Google Cloud Platform Case Studies BMG's Transformation: Streamlining Royalty Processing with Google Cloud

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	BMG's Transformation: Streamlining Royalty Processing with Google Cloud Google Cloud Platform

BMG's Transformation: Streamlining Royalty Processing with Google Cloud

Google Cloud Platform

Technology Category	Analytics & Modeling - Machine Learning Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
Applicable Industries	Cement Construction & Infrastructure
Applicable Functions	Quality Assurance Sales & Marketing
Use Cases	Construction Management Infrastructure Inspection
Services	Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services Testing & Certification
Challenge	The music industry has undergone a significant shift from physical sales to digital streaming, which now accounts for more than half of all sales globally. This shift has made the process of paying artists more fragmented and complex. Artists are paid a small royalty for each song downloaded or streamed, which means that the volume of data that needs to be processed has grown exponentially. BMG, a Berlin-based international music company, found itself needing to process 1,500 times the amount of data to calculate payments for artists. Until 2019, BMG’s infrastructure was entirely hosted on-premises. The hardware limitations made it challenging to scale on-demand, making it harder to handle the data peaks that royalty processing can bring. The company was facing a ceiling in a few years, and processing royalty payments was becoming increasingly time-consuming and expensive. Read More
About Customer	BMG is a global music company based in Berlin, Germany. It operates in the traditionally separate music publishing and recordings markets off the same integrated platform. The company works with both emerging artists and established stars, including John Legend, Kylie Minogue, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards. BMG provides customized, transparent, and fair services to songwriters and artists, helping them navigate the complex royalties landscape and maximize their profits. The company uses data to maximize the impact and revenue of new records for its creators. With the MyBMG web and mobile application, clients can view and analyze their royalty details in real time and collect payment. Read More
Solution	To address these challenges, BMG decided to migrate its entire managed data center infrastructure to Google Cloud. The company partnered with Rackspace Technology to move applications to the cloud while keeping payment cycles on track for its artists. BMG’s technology team outlined the Google Cloud architecture, which was then optimized by Rackspace Technology. The company migrated 17 applications successfully and is using solutions like Cloud Storage to securely store 130 TB of data, and Cloud SQL as its standard database technology. The web applications run on Compute Engine, App Engine, and Google Kubernetes Engine. BMG’s royalty calculations, which require significant processing power, run entirely on Dataproc with output stored on BigQuery for downstream integration and reporting. By integrating Data Catalog with BigQuery, BMG has made the data more accessible to all teams, enabling them to detect missing income and new revenue streams independently. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Machine Learning

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing

Applicable Industries

Cement

Construction & Infrastructure

Applicable Functions

Quality Assurance

Sales & Marketing

Use Cases

Construction Management

Infrastructure Inspection

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

Testing & Certification

Challenge

The music industry has undergone a significant shift from physical sales to digital streaming, which now accounts for more than half of all sales globally. This shift has made the process of paying artists more fragmented and complex. Artists are paid a small royalty for each song downloaded or streamed, which means that the volume of data that needs to be processed has grown exponentially. BMG, a Berlin-based international music company, found itself needing to process 1,500 times the amount of data to calculate payments for artists. Until 2019, BMG’s infrastructure was entirely hosted on-premises. The hardware limitations made it challenging to scale on-demand, making it harder to handle the data peaks that royalty processing can bring. The company was facing a ceiling in a few years, and processing royalty payments was becoming increasingly time-consuming and expensive.

About Customer

BMG is a global music company based in Berlin, Germany. It operates in the traditionally separate music publishing and recordings markets off the same integrated platform. The company works with both emerging artists and established stars, including John Legend, Kylie Minogue, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards. BMG provides customized, transparent, and fair services to songwriters and artists, helping them navigate the complex royalties landscape and maximize their profits. The company uses data to maximize the impact and revenue of new records for its creators. With the MyBMG web and mobile application, clients can view and analyze their royalty details in real time and collect payment.

Solution

To address these challenges, BMG decided to migrate its entire managed data center infrastructure to Google Cloud. The company partnered with Rackspace Technology to move applications to the cloud while keeping payment cycles on track for its artists. BMG’s technology team outlined the Google Cloud architecture, which was then optimized by Rackspace Technology. The company migrated 17 applications successfully and is using solutions like Cloud Storage to securely store 130 TB of data, and Cloud SQL as its standard database technology. The web applications run on Compute Engine, App Engine, and Google Kubernetes Engine. BMG’s royalty calculations, which require significant processing power, run entirely on Dataproc with output stored on BigQuery for downstream integration and reporting. By integrating Data Catalog with BigQuery, BMG has made the data more accessible to all teams, enabling them to detect missing income and new revenue streams independently.

Impact #1	The migration to Google Cloud has brought about significant operational improvements for BMG. The company has been able to streamline the process of royalty payments, making it faster and more efficient. The data is now more accessible across the business, reducing the workload for the income tracking IT teams by 75%. This has empowered teams to work more independently and detect missing income and new revenue streams, maximizing profits for artists. The company can now focus more on its clients and less on its infrastructure. It has also been able to speed up the deployment of new features from weeks to minutes, boosting employee satisfaction and productivity. Looking ahead, BMG plans to leverage AutoML to further scale and automate royalty tracking with machine learning and use advanced analytics to determine the effectiveness of promotional campaigns, further increasing profits for artists.

Impact #1

The migration to Google Cloud has brought about significant operational improvements for BMG. The company has been able to streamline the process of royalty payments, making it faster and more efficient. The data is now more accessible across the business, reducing the workload for the income tracking IT teams by 75%. This has empowered teams to work more independently and detect missing income and new revenue streams, maximizing profits for artists. The company can now focus more on its clients and less on its infrastructure. It has also been able to speed up the deployment of new features from weeks to minutes, boosting employee satisfaction and productivity. Looking ahead, BMG plans to leverage AutoML to further scale and automate royalty tracking with machine learning and use advanced analytics to determine the effectiveness of promotional campaigns, further increasing profits for artists.

Benefit #1	Streamlined royalties for digital music, processing 1,500x more data by autoscaling with BigQuery
Benefit #2	Reduced income tracking IT workloads by 75% by making data more accessible across the business
Benefit #3	Delivered new features faster by reducing deployment from weeks to minutes with Google Kubernetes Engine

Benefit #1

Streamlined royalties for digital music, processing 1,500x more data by autoscaling with BigQuery

Benefit #2

Reduced income tracking IT workloads by 75% by making data more accessible across the business

Benefit #3

Delivered new features faster by reducing deployment from weeks to minutes with Google Kubernetes Engine

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Overview

BMG's Transformation: Streamlining Royalty Processing with Google Cloud

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit