ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SAP SAPPHIRE NOW 2013 Conference — Rimini Street, Inc., the leading third-party maintenance and support provider for enterprise software, including SAP AG (NYSE:SAP) software and Oracle Corporation’s (NASDAQ: ORCL) Siebel, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, E-Business Suite, Oracle Database and Hyperion software, today announced that Southco, a leading international provider of engineered access hardware, recently completed the initial phase of its strategic SAP global expansion while utilizing Rimini Street for support of its SAP ECC 6.0 system. Like Southco, hundreds of companies around the world are leveraging third-party support from Rimini Street to reduce total support costs by up to 90 percent while continuing to advance the scope, scale and use of its enterprise software to achieve its business objectives. As a result, many Rimini Street clients, including Southco, are able to use their significant savings from third-party support to fund important business and IT improvements that directly affect their ability to better compete in the global marketplace.
Southco’s Software Maintenance Costs Were Second-Highest IT Expense
Southco serves tens of thousands of customers around the world across a wide range of industries including the aerospace, automotive, consumer electronics and medical sectors. The company implemented its current SAP ECC 6.0 application in North America in 2008 to help manage mission-critical operations, including manufacturing, supply chain management, sales and distribution, and finance, with the intent of rolling out a single global SAP instance across every Southco location in the world. Soon after the global recession began to affect the world economy, Southco chief information officer Brice Salle postponed globalization efforts while he assessed the value of every dollar in his IT budget. As part of the assessment, he determined that software maintenance costs were the second highest line item expense in the IT budget. After evaluating Rimini Street third-party support in 2009, Southco made the decision to switch from SAP to Rimini Street for support of its SAP ECC 6.0 system.
Savings Help Fund SAP Global Expansion to the United Kingdom and Asia-Pacific
By switching to Rimini Street, Southco immediately reduced its annual SAP maintenance fees by 50 percent. Furthermore, they were able to significantly add to their overall savings by cutting expensive support and maintenance costs associated with traditional software vendor support through Rimini Street’s more efficient, personalized support program, which includes 24X7X365 premium-level service, an assigned Primary Support Engineer (PSE), support for customizations at no additional fee, support for a minimum of 10 years for existing releases without required upgrades and the cost avoidance of additional maintenance resources and required by the unnecessary overhead related to vendor support. The substantial savings from Rimini Street third-party support allowed Southco to fund and resume its high-priority globalization project in 2010. Southco finalized its rollout to the UK in 2011, followed by a successful rollout to four locations in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong in July of 2012.
“Global visibility and responsiveness to our customers are important components of Southco’s business model and the reasons why this globalization project is the company’s number-one priority. Rimini Street has been a valuable partner in helping us successfully accomplish the globalization of our SAP initiative with no impact to our business or our customers,” said Salle. “We have been able to focus our internal resources on the rollouts in the UK and Asia while remaining confident that our PSE and Rimini Street team were ensuring a stable and supported SAP platform.”
Southco is currently planning the next phase of global implementation at its single largest facility in the world in China next year. Additionally, it is planning rollouts in other locations in Asia, including Korea, Japan, Australia and India.
Rimini Street Continues Growth Momentum as Third-Party Support Industry-Leader
Rimini Street is the third-party support provider of choice for more than 600 hundred global, Fortune 500, midmarket and public sector organizations around the world seeking to fund and drive improvements that help to strengthen the organization’s overall performance. Clients include 71 of the Fortune 500 and 15 of the Global 100, with current support for client operations in more than 70 countries and the capability of supporting clients in nearly 200 countries.
“Southco is a great example of how organizations that switch to Rimini Street are using support cost savings to fund implementation of new functionality; expand system capabilities to new geographies, business units and subsidiaries; and fund growth initiatives that directly impact their bottom line,” said Seth Ravin, CEO, Rimini Street. “Rimini Street clients are innovative organizations that continually strive to improve their business performance while driving more value from their existing Oracle and SAP software investments. Hundreds of Rimini Street clients are enjoying our premium support offering, while taking advantage of 90-percent savings in their total support costs.”
About Rimini Street, Inc.
Rimini Street is the leading third-party provider of enterprise software support services. The company is redefining enterprise support services with an innovative, award-winning program that enables Oracle and SAP licensees to save up to 90 percent on total support costs over a decade, including saving 50 percent on annual support fees. Clients can remain on their current software release without any required upgrades or migrations for at least 10 years. Hundreds of global, Fortune 500, midmarket, and public sector organizations from virtually all industries have selected Rimini Street as their trusted, independent support provider. To learn more, please visit www.riministreet.com or call within the USA 888-870-9692 or internationally +1 702-839-9671.
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