Leading Korean manufacturer of printed circuit boards reduces ERP maintenance costs and redirects savings to more strategic IT initiatives
LAS VEGAS, April 23, 2018 – Rimini Street, Inc. (Nasdaq: RMNI), a global provider of enterprise software products and services, and the leading third-party support provider for Oracle and SAP software products, today announced that SIFLEX, a leading global printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturer headquartered in South Korea, has switched its SAP ERP support to Rimini Street from the vendor. By making the switch, SIFLEX was able to reduce its maintenance fees by 50% and can now maximize its current, stable and robust ERP ECC 5.0 system for a minimum of 15 years from the time the company transitioned to Rimini Street support. SIFLEX was also able to free up internal IT personnel to focus on more pressing initiatives within the organization.
Seeking Alternative to High Cost, Low Quality Vendor Support
To improve productivity and better optimize IT costs, SIFLEX began exploring options in two areas: finding alternatives to free up its IT staff to focus on more strategic, growth-related projects within the business, and exploring options for reducing the cost of its SAP ERP maintenance. In addition, SIFLEX was looking for a higher quality of service from what they had been receiving from the software vendor and wanted to reduce its dependency on SAP overall. After researching viable alternatives for both liberating its internal resources and reducing the cost of its SAP software support, SIFLEX identified third-party enterprise software support as a credible and strategic solution, and selected Rimini Street as the best option for its needs.
“There is a common predicament in Korea, where CIOs and IT leaders are tasked with the challenge to reduce overall cost across their IT landscape, and at the same time improve efficiency, support their organization’s growth strategy, and execute digital transformation projects,” said Tae-joon Park, manager of the Management Information Team at SIFLEX. “SIFLEX had the same predicament and when we evaluated our entire IT cost structure to find savings opportunities, the annual spend on our SAP maintenance stood out as a large proportion of our overall IT spend, yet we were receiving subpar service, far below our expectations in return. When we spoke to Rimini Street clients we realized that we would be in good company amongst other CIOs who had made the decision to switch, and who are reaping the benefits of that strategic decision – not only in terms of the cost savings, but in liberating their resources and budget to enable their digital transformation initiatives.”
Expert Engineers with an Average of 15 Years’ Experience
Rimini Street’s third-party support includes support for an organizations’ software customizations, which are not supported as part of SAP’s annual support program. According to Rimini Street data from nearly 2,000 clients signed to date, 85% of all critical Priority 1 cases are related to a company’s customization to the software. Traditional software vendor support explicitly excludes support for software customizations, forcing customers to self-support their own customizations or outsourcing this support to an external consultant – adding to the overall IT spend and draining internal resources.
When considering support alternatives, SIFLEX wanted immediate access to expert engineers who would quickly respond to any issues that arose and provide a timely resolution. As with all Rimini Street clients, SIFLEX was assigned a primary support engineer (PSE) with an average of 15 years’ experience with SAP software, and the company now enjoys a premium level of service compared to the call-center level support model provided by SAP. Rimini Street has nearly 450 PSE’s around the world, who provide support 24/7 365 days a year, and a guaranteed service level agreement of 15 minutes response time for all critical cases.
“The biggest service advantage we found moving to Rimini Street support was the fact that we could speak directly to our assigned support engineer. Previously when I would raise a support ticket with the software vendor, there was no clarity as to whom was actually handling our support request and our issues were never resolved to our satisfaction. However, with Rimini Street, their engineers collaborate with each other under the leadership of our PSE until the problem is solved. In the past, when I worked with SAP, I did not experience this collaborative, team-oriented approach. Rimini Street is the first company I have ever worked with where the entire organization strives to help its clients’ succeed,” continued Park.
“There is increasing pressure on CIOs from companies of all sizes, industries and regions to cut their overall IT cost, and concurrently invest significant budget into growth initiatives for their organization. In the manufacturing industry in particular, where there is fierce competition, companies have to maintain what is already a tight profit margin and adjust to new processes and faster manufacturing schedules,” said Hyungwook “Kevin” Kim, country manager, South Korea, Rimini Street. “By switching to Rimini Street’s award-winning support, SIFLEX was able to unlock significant resources in both time and money for IT transformation projects. As with all of our clients, SIFLEX receives Rimini Street’s market leading, ultra-responsive support for their mission-critical system for at least 15 years from the date they switched to Rimini Street.”
