Divestiture Will Support Western Union's Strategic Focus on its Global Cross-Border Payments Platform and Digital Capabilities The author approaches the problem using public. It took six months to do the bare minimum. Weve been able to increase the amount and frequency of relevant data we can share with our agents, and they have started to build new processes based on that. 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. Goldfinch Partners is a private equity firm investing in businesses specialising in digital transformation. These strategies are paying off. Last year, the global-payment services giant completed 268 million consumer-to-consumer transactions worldwide, for a total of $80 billion. Mohua Das Gupta - Head of Marketing, Tata CliQ. 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. In the past, JSON storage and analysis required specific JSON databases. However, Western Union doesnt view its established retail business as totally separate from the digital world. [4] Form 10-K for the year ended December 2017, p.7. Kong, New 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. Western Unions typical customers are migrants seeking a better life not just for themselves, but for their families back home who rely on fund transfers to meet basic needs. There was a need to accelerate the process we wanted to undertake, I have that experience of transformation projects happening on a massive scale. . 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. We built the Western Union Way team, or the WU Way team as we call it, with ten high-potential individuals from around the company. 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. The Western Union Foundation is actively supporting NGOs that help refugees and migrants around the globe through education and financial literacy. When people from different departments do these floor walks together, theyre realizing that they actually have a lot more in common with each other or notice areas where they can collaborate that they didnt realize before. They can include creating strategy placemats (one-page strategy overviews that are easily shared), frequent team huddles, one-on-one coaching, and process confirmation. Digital Transformation. Our leadership team remains true to our vision and values, putting customers' evolving needs at the center of our innovation and holding up trust and convenience as the hallmarks of our business. Rapid iteration is a crucial capability for Western Union, especially when designing customer experiencesin over 200 countries with local customer and regulatory requirements. Africa's largest payment gateway, MFS Africa, has partnered with Western Union to enable individuals and businesses across the continent to receive money Guide for Suppliers, Select 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. Gartner Magic Quadrant for Low-Code Application Platforms, 2023. On May 17, 2018, at the Digital Assembly in Sofia, Bulgaria, the European Commission launched the Digital Agenda for the Western Balkans. Leadership. Analytics, API Economy & [9]Western Union recently dipped its toes into blockchain. He also praises Snowflakes adaptability when it came to dealing with huge capacity increases. Swanback said a . [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. How Your Small Business Can Be Managed With The Right Databases, Why Businesses Must Focus on Introducing Technology in the Workplace. One of the benefits that weve really seen as weve gone through these first two years of our journey is what happens when we get everyone speaking the same language. [5]. Many of its 150 million customers worldwide depend on money transfers to pay for food, electricity, medication, and other necessities. Africa, South One of our most important tools is the floor walk. Although retail business declined during . Jaffin: Our company mission is to enable financial transfers between people anywhere and everywhere; we had a responsibility to continue to deliver on that. 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. [12]These kind of digital initiatives are good pursuits for current operational leaders, since they represent incremental or modular innovations to Western Unions existing product offerings. First, for continuity of services. 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. 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. Head of Information Technology & Digital Transformation Econet Wireless Zimbabwe Oct 2015 - Present 7 years 6 months. Why Do Companies Choose to Outsource Work? Digital Bulletin exists to tell the story. Everest Group Low-Code Application Development Platforms PEAK Matrix 2022. [8]. Teams that may not previously have interacted with each other are now doing floor walks with each other. But new innovators are highlighting a problem for Western Union: multi-homing is high with money transfers. 2021. Western Union charges high fees since they need to cover rent and labor overhead. Lastly, how do you see digital continuing to drive your services in the future? Specifically,. 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.. Western Union's digital transformation efforts may fail to drive earnings growth, but they may be enough to keep earnings steady going forward. We offer consumers the choices they want, both for sending and receiving money, he stresses. (2017) Monitoring Media Pluralism in Europe: Application of the Media Pluralism Monitor 2016 in the European Union, Montenegro and Turkey. Others prefer to prepare a transaction online and then go to a retail location to pay cash. Its been a great combination. In [] Team members were drawn from different continents and operating on different time zones. Digital is all about how we reach the customer. Meeting the moment with solutions required Western Union to accelerate its own digital transformation. 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. Data privacy and security practices . Imagine what we can do if you let us work with your team as well.. There were definitely times I was looking at costs and thinking how I was going to explain to finance, or my CFO, he says. Zealand, South Rica, Hong For example, we began offering an option for telephone money transfer. The aim of this paper is to sketch a brief history of complex digital transformation of media and . 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. Society Updated: 01-06-2022 - 11:45. - Earn My WU points. 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. | Learn more about Rokas kudas's work experience, education, connections & more by visiting their profile on . 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. Thats really enabled a lot more collaboration across groups. Procurement & Construction, Financial Youre expected to come up with new ways of innovation to drive revenue growth across the organization. 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. Part of this agility drive involved Western Union migrating its legacy on-prem IT infrastructure to the Cloud. Discover how Santander Consumer Finance replaced 70% of their core IT systems in three years with OutSystems. . Experience in leading digital products from either the financial services, payment, or fintech industries. [5] 2017 Annual ReportCEO Letter (noting Western Union has expanded its fund payout network to billions of bank accounts). The pilots help get buy-in across the organization, and then once we have that buy-in, it provides the resources necessary to scale. The difference with OutSystems is that we can do that fast and at scale, deploying experiences that are fast to load, reliable, and secure. Dan Nordlander is senior vice president of Western Union Way Operations at Western Union, and Barr Seitz is senior manager of editorial and digital communications in McKinseys New York office. Snowflake enables us to centralize our data and enable application and business processes to leverage it across the organization. Now that these pilots are winding down, its been easy to get the support across the organization to find the resources necessary to establish teams that can scale it out in different areas across the company.