August 22, 2023
Partnering with an excellent enterprise resource planning (ERP) support provider offers numerous benefits. You’ll have a team of experts on hand to build, maintain, and upgrade all aspects of your mission-critical system. But which ERP support providers are truly excellent? And how does integrated IT services provider, Rimini Street, measure up?
In addition to SAP support, Rimini Street handles installations from Oracle, Salesforce, and other software providers—some of the main ERP offerings on the market. Because all these systems are notoriously complex, it’s common to work with a support partner.
To clarify, third-party SAP support comes from a provider other than the original software vendor. When competently delivered, such support can improve your return on investment and foster innovation. A dedicated SAP service provider both extends the life of your software and maintains it for your organization’s unique needs.
That efficiency translates into low-cost services. In contrast to a software vendor, an independent service provider also gives you more technical and business control, catering to your stipulations. But not all third-party providers are created equal, so it’s important to choose wisely.
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A highly qualified ERP support provider listens to and understands your basic needs. Beyond that, they have competent technical staff with years of experience in your preferred enterprise resource planning system, such as SAP’s software.
SAP solutions elevate your enterprise software’s functionality. A knowledgeable service provider understands all the core modules and how to extract the most value from them. Regardless of which business vertical you’re in, enterprise software has features that, when used effectively, deliver a competitive edge.
An ERP support provider should have a solid grasp of both the technical and business aspects of the solution. For instance, it’s crucial to understand the data architecture supporting human resources tools, but also to know how to make that data serve your company’s HR management optimally.
In coordinating the technology with your business processes, the support provider employs industry best practices. They’ll excel at configuring and programming the software, while pulling off upgrades and cloud migrations without a hitch.
During operations, any issues that arise are quickly found and fixed, and the consultant works to deliver ongoing improvements to speed and stability. Added to this, they’ll guide your employees in using the system effectively with user-friendly training and customization.
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An enterprise resource planning system is a significant investment, and its complexity and expense make excellent support even more essential. The right support provider brings clarity and experience — plus the ability to suggest the most suitable products and services.
Beyond managing the intricacies of your ERP, a service partner also helps you cut costs. Because consulting companies already have specialized staff, there’s no need to stress about the challenges and expenses of hiring and training in-house personnel. Therefore, a relevant question for ERP providers—such as Rimini Street and Approyo—is how their cost-benefit ratios stack up.
Extensive understanding of ERP products is a must. If you’re using SAP solutions, then your support provider should know the ins and outs of SAP products. To illustrate, Approyo has hundreds of SAP environments under management and helps international organizations with production landscapes of all shapes and sizes.
Each module serves specific purposes. If you’re using, say, SAP’s Materials Management (MM) module, then you should work with a consultant who knows this module well. Cross-module knowledge expands the provider’s value further. Another useful area of expertise is the set of programming languages used for your system, such as Advanced Business Application Programming (ABAP) for SAP technology.
It takes longer and costs more to work through procedures without the requisite product insight. By contrast, decades of experience teach experts how to perform tasks more efficiently. As such, their guidance is worth its weight in gold.
When it comes to ERP consulting, striking a balance is vital. On the one hand, there’s technical consulting, which looks at understanding the code and data. On the other hand, there are functional consultants who specialize in business processes. An excellent ERP fulfills both requirements, thanks to their all-around competence.
Further to their accumulated knowledge, a good provider should have top-notch business skills. Because every organization has different needs and resources, figuring out how the ERP fits the customer’s specific use case is key. A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t stand up to a solution that’s tailored to your organization.
An often overlooked but significant skill for ERP consultants is documentation. Your support provider shouldn’t just do the work then leave it up to you to figure out the system. Detailed, easy-to-understand, and well-maintained guides are a must for enhancing your efficiency.
Documentation covers topics like design, business blueprints, specifications, and master data templates. These are important points of reference for measuring the performance and success of your software.
Tying in with documentation efforts are the soft skills that facilitate communication. Enterprise resource planning is a complicated endeavor requiring the collaboration of many individuals. Interaction between your team members and the support provider depends on straightforward and timely exchanges, as well as joint efforts. Lack of interpersonal coordination could put the entire project at risk.
Rimini Street is known for its support of enterprise software such as SAP and Oracle solutions. However, their focus is largely on cost saving rather than security or quality. Professionals associate Rimini Street with secondary support outside of the vendor’s own recommendations.
For example, if a company wanted to save money while using older SAP software after SAP itself no longer offers support, they could turn to Rimini Street. This has the potential to delay the upgrade to SAP S/4HANA, with some rather opting to run the older ECC system as long as it is feasible. That said, Rimini Street’s customers can also use SAP S/4HANA if they prefer.
Working with Rimini Street is good for businesses looking to trim their expenses when times are lean. However, although this approach offers basic SAP support, customers won’t have access to the same level of support provided by a global leader such as Approyo.
