SEOUL--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rimini Street, Inc. (Nasdaq: RMNI), a global provider of enterprise software products and services, the leading third-party support provider for Oracle and SAP software products and a Salesforce partner, is committed to helping South Korean companies reduce ongoing IT operating costs and freeing up significant IT budget to invest in innovation, competitive advantage and growth, co-founder and CEO Seth A. Ravin explained during a press conference in Seoul. Mr. Ravin also highlighted continued strong and growing demand in Korea for the Company’s award-winning, ultra-responsive enterprise software support model, which is disrupting the $160 billion enterprise software maintenance market worldwide. As the 4th largest economy in Asia, and the 11th largest in the world, South Korea represents a large market opportunity for the Company.
Rimini Street is the leading third-party enterprise software support provider for Korean headquartered companies. The Company continues to increase its investment in Korean staff and capabilities, supports many global organizations with operations in South Korea, and supports a fast-growing list of well-known domestic Korean headquartered clients, including Seoul Semiconductor, CJOlivenetworks, LSIS, iMarketKorea, Jusung Engineering, SIFLEX, EC21, Kolon BENIT and Jeