Reflecting on the transformation to-date, Singh is clear that it hasnt come without its challenges. [9]Clayton M. Christensen & Michael E. Raynor,The Innovators Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2003), Ch. [2]But today, new technologies are threatening Western Unions entire business model. We wont bug you too much because thats more work for all of us. Digital transformation in Western Union must be driven from the top-down. Guide for Suppliers, Select In the past five years, theres been a leveling across applications and data. For more than 170 years Western Union has been helping people send money all over the world. 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. Secure, touchless, digital money transfers were a safe, reliable way for people to send funds where they needed to, so we leaned in there. When people send money to friends or family across the country or around the world, chances are good that Western Union is involved. The transformation of a legacy company whose roots lie in the era of the telegraph involves more than just lean deployments and agile methodologies. NICE have announced Western Union, a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement, has advanced customer experience through improved . [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. Safety starts with understanding how developers collect and share your data. And if Western Union doesnt embrace and transform along with those technologies, it will fade away just like the telegraph. The new generation of customers, especially Millennials, want to find us in the ecosystem of messaging apps.. Security, Infosys This would help Western Union objectively pursue new blockchain opportunities, even if those opportunities eventually cannibalize or destroy its existing C2C business. 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. Technology, Industrial By John Manning, International Banker. 35, No. Denver, Colorado. He reveals that Western Union was using multiple companies for each of its email, in-app and SMS communication channels. Increasingly, digital technology and mobile devices play a key role in these transactions. We're making content recommendations better for thousands of readers. your next, Infosys Western Uniona global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and paymentsis driving a company-wide transformation, which includes migrating its infrastructure from on-prem to the Cloud. To accelerate application development, improve agility, and provide great digital experiences, the company chose OutSystems as its high-performance low-code platform. Others see blockchain as an opportunity to help emerging governments become efficient and transparent, for example, by serving as the official land title registration. Western Union charges high fees since they need to cover rent and labor overhead. Prior to implementing Snowflake in 2021, Western Unions data spanned 34 on-premises data warehouses, resulting in latency and operational burdens. Please enable Javascript to see this feature. few clicks, you can use OutSystems to bring your visions to life. Beyond the public health crisis, COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on personal finances, causing poverty levels and inequality to rise globally. 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.. Marketing tactics evolved to attract digital customers, who have a different profile from traditional retail customers. If you are a new customer: now you can transfer your FIRST money transfer for FREE*. An advantage of Western Unions omnichannel approach is that it includes all customers, whether they are integrated or not in the financial system: the banked, the underbanked, and the unbanked. Start Time: 16:30 January 1, 0000 5:32 PM ETThe Western Union Company (NYSE:NYSE:WU)Q3 2022 Earnings Conference CallNovember 01, 2022, 16:30 PM ETCompany ParticipantsDevin McGranahan -. That system is fine in a cash based economy, but is becoming increasingly cumbersome as digital payments take hold in emerging markets. Transformation, Cyber Once a customer notarises their documents, they can be stored in a safe location and distributed across the blockchain network, so any regulatory authority or government can access that information. 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. Many of its 150 million customers worldwide depend on money transfers to pay for food, electricity, medication, and other necessities. Talends technology has been used similarly in response to people impacted by floods in Haiti and to Indian citizens at the height of the countrys COVID-19 crisis. Its in our DNA to think about global operations because Western Union covers the world.. Every year or two we rescore ourselves in a company-wide exercise to see where were making progress and where were falling behind. 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 . Rica, Hong 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.. Its created a need for financial sector brands to step up and help by democratizing access to their services via mobile phones. 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. Poland followed later in 2022, while plans are at hand to launch Italy by the end of the year. Strategic partnerships working with platforms like Google is a critical piece of that. 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 . In Western and Central Africa, only 36% of the population has access to broadband connectivity. My mission is to empower people to become economically self-reliant. Customers can send and receive money in a fast, reliable and convenient manner., We are proud to offer the same omnichannel choice in Austria. The Western Union Foundation is actively supporting NGOs that help refugees and migrants around the globe through education and financial literacy. 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. The Western Union Way of digital transformation. While the pace of change has been considerable, the leadership team at Western Union has been focused on implementing a large-scale technology transformation. 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. In 2016, Western Union completed 268 million consumer-to-consumer transactions and 523 million business payments world-wide, moving more than $150 billion of principal for consumers and businesses. The company wanted to improve the digital experiences offered to customers and build new digital bankingproducts to extend its relationship with customers. Leaders across many industries and companies of all sizes report that one of their biggest challenges is siloed data. It works with Talend to streamline data movement in compliance with GDPR across financial, reconciliation, auditing and trading partners. Mazzaferro: In the past, the thinking in the industry has often been that applications are king, and that data flows through the applications. With OutSystems, we deploy twice every week. We are also launching new products into the market, including a pilot for digital banking services in select markets in Europe and a revamped loyalty programme, which require us to capture data from our central warehouses to drive decision making, marketing and customer acquisition. Commenting on the advantages of development on OutSystems, Tom says, "We estimate that we're getting new products . We know there are certain systems that we cannot just move to the cloud straight away such as the AS400 IBM mainframe, but weve managed to take the ecosystem that surrounds our legacy technology and move it to the cloud and we think we can get everything to the cloud before the end of the year. However, Western Union would be wise to form a new, separate unit for exploring blockchain services. So well go from maybe four pilot teams to a plan to scale out across 400 people and maybe 30 teams next year. How did you evolve for digital convenience and safety? Most popular: Free $20 Amazon.com e-gift code for every friend you refer (earn up to $500). 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. 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. Engaged in problem resolution of complex . [11]See generally Rebecca M. Henderson & Kim B. Clark, Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and the Failure of Established Firms, Administrative Science Quarterly Vol. - Access cash back rewards at the WU store. Solutions enabled - Oracle Revenue Management and Billing, Oracle Business Intelligence, Infosys Transaction Reconciliation System, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Solution and Services, Infosys Oracle Services, part of Infosys Cobalt. Consumers can 'Send Now, Pay Later' by borrowing up to AUD 2000 through Beforepay's wage-advance product on Western Union's digital channels.