-art digital . Mazzaferro: Keep it simple. Some development teams suffer 100 percent attrition in two to three years., "OutSystems helps in many ways. 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 For more than 170 years Western Union has been helping people send money all over the world. For example, De Beers is trying to create a diamond blockchain for registration and authentication, to prevent the spread of conflict diamonds. And, Fellahi points out, When you look at customer acquisition on our digital channel, 80 percent of the customers we acquired in the past 12 months are new to usnot migrated from our traditional customer base., He expects digital money transfer and mobile technology to be the major driver of overall growth in coming years, adding, In the U.S., over 65 percent of WU.com transactions are initiated on a mobile device, and globally it is nearly 60 percent.. Procurement & Construction, Financial Finance. 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. On March 1, Huawei held a "Digital Leadership Seminar" during Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2023 in Barcelona, Spain, attended by more than 60 high-level customers from global carriers, government enterprises, and KOL. What does "digital transformation" mean to Western Union? 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.. Jaffin: We engaged with tech partners like Google almost immediately to refine our go-to-market strategy. 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 . 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. ene. How did you evolve for digital convenience and safety? Convera's Next Steps: Western Union Business Solutions - Forbes Consumers can 'Send Now, Pay Later' by borrowing up to AUD 2000 through Beforepay's wage-advance product on Western Union's digital channels. Rica, Hong 2023Western Union Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The term is widely used in public-sector organizations to refer to modest initiatives such as putting services online or legacy modernization. How Western Union achieved Digital Transformation with Infosys and Oracle. Its created a need for financial sector brands to step up and help by democratizing access to their services via mobile phones. 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. 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. 2021. Similarly, Western Union's ethos is based on empowering the aspiring populations of the world with accessible financial tools to improve the lives of their loved ones and communities. We go where our customers go, says Khalid Fellahi, senior vice president and general manager for Western Union Digital, based in San Francisco. Specifically, how Data, Editors note: This is part of a series of blogs about the data economy. What we are talking about is not cryptocurrency, it is not something that has to be mined. Services, High Western Union and Beforepay Offer 'Send Now, Pay Later' Service to Consumers for International Money Transfers 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. 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. 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. So well go from maybe four pilot teams to a plan to scale out across 400 people and maybe 30 teams next year. Digital transformation & economic opportunities - Blog - Western Union The executive team has done a great job of making it really clear across the company that this is something thats expected of you. 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 would this improve our agility, the need to deliver great digital experiences at scale, and the desire to use low-code across the whole stackfront-end, integration, and back-end core systems., Western Union became an OutSystems customer in November 2020. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 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 now has more than 550,000 agent locations in more than 200 countries. Africa, South Western Union launched its digital banking app in Germany and Romania in Spring 2022, following 11 months of iterative development. For example, we began offering an option for telephone money transfer. Thats really enabled a lot more collaboration across groups. Big data has helped Western Union merge data across multiple channels for years, for marketing and promotion, customer lifecycle management, compliance and fraud modeling. Its time to align your banks digital transformation strategy with the entire customer lifecycle by providing a personalized omnichannel experience. Manufacturing, Communication Today, WU.com is available in 40 countries, with mobile apps in 18 of them. Western Union: Leading or Lagging Digital Transformation? We wont bug you too much because thats more work for all of us. Its one of the most widely used platforms from a data perspective and were expanding our relationship with Talend to start using some of its data quality products as well. . Driving Western Union's Tech Transformation | by Digital Bulletin . Technology, Industrial 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. Digital Transformation. But it becomes more self-driven, and that really enables the scale. Western Union's digital transformation sprints to mobile Reframe blockchain from a threat to an opportunity, by creating a new autonomous unit. [1] The first transcontinental telegraph was sent on October 24, 1861, from the Chief Justice of California to President Abraham Lincoln. Hearing from customers helped us focus our messaging on two key ideas: digital convenience and staying safe through contactless funds transfer. Youre expected to find ways to optimize your processes and drive value. You have to recognise that youre taking a massive journey as a company because it has always relied on data centres. Patrick Gauthier, CEO of Convera, formerly known as Western Union Business Solutions. 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. ", Tom adds, In fast-moving customer-facing scenarios, development is never build-once-and-doneyoure always iterating to refine the customer experience.