BMG processes royalties ten times faster

Rackspace Technology has helped enable groundbreaking service enhancements for artists and songwriters signed to music company BMG. Using Google Cloud’s advanced AI and big data capabilities, BMG can process royalty payments ten times faster and track music 50% faster. The achievement stems from Rackspace Technology’s Elastic Engineering team successfully migrating 95% of BMG’s applications and services to Google Cloud.

BMG’s new cloud-based platform will also support new data tools it will use following its decision to take control of its previously outsourced distribution, striking direct deals with leading streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple. The world’s fourth-largest music company will use it to offer clients increased transparency and access to more detailed data.

Music streaming has fundamentally changed the music business. Today, it is the most common way people consume music. Platforms such as Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music have continuously increased their user numbers, and artists benefit from this trend. But the services also generate vast quantities of data. Every stream track generates data points that must be tracked to ensure clients receive payment.

Faced with a consistent 30% annual increase in the data intake and to address these complexities, BMG strategically pivoted to Google Cloud, recognising the need for enhanced tools such as AI, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), and BigQuery to manage burgeoning data volumes and optimise operational efficiency effectively.

"Thanks to advanced AI integration, we've seen a huge increase in data harmonization, analysis and processing velocity. And now we can categorize music much faster, which helps us make better decisions on classification," said Maxime Rousson, Cloud Architect at BMG. “Rackspace Technology was great to help us in this journey. They helped us design and architect the best services in Google Cloud.”

BMG CTO Gaurav Mittal said, "The collaboration with Rackspace's team of experts worked well, and together, we successfully executed a complex project of cloud migration in record time. This program was an important milestone of our latest platform upgrade, enabling BMG to meet the future customer needs."

Jürgen Stauber, General Manager, DACH, at Rackspace Technology, added, "We are proud to be able to bring in our knowledge and our expertise in this project and help BMG to design an innovative, scalable, and reliable solution that will generate significant efficiency gains and help BMG to better position itself in the market as the world's most artist-friendly international record label. We remain dedicated to empowering organisations like BMG, ensuring they thrive in today's business landscape's ever-evolving and dynamic terrain."