Data Platform Strategy Cuts Costs by 27% for Global Payment Leader

Writen by

Carolina Cordioli
Reading Time

12 minutes read

Enterprise Data Platform Strategy with dbt + Databricks

Data Platform Strategy Cuts Costs by 27% for Global Payment Leader

Written by

Carolina Cordioli
Category
Databricks
Published Date

April 16, 2025

A global leader in payment services partnered with Indicium to modernize its data platform strategy. They needed to create a comprehensive, long-term solution to streamline data management, improve operational oversight, and consolidate data into a unified system for business users. The company’s strategic integration of Databricks and dbt streamlined data ingestion, scaled infrastructure, and optimized analytics to drive a 56% improvement in processing speed and a 27% reduction in costs.

Inconsistencies in Data Processing and Accessibility

Inconsistencies in data processing and accessibility were a major challenge for this global leader in payment services. Governance hurdles, including inefficient change management, lack of standardization, and limited control over data pipelines, created operational inefficiencies and data silos. These challenges stemmed from the company’s hybrid data infrastructure, fragmented data sources, and multi-stage business rules.

The organization needed a comprehensive, long-term solution to streamline data management, improve operational oversight, and consolidate data into a unified system for business users. They chose Indicium for our unmatched expertise in the modern data stack. Our proven frameworks drive scalability and automation, while our commitment to knowledge transfer ensures consistency, reliability, and adaptability.

Building a Scalable and Efficient Data Foundation

To enhance scalability, cost efficiency, and governance, Indicium migrated the company’s data platform to dbt and Databricks to bring automation and efficiency to the forefront. To ensure long-term sustainability, we trained over 40 professionals on the new architecture to empower them to support ongoing improvements.

Indicium introduced a structured approach to improve governance with version control, automated testing, guardrails, CI/CD, and tagging. This change stabilized, documented, monitored, and optimized data pipelines to reduce processing costs.

We created a centralized repository where we used code versioning, enabling us to manage all data scripts with governance and scalability. That made it easier to manage as the project continued to scale and mature. It improved data access, providing clearer visibility into data flows and business rules while ensuring complete traceability of code changes.

These improvements both reduced support tickets and maintenance overhead, and also established a scalable and efficient data foundation. The transition from a fragmented, manual-intensive data ecosystem to an automated, well-governed, and scalable platform enabled greater operational efficiency.

Enhanced Data Platform Performance

By addressing the core challenges of data inconsistency and scalability, the project unlocked substantial cost savings, dramatically increased data processing speed, and empowered the client to handle exponential data growth. Additionally, these improvements positioned the company to leverage data as a strategic asset.

The following results highlight the measurable business impact:

Cost-efficiency: 27% reduction in monthly ingestion costs through optimized pipeline efficiency and cloud resource utilization.

Scaled infrastructure to support 2x increase in data volume driven by growing business demand for data-powered decision-making.

Enhanced data processing: Achieved a 56% reduction in processing time, significantly accelerating the generation of critical reports and enabling faster, more informed decision-making.

Increased pipeline reliability: Improved the pipeline success rate from ~70% to 95%, ensuring more stable and reliable data processing.

Proactive issue detection: Implemented 2.5K+ automated tests, enabling early identification of potential issues and minimizing disruptions.

Reduced support tickets and maintenance overhead, allowing a 50% reduction in the maintenance team and enabling smarter resource allocation.

Indicium’s Expertise and Collaborative Approach

The client needed more than a technology upgrade. They needed a partner with the expertise, structure, and discipline to turn a fragmented system into a high performing, scalable data platform. Indicium delivered with IndiMesh, a proven framework built on collective intelligence, deep technical expertise, and rigorous quality control.

Indicium modernized the client’s data platform and equipped their teams with the skills to manage and scale it effectively. Through our specialized training programs, over 40 professionals gained the expertise needed to apply best practices and maintain operational excellence. This eliminated dependency on external support and enabled the team to drive ongoing improvements with confidence.

With over seven years of hands-on experience in the modern data stack, Indicium rapidly modernized the client’s platform with automation, governance, and scalability at its core. Our flexible engagement model enabled the team to respond to evolving needs and produce immediate results without disruption.

Our commitment to quality control set us apart. Standardized architecture templates, automated testing, and proactive monitoring strengthened data integrity, reduced failures, minimized maintenance overhead, and improved pipeline reliability from 70 to 95 percent.

Indicium transformed the way the client operates, turning an unreliable, costly data environment into a scalable, well governed platform that drives real business impact. With automation eliminating inefficiencies, governance ensuring control, and a skilled team prepared to sustain long term growth, the client now has the foundation to scale, innovate, and compete at the highest level.

About Indicium

Indicium is a global leader in data and AI services, built to help enterprises solve what matters now and prepare for what comes next. Backed by a 40 million dollar investment and a team of more than 400 certified professionals, we deliver end-to-end solutions across the full data lifecycle. Our proprietary AI-enabled, IndiMesh framework powers every engagement with collective intelligence, proven expertise, and rigorous quality control. Industry leaders like PepsiCo and Bayer trust Indicium to turn complex data challenges into lasting results.