More than 10 Australian federal and state government agencies have shifted their enterprise software support from Oracle and SAP to Rimini Street.
Some of the agencies that have made the support switch include NSW Department of Family and Community Services; Victorian Government Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources; Australian Hearing; and Open Universities Australia.
About three years ago, the enterprise software support vendor said it began focusing on the Australian public sector, watching the customer list swell during that time frame.
The agencies that have made the support switch, have realised savings of up to 90 per cent on total maintenance costs compared to what they were paying their software vendor directly, Rimini Street said.
Through making the change to third-party support, the vendor claims the departments have freed up internal resources that can be redirected towards other innovative and high-value projects.
To further back up its support capabilities, Rimini Street reiterated that its Service Level Agreement (SLA) involves a 15-minute response time for all critical priority one cases, while clients are also assigned a primary support engineer (PSE) with an average 15 years experience in their particular software system.
Rimini Street Asia Pacific general manager, Andrew Powell, said the "stiff competition" within the software support space, will drive "huge savings" for the Australian government, alongside handing back control of their IT roadmap to be business-driven focused rather than dictated by the vendor.
“Every year, the federal, state and local levels of Australian Government spend hundreds of millions of dollars on their SAP and Oracle maintenance," he said. "The vendors typical profit margin for annual software maintenance is around 90 per cent and very little of the underlying service is actually provided from within Australia.
“As they are funded by the public purse, Australian government agencies must demonstrate the money they are spending not only adheres to strict budget guidelines, but also generates real business value.
"This accountability model places pressure on those organizations to not only stretch budgets, but to establish sound strategies for innovation despite their financial pressures."
The software support vendor has been actively ramping up its A/NZ business and launched a subsidiary in New Zealand, opening an office in Auckland in November.
It already supports nearly 50 clients with operations in New Zealand, plus local brands James Pascoe, Spark, 2Degrees Mobile, Refining New Zealand and The University of Auckland.