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Rimini Street supports several products from major enterprise software vendors. In the case of SAP, these include the enterprise resource planning systems ECC/Business Suite and S/4HANA. Rimini also works with the databases ASE (Sybase) and HANA, plus the business intelligence service called BusinessObjects.
For all supported products, Rimini Street offers coverage up to at least 15 years. The idea is to keep systems on life support while drawing out any remaining use. Although some professionals might see this as a bargain basement solution, it can be useful for organizations not ready to leave behind ECC.
Rimini Street also performs IT service management for clients, which helps simplify business operations and fulfills the need for skilled personnel. Moreover, it gives companies some degree of confidence that they can rapidly prevent and fix problems to keep their infrastructure ticking over.
Customer support times are relatively fast. For instance, critical issues should elicit a response within a couple of minutes—10 at most. This degree of responsiveness is appreciated by users who may have experienced frustration with direct vendor support.
Rimini Street only keeps a system running, not offering innovation or updates. This puts them at a marked disadvantage compared to more effective service providers like Approyo. Since Rimini Street does not upgrade systems, customers are forced to download patches and run the system until it dies.
There are areas where Rimini Street, or another consultant like Approyo, exceeds SAP. For example, by supplying an individual point of contact or monitoring software and hardware from multiple vendors.
Unlike direct vendor support, Rimini Street’s support includes custom code as in ABAP programs. They can further assist customers with software integrations, performance tuning, and other areas outside the base SAP system.
Mainly, however, professionals think of Rimini Street in relation to the cost savings that they offer. Rather than having the trustworthy security and innovation such as Approyo delivers, Rimini Street customers aim to pinch a few pennies.
There’s an element of risk at play. Organizations need to weigh the uncertainty of Rimini Street’s support reliability against the potential difficulties of upgrading to S/4HANA on SAP’s schedule.
A company using Rimini Street can decide when they think it’s best to migrate or upgrade their ERP. The consultant aids in the production of a technology roadmap, then different software releases are compared to maximize benefits for the client.
As far as SAP S/4HANA support goes, Rimini Street provides strategic services for planning and interoperability. The S/4HANA enterprise resource planning system is supported on-prem or in the cloud—and for hybrid deployments as well. Furthermore, the firm adheres to ISO standards, meaning they’ll do a basic job of managing installations.
Some critics argue that despite the purported lower costs, Rimini Street may come out more expensive than the alternatives. When you look at the total cost of the solution, a discount service like Rimini Street could actually be a pricier option—especially if you’re migrating to the cloud or making other sizable changes.
Moreover, there are potential security issues to consider. A case in point is that Rimini Street has been accused (and sued) for failing to use appropriate security practices. By contrast, the vendor itself—or a reputable and certified SAP provider like Approyo—can affordably handle cloud migrations and security.
A lot rests on your enterprise software. Therefore, it’s essential that you trust your ERP support provider. After all, they’re responsible for your data and IT infrastructure, and any harm there could impact both your customers and your reputation.
Rimini Street itself claims it can cut up to 90% of support costs. They aim to streamline your business operations and boost financial results. Professionals differ on Rimini Street’s return on investment but generally concede that the company responds fairly fast. In addition, their billing schedule is regular, so customers know what to expect.
Professionals who are satisfied with their older ERP systems are the ones more likely to favor Rimini Street. They think the legacy solution is sufficiently established to justify its continued use. Instead of spending possibly millions of dollars on upgrades to retain vendor support, they choose to hire long-term maintenance. By contrast, organizations that place more credence in vendor support and the latest official ERP versions are liable to distrust Rimini Street.
Where the official vendor support generally only applies to core features of enterprise software, it’s quite common in the industry to rely on customizations. These pieces of code are added separately from the main installation and may be written by several parties. It’s not really an option to leave custom code unsupported, as it runs business-critical tasks.
There are several alternatives available to address customizations. Some organizations devote their own staff to maintenance. This can work, but it takes scarce resources away from more pressing tasks. Other organizations hire a third-party consultant. Rimini Street includes support for customizations with its regular offering.
More broadly, companies can reallocate staff, funds, and other resources that went into costly vendor support to more productive avenues. That’s the main draw with economy partners such as Rimini Street.
There are countless ways in which third-party service providers save time and money. They’ll perform duties like researching and resolving problems so that you don’t have to. However, there are drawbacks to Rimini Street’s cheap services—all of which can be addressed with the type of reliable support that’s synonymous with Approyo.
It’s important to work with an excellent service provider to manage complex enterprise resource planning software. Yet, there are substantial differences among service providers. What, then, do professionals think about Rimini Street’s performance?
It turns out there are more compelling partners to choose from—such as Approyo. While Rimini Street may be a workable low-cost alternative to SAP support, it has its limitations, security flaws being just one example. A smarter investment is to work with the certified SAP experts at Approyo, the trusted consultant.
Contact Approyo now to enjoy support from the leading full SAP service provider.
