The powerful tech duo aiding global growth for Airwallex 

Airwallex reveals its tech stack as it unveils plans to be the world’s most innovative financial services platform.

For fast-growth fintechs like Airwallex, keeping up with an insatiable appetite for its technology from customers around the world requires an internal tech stack that rivals that of its competitors. 

As the global payments and financial platform surpasses $100 billion in annual processing volume, Airwallex has seen processing volume grow 73% year-on-year as the company prepares to onboard a further 400 employees before the end of the year to keep up with constant demands for growth. 

The tech darling has grown from a small payments start-up developed in Melbourne into a multi-billion-dollar unicorn following a phenomenal growth trajectory, delivering on founder and CEO Jack Zhang’s vision. 

Today, Airwallex employs 1,500 staff and is growing rapidly across 23 different time zones as its people log in to work around the clock to service more than 100,000 global customers, including Qantas, SHEIN and Brex. 

Fast-pace workplace

As Airwallex closes towards its goal of being the most innovative and efficient financial services platform in the world, the company reveals that the powerful combination of Salesforce and Slack has given it the wings it needs to grow into a global force. 

Inside this tech dynamo, emails are practically obsolete. With Slack as the workplace hub, Airwallex has a single platform that connects employees, customers, and partners, leading a historic shift to a digital-first world. Slack has been pivotal in centralising communication, streamlining operations, maintaining transparency and creating an open culture during rapid expansion. 

Airwallex head of enterprise ANZ Huw Griffiths, says that regularly evaluating the tech stack and constantly scoping out improvement areas to reduce friction for employees and customers has proven to be a winning formula. 

Above all else, Slack has reduced time and friction for pricing or high-risk deal approvals to draw that quick action, which has radically impacted the day-to-day workflow, Griffiths says. 

“Slack supports our commitment to an open and reflective culture, enabling teams to solve problems collaboratively. For example, the incident management team uses Slack to coordinate with up to 30 tech engineers, ensuring issues are quickly resolved. 

“It’s a truly collaborative tool that allows us to move incredibly fast when we’re looking to involve local stakeholders or a complex project or thread, allowing us to achieve rapid-fire decisions in a truly global environment”

Huw Griffiths

“When we’re looking to involve local stakeholders or run a complex project scenario or thread, we can achieve quick decision-making in a very short amount of time through Slack because we can involve a lot of people quickly and easily,” he says. 

While having the right technology at his fingertips helps, for the dedicated team working inside the growing company, the pace of change takes some getting used to. “Airwallex is the fastest environment I’ve ever worked in. It’s an environment where you have to quickly digest information and create quality output quickly. The best way to achieve this when working cross-functionally, as we do, has been to move almost completely away from emails. It just doesn’t serve us anymore,” Griffiths says. 

Fostering an open culture

Airwallex relies on Slack to foster a technology-first approach and Slack Channels and digital spaces to share messages to keep 1,500 staff in the loop and updated as changes unfold almost hourly, ensuring global teams are instantly brought up to speed. To keep up with its rapid growth, Airwallex has turned to Slack to streamline the interview process and welcome new starters 

The other important piece of the tech puzzle has been the integration with the cloud-based customer relationship management software company Salesforce, which helps organisations of any size reimagine their business for the world of AI. 

Salesforce allows teams to generate detailed reports on customer interactions, sales performance, and market trends, which ultimately helps the team see how effective their strategies are in real time. Segmentation and targeting based on customer criteria such as industry, engagement level, and past interactions help tailor engagement across sales and marketing more effectively.  

It’s a powerful combination that fosters stronger connections and promotes an open culture among its workforce, says manager of revenue operations Monica Masaoka. 

“Salesforce has helped us to drive operational efficiencies by having all the customer information in one spot. We have built more streamlined forecasting processes, enhanced rep productivity and ultimately empowered the team to support and manage customers more effectively..”  

While Salesforce is the only CRM she’s ever known, Monica notes that she’s seen it at its best at Airwallex, given the fast-paced, complex environment, which makes its integration into Slack even more important. “Our lead routing notifications land in Slack so that anytime a new customer signs up, a new Slack notification is triggered and prompts the relevant sales rep to get in touch with the relevant customer details at their fingertips.  

“And because it’s now all in Slack, it gives our sales leadership team good visibility over the entire business. Together, they give us a platform that provides dashboards, analytics and most importantly, connection points for us to review and take action on,” Monica says.  

Stacking the tech

Airwallex knows only too well that its competitors are nipping at its heels. Today, every company wants to be an AI company, new insights just released by Salesforce reveal. 

A survey of nearly 300 leaders across Australia confirms that C-suite executives are bullish on generative AI integration and are taking action to ensure its success. When asked where generative AI would have the biggest positive impact, executives were clear that operations, innovative customer and employee experiences, marketing and IT could be transformed by embracing generative AI. 

Despite wide approval, many executives admit there are still barriers to adopting generative AI in their businesses today. 

As customers like Airwallex look to scale growth, they need an operating system for work that unifies and orchestrates people and projects, data and knowledge, apps and intelligent agents, according to Derek Laney, technology evangelist at Salesforce. 

“We hear a lot from customers about their unique tech stacks and specific needs to ensure their business is prepared for the future of work. But they don’t necessarily want just another tool; they need humans and technology to work together to drive business success,” Laney says. 

“That’s why we see customers using Salesforce and Slack together for processes like lead management, customer service and marketing. It’s about bringing together people with the data and apps they need to get their job done. The results speak for themselves: our customers are reporting as much as a 47% increase in productivity when using Slack to create their work operating system,” Laney says. 

“In the past, we would work together in one place. Then we’d go back to our desks and use our enterprise applications to input all that data into one system – sometimes, multiple systems, with people needing to swivel chairs between these applications to keep multiple contexts updated. 

“It’s incredible that 76% of workers agree that they’re using apps at work more than five years ago, and 67% expect that to increase. So clearly, there’s a strong need for a shift in how we manage the way we use our technology platforms for work.” 

The combination of Slack and Salesforce is changing work. “We now get work done within the system, drawing on insights from the system, collaborating in shared open spaces and with intelligent agents. This creates speed because of the trust and transparency built into this workflow; these systems can be brought into communication processes to work side by side with people,” Laney says.