LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--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 Solar Frontier K.K., a leading developer and distributor of residential and industrial CIS (copper, indium and selenium) solar panels based in Japan, has adopted Rimini Street for support of its SAP ERP applications. Solar Frontier moved to Rimini Street third-party support to reduce annual SAP vendor maintenance costs, achieve business efficiencies and help drive investments in other critical areas of the business, including data analysis and supply chain management.
Limited Value from Vendor Annual Support Drives Switch
Solar Frontier began using SAP ECC 6.0 in 2010 when parent company Showa Shell Sekiyu completed its SAP implementation. With only a few customizations and minimum add-ons, Solar Frontier’s SAP application was stable and mature, and the frequency of support usage was low. Yet, vendor response to issues was slow, sometimes taking several weeks. Solar Frontier determined that the level of service and response from SAP was not commensurate with the annual maintenance costs paid. In addition, the company sought to achieve greater organizational efficiencies and cost savings by integrating and streamlining its separately managed IT infrastructure and reducing the cost to manage its applications. In looking at options to optimize the cost of maintaining the various application software and IT services, Solar Frontier turned to Rimini Street.
Rimini Street Premium Support Gains Attention
Soon after initial discussions with Rimini Street, Solar Frontier began to develop significant interest in the Company’s premium support capabilities.
“At first, we only looked at the cost merits of Rimini Street, but we soon came to understand that their support quality is much better compared to SAP, based on discussions with various clients and industry analysts,” said Yasuharu Takeuchi, department manager, IT Planning & Promotion Department, Solar Frontier K.K. “My interest in Rimini Street increased and I became convinced that there was no reason not to engage in their services. In fact, I was impressed by the fact that there was a company providing such services.”
As with all Rimini Street clients, Solar Frontier has a senior-level Primary Support Engineer (PSE) with an average of 15 years’ experience assigned to them. Rimini Street PSEs provide 24/7/365 support for all issues, including support for customizations, with a guaranteed response time of 15 minutes or less for Priority 1 critical cases.
Savings Lead to New Investments to Prepare for the Future
Using the savings generated by switching to Rimini Street, Solar Frontier will drive strategic initiatives and intends to expand a wide range of systems that will help the company prepare for the future.
“The judgment criteria to achieve our goals in IT investment is whether the costs ultimately contribute to the company's performance. Regularly reviewing our spend to determine if the investments are meaningful is important,” said Mitsuyoshi Sano, IT Planning & Promotion Department, Solar Frontier K.K. “We rebuilt our data analysis and sales management systems last year, which are mainly being used by the sales department today. We are also improving the functionality of our peripheral systems for management and other department users, with the goal to help improve business performance overall.”
In addition, Solar Frontier will optimize IT investments to strengthen supply chain-related systems, such as the management of inventory and logistics.
“Nearly all Japanese companies are now promoting digital transformation as part of their organization's growth strategy, with cost optimization remaining a major business opportunity,” said Yorio Wakisaka, general manager – Japan, Nihon Rimini Street. “Solar Frontier has succeeded in improving many areas of its business, including operational efficiencies and strategic investments. By looking to its next level of cost reforms to include integration of IT infrastructure along with support services from Rimini Street, they are now able to deploy personnel to strategic projects and have gained flexibility and cost advantages to enable the future road map of their core systems. This benefit can be enjoyed by many other companies as well.”
About Rimini Street, Inc.
Rimini Street, Inc. (Nasdaq: RMNI) is a global provider of enterprise software products and services, and the leading third-party support provider for Oracle and SAP software products. The Company has redefined enterprise software support services since 2005 with an innovative, award-winning program that enables licensees of IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP and other enterprise software vendors to save up to 90 percent on total support costs. Clients can remain on their current software release without any required upgrades for a minimum of 15 years. Over 1,580 global Fortune 500, midmarket, public sector and other organizations from a broad range of industries currently rely on Rimini Street as their trusted, third-party support provider. To learn more, please visit https://www.riministreet.com/, follow @riministreet on Twitter and find Rimini Street on Facebook and LinkedIn. (C-RMNI)
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements included in this communication are not historical facts but are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally are accompanied by words such as “may,” “should,” “would,” “plan,” “intend,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential,” “seem,” “seek,” “continue,” “future,” “will,” “expect,” “outlook” or other similar words, phrases or expressions. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding our second quarter and annual 2018 revenue guidance, industry, future events, future opportunities and growth initiatives, hiring plans, estimates of Rimini Street’s total addressable market, and projections of customer savings. These statements are based on various assumptions and on the current expectations of management and are not predictions of actual performance, nor are these statements of historical facts. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties regarding Rimini Street’s business, and actual results may differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, changes in the business environment in which Rimini Street operates, including inflation and interest rates, and general financial, economic, regulatory and political conditions affecting the industry in which Rimini Street operates; adverse litigation developments or government inquiry; the final amount and timing of any refunds from Oracle related to our litigation; our ability to refinance existing debt on favorable terms; changes in taxes, laws and regulations; competitive product and pricing activity; difficulties of managing growth profitably; the success of our recently introduced products and services, including Rimini Street Mobility, Rimini Street Analytics, Rimini Street Advanced Database Security, and services for Salesforce Sales Cloud and Service Cloud products; the loss of one or more members of Rimini Street’s management team; uncertainty as to the long-term value of RMNI common stock; and those discussed under the heading “Risk Factors” in Rimini Street’s Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on March 15, 2018, as updated from time to time by Rimini Street’s Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and other filings by Rimini Street with the Securities and Exchange Commission. There may be additional risks that Rimini Street presently knows or that Rimini Street currently believes are immaterial that could also cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. In addition, forward-looking statements provide Rimini Street’s expectations, plans or forecasts of future events and views as of the date of this communication. Rimini Street anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause Rimini Street’s assessments to change. However, while Rimini Street may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, Rimini Street specifically disclaims any obligation to do so, except as required by law. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing Rimini Street’s assessments as of any date subsequent to the date of this communication.
© 2018 Rimini Street, Inc. All rights reserved. “Rimini Street” is a registered trademark of Rimini Street, Inc. in the United States and other countries, and Rimini Street, the Rimini Street logo, and combinations thereof, and other marks marked by TM are trademarks of Rimini Street, Inc. All other trademarks remain the property of their respective owners, and unless otherwise specified, Rimini Street claims no affiliation, endorsement, or association with any such trademark holder or other companies referenced herein.
