Western Union, Chief Data Officer: Digital Transformation Initiatives He shares his views on digital transformation and economic opportunities for all. What does "digital transformation" mean to Western Union? 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. 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.. Were talking 30 percent, 40 percent, and, in some cases, deployments with a 70 percent return on capacity. For example, helping African countries develop official land registers could eliminate a huge barrier to investment and capital inflows (e.g., by resolving uncertain and disputed land titles). Hiring experienced developers was already hard, and the skills drought got even worse with the great resignation. Something that is ripe for discussion among many of these discussion groups is the idea of a digital dollar, which could be made transferable all around the world with vendors and partners.. Navigating complex land title issues would also leverage Western Unions existing capabilities of dealing with a range of government regulations. Since 2008, Huawei has offered a wide and expanding range of . 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. In the past five years, theres been a leveling across applications and data. . s full anLearn more about the data lake, a repository for structured, unstructured, and semi-structured data that provided direct access to raw organizational data. 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. In the past, JSON storage and analysis required specific JSON databases. ene. In 2017, Western Union invested $200 million and 20% of its workforce on compliance functions. That created a need to act. People are asking us, Hey, can you come help me? Though its too early for results, the response from consumers has been positive, he says. We scored ourselves as an organization on these market-shaper practices when we started the transformation in 2016. She also has worked with ad agencies like Ogilvy and McCann. Board of Directors. It has become one of the leaders in Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) technology and the majority of the data moving across our ecosystem is now powered by Talend. 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.. Western Union's digital banking platform is a complex ecosystem of partnerships from across the technology and fintech landscape. His career span includes working with organizations like FIS, Western Union, HCL Technologies, CGI, Mahindra Satyam and iGate Global Solutions. Western Union agrees sale of Business Solutions division for $910m 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. It works with Talend to streamline data movement in compliance with GDPR across financial, reconciliation, auditing and trading partners. Gartner Magic Quadrant for Low-Code Application Platforms, 2023. Definition of Digital Transformation - IT Glossary | Gartner 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. 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. Digital transformation in Western Union must be driven from the top-down. (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. 1 (March 1990), pp. BWIRE: Support youths to enhance their digital skills Banco Santander Consumer Portugal Adopts OutSystems as its Digital Transformation Platform. While the pace of change has been considerable, the leadership team at Western Union has been focused on implementing a large-scale technology transformation. Blockchain is technology that uses an open, distributed ledger to permanently verify and record transactions between two parties. The author approaches the problem using public. Data and insights gave us the ability to make important strategic decisions in the throes of what could have been a panic. [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. The term is widely used in public-sector organizations to refer to modest initiatives such as putting services online or legacy modernization. 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. ", Tom adds, In fast-moving customer-facing scenarios, development is never build-once-and-doneyoure always iterating to refine the customer experience. Big data has helped Western Union merge data across multiple channels for years, for marketing and promotion, customer lifecycle management, compliance and fraud modeling. Financing Digital Transformation and Bridging Digital Divide: The Case 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. Mazzaferro: Snowflake is enabling quite a bit around analytics, reporting, event triggers, and settlement across our card providers. Cloud services such as cloud data platforms have become cost-efficient, high performance calling cards for any business that leverages big data. Behind those market-shaper practices are the lean tools and behaviors we develop and encourage. Ericsson will help accelerate Econet's digital transformation journey. . Commenting on the advantages of development on OutSystems, Tom says, "We estimate that we're getting new products . [7]While cryptocurrencies are an obvious threat to Western Unions cross-border money transfers, Blockchain also can be used in a range of imaginative ways. 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. Looking back at the results of our work over the last couple of years across all of our deployments, you see some really impressive gains. Procurement & Construction, Financial The relationship with Talend has enabled Western Union to help its global customer base in times of real need. In just 11 months, we delivered a full-service digital banking experience that expands our relationship with customers.. 2023Western Union Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The network upgrade will pave the way for Econet to deliver 5G connectivity in more . Digital transformation starts with people, which is a useful reminder that . 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. 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). Western Union uses a central team to build new capabilities across the 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. Swanback said a . Technology powers the data economy. Western Union International Bank is licensed by the Austrian Financial Market Authority. Finance. When people send money to friends or family across the country or around the world, chances are good that Western Union is involved. Western Union will likely face internal resistance from three sources. Over the last two years, Singh has been accelerating Western Union's tech plan. [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. 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. 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. I want to see those same results in my organization. I think thats an indication of how well its really working across the company. Business Application Services, Service Experience 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. Mazzaferro: Technology is a critical part of the equation, of course, but technology can never drive culture change. Youre now a year into your role as CMO and leading through a prolonged global crisis. Transfers can be delivered in cash or into a digital wallet or a bank account via electronic funds transfer. Need a Lenten fish fry? There's an interactive map for that We have a lot of great ideas in terms of investments to drive that topline revenue growth, but we needed ways to fund those. Jay Jaffin was just starting his role as Western Union's chief marketing officer when the pandemic arrived. Updated on. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Data privacy and security practices . Build customized, secure, and scalable mobile banking apps. Now data is the driver and applications are being developed to handle that data and represent it to business stakeholders to make it consumable. 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 . . We set up virtual war rooms, met with our executive team daily to strategize, and spoke to customers every week to keep a pulse on their needs.