ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SAPPHIRE NOW 2014 Conference – Rimini Street, Inc., the leading independent provider of enterprise software support for SAP AG’s (NYSE: SAP) Business Suite and BusinessObjects software and Oracle Corporation’s (NYSE: ORCL) Siebel, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, E-Business Suite, Oracle Database, Oracle Middleware, Hyperion and Oracle Retail software, today announced that it has been selected by Univar to support the company’s global SAP ECC 5.0 and 6.0 systems. Choosing Rimini Street will generate significant savings from its annual support costs and enable Univar to fund critical customer engagement initiatives. Like Univar, many companies with large SAP footprints around the world have switched to Rimini Street to take control of their ERP software roadmap, significantly reduce total support costs, and fund innovative projects that drive competitive edge, while gaining improved, premium service features, including support for customizations at no additional cost.
“As a global company, we are constantly trying to achieve more value from every dollar we spend. To me, this means regaining control of our ERP software roadmap and optimizing our SAP software investment, especially since we saw no need to upgrade on the vendor’s desired timetable,” said Erik Viens, Chief Information Officer, Univar. “Rimini Street helps us remain on our timetable, while also cutting our annual maintenance fees in half, delivering much higher levels of service and enabling Univar to achieve far higher levels of efficiency with our IT budget.”
Univar: One of Our Top Operational Expenses Cut in Half by Rimini Street
Univar is one of the largest chemical distributors globally, with reported sales of $9.7 billion and facilities in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America, and additional operations in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In an effort to improve capital and operational efficiency, the company evaluated several options to cut one of the company’s largest IT expenses – growing software maintenance costs for its SAP ECC 5.0 and ECC 6.0 instances – and ultimately made the decision to switch to Rimini Street for annual software support. In addition to avoiding vendor-forced upgrades, Rimini Street also helps drive further significant reductions in related support and maintenance costs by providing support for customizations, interoperability and performance at no additional fee. Furthermore, Rimini Street offers clients a 24X7X365 premium-level service model with an assigned Primary Support Engineer (PSE) that eliminates the need for extra maintenance resources and headcount associated with inefficient, burdensome vendor support processes and policies.
Part of Univar’s standard support program with Rimini Street includes support for U.S. payroll using Rimini Street’s Tax Engine for SAP Payroll (RSITE). RSITE provides an ISO 9001:2008-certified tax, legal and regulatory service that keeps organizations in legal and financial compliance.
Viens added, “Univar explored other independent software support options in the market and quickly concluded that Rimini Street was the only company that could meet our support and regulatory and compliance needs. Their existing credibility in the industry and ability to put me in touch with other CIOs to talk about their experiences gave me the confidence to make the switch to independent support. Since we switched from SAP to Rimini Street, our support service has greatly improved and my team has benefitted from the meaningful, fast and competent response from our PSE. More importantly, I am able to reinvest our substantial savings directly into projects that are important to our business. Not many vendors can deliver on their promises like this, and I am happy to say that Rimini Street has exceeded our expectations.”
Univar Drives Customer-Facing Initiatives with Savings from Rimini Street
Univar is currently focused on improving how the company engages with its customers and streamlining the customer transaction experience. Using savings delivered from its switch to Rimini Street for SAP Support, Univar is aggressively investing in development of customer relationship management, business intelligence and e-Commerce platforms.
“Every day, more SAP and Oracle licensees like Univar unlock significant additional value from their software maintenance dollars by switching to Rimini Street for annual support services,” said Seth Ravin, CEO, Rimini Street. “To date, more than 800 organizations around the world, including 86 Fortune 500 and 16 Global 100 clients, have successfully leveraged a switch to Rimini Street support to fund other critical business needs and benefitted from Rimini Street’s more responsive, premium-level support offering.”
About Univar, Inc.
Univar is one of the world’s leading distributors of industrial and specialty chemicals. Univar represents over 3,500 chemical producers and provides its customer base, made up of 115,000 customers, with a full portfolio of products. Univar operates a network of more than 260 distribution facilities throughout North America, Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, and Latin America, with additional sales offices located in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In 2013, Univar reported sales of $10.3 billion. For more information, visit: www.univar.com.
About Rimini Street, Inc.
Rimini Street is the leading independent 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 their annual support fees. Clients can remain on their current software release without any required upgrades or migrations for at least 15 years after switching to Rimini Street. Hundreds of clients, including global, Fortune 500, midmarket, and public sector organizations from across a broad range of 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.
Rimini Street and the Rimini Street logo are trademarks of Rimini Street, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Copyright © 2014. All rights reserved.
