Achieving Business Harmonization Through Payments Optimization and Partnership

Summary

Operating across 70 countries with more than 40 incumbent partners, 15,000 terminals (PIN entry devices), and 10+ POS systems, Avolta encountered rising complexity, limited cost transparency, and inconsistent solutions across retail, food and beverage, and digital channels. CMSPI was engaged as a trusted advisor to assess the current state, align stakeholders across regions, and design a unified, scalable global payments strategy spanning POS, PED, gateway and acquiring services that supported business integration and long-term growth.

Through rigorous analytics, market analysis, and partner negotiations during a fully managed RFP process, CMSPI helped Avolta consolidate providers, harmonize solutions, and reposition payments as a strategic lever rather than a commodity cost. The engagement delivered significant 7 figure annual budget reductions, reduced operational fragmentation, and achieved stronger partner alignment across the global estate. As a result, Avolta now operates with a cohesive, future-ready payments framework that improves consistency, control, and scalability, while CMSPI continues to support ongoing optimization and value creation across the business.

The Challenge

Following its business combination, Avolta inherited a fragmented payments supply chain, including dozens of acquiring partners, diverse terminal estates, inconsistent commercial arrangements, and varying technical capabilities across regions. A wide variety of incumbent providers supported different customer journeys, creating complexity and limiting operational efficiency.

The scale of the environment – spanning 70 countries, 15,000 terminals, and 10 POS systems – compounded the difficulty of securing transparency across costs and performance. Internal payments resources were stretched across regions, and limited harmonisation between the former businesses, all of which, created urgency for a unified global strategy. Against this backdrop, cost optimisation and consistency of solutions became essential to achieving post-merger synergies and future-proofing global operations.

The Solution

CMSPI served as a trusted advisor to Avolta’s leadership, bringing structure, clarity, and strategic rigor to a challenging global RFP process. Leveraging deep market intelligence and technical expertise, the team assessed current-state performance, evaluated partner capabilities, and designed a singular approach aligned with Avolta’s commercial and customer-centric priorities.

The engagement included the evaluation and integration of POS, PED, gateway and acquiring capabilities, enabling Avolta to establish a scalable and globally consistent future-state payments architecture.

CMSPI played a pivotal role in stakeholder engagement, fostering alignment across regions and ensuring that legacy businesses progressed toward a unified operating model. Through rigorous analytics, benchmarking, and negotiation support, CMSPI supported Avolta in making confident decisions on future partner selection and solution architecture, positioning payments as a strategic lever rather than a commodity cost.

The Results

The engagement delivered significant commercial and strategic outcomes:

• Seamless Global Collaboration: CMSPI coordinated effectively across continental, regional, and business-unit stakeholders with a dedicated account team, ensuring streamlined data sharing, analysis, and project execution whilst ensuring holistic alignment.
• High-Quality Insights: The team leveraged the CMSPI Platform, fuelled by trillions in annual consumer spend to identify opportunities and provide actionable strategic guidance, giving clarity across a highly fragmented payments environment.
• Strategic Alignment Across Merged Entities: CMSPI invested time to understand the operational differences between the two combined businesses, ensuring a harmonised recommendation that supported their unified global vision for payments.
• Partner Management: CMSPI helped navigate relationships with over 40 incumbent partners to support global optimisation of core payments arrangements, consolidating and enhancing partner relationships across 70 countries with a phased delivery approach based on a unified strategy.
• Budget Reduction: Avolta realised double digit annual percentage budget reduction, driven by improved commercial terms, harmonised solutions, and the elimination of inefficiencies inherited from legacy arrangements.
• Operational Fragmentation: Through analysis and thoughtful execution, CMSPI helped reduce operational fragmentation, via partner consolidation and business alignment.
• Global Payments Strategy: Avolta, advised by CMSPI, implemented a cohesive global payments strategy, enabling the newly merged business to operate with greater consistency, control, and long-term scalability.

CMSPI continues to support and partner with Avolta for ongoing analysis and optimisations, negotiations, consolidation of Avolta’s estate, and ongoing consultancy services.

Working side-by-side, Avolta has established a unified, high-performing global payments framework, generating lasting value, strengthening partner alignment, and supporting the organisation to operate as one global business with a best-in-class payments strategy.