Survey shows that SAP customers are betting on cloud applications to optimize supplier management and focus internal resources on innovation
Rimini Street, Inc. (Nasdaq: RMNI), a global provider of enterprise software products and services, a leader in providing independent support for Oracle and SAP software and a Salesforce partner, has released the 2022 Valor Research report, which points out the benefits of using independent support services . The survey provides an update on ERP implementation plans and praises savings of 50% in application support fees over annual SAP maintenance fees and a reduction of up to 75% in total internal application support costs by utilizing standalone supports and cloud services.
The report 'Maximizing SAP Value with Rimini Street' further points out that SAP is positioning S/4HANA as an important element of customers' digital transformation strategies. These, dissatisfied with the deadline, turned to independent support claiming that they have adequate time to decide what their long-term ERP strategy should be, how it should be implemented and when. The study interviewed SAP-Rimini Street customers, divided into four different groups, but found that they were all able to gain control over the lifecycle of their SAP applications, reduce risk and maximize returns on their investments with independent support, while achieved digital transformation and innovation.
Other benefits identified by Valoir were the ability to achieve business continuity while maximizing the value of your SAP investment and innovation in mobile devices, analytics, human capital management (HCM) and other areas stimulated by its SAP core. “Our customer relationships have become more strategic over time as companies strive to generate value from legacy assets while carefully planning and executing for the future,” said Seth Ravin, CEO and Chairman of Rimini Street. . “Valoir confirmed this trend in the 2020 and 2022 reports when they surveyed our consumers. It also discovered some interesting types of SAP customers who are approaching S/4HANA differently.”
The survey divided SAP-Rimini Street customers into four groups, from S/4HANA 'early adopters' who use Rimini Street for its SAP expertise and service offerings, including security services and who manage the entire SAP portfolio, including cloud applications, to optimize the management of vendors and service providers and focus their internal resources on digital transformation and innovation, to skeptics, who have fears about the cost and risk of implementing a new solution. However, everyone believes that independent support facilitates an ERP strategy.
“In 2022, SAP-Rimini Street customers share some practices. They switched to independent support to avoid upgrade costs, increase productivity and staff retention,” reports Rebecca Wettemann, CEO and Principal Analyst at Valorir Research. “They also turn to this solution strategically so they can devote adequate time and effort to planning ahead of the move. Many of them have decided to take advantage of Rimini Street's additional services to simplify supplier management and reduce the time their team spends resolving issues that span multiple applications or go beyond SAP's footprint.”
2020 Report Defined the SAP-Rimini Street Scenario
SAP seems eager to replace traditional on-premises ERP with its cloud ERP product, also known as S/4HANA. Since ERP is a core set of enterprise applications that run mission-critical workloads, it cannot be “pulled and replaced” with a more modern version of the software, so companies must decide whether to migrate to S/4HANA or not, and if they do, what the migration strategy should look like. As the 2020 report notes, “A move to S/4HANA is not simply an upgrade: it is a new implementation effort, with a new platform and database. Valoir estimates that the migration effort, in addition to business disruption, would cost customers – who are currently paying US$ 1 million a year in SAP support and maintenance – US$ 15 to US$ 30 million to migrate and operate S/4HANA.”
Two Rimini Street customers interviewed by Valoir for the 2020 report said they did not believe S/4HANA was mature enough because it lacked the breadth of features present in the on-premises ERP package. The third said they needed to improve their processes and streamline the change to prepare for “a major transformation”. Customers interviewed for the report offered three distinct reasons for using independent support: smaller investments, leveraging existing SAP investments for innovation rather than waiting for S/4HANA to deliver, and the ability to plan a move to S/4HANA when the product is more mature.
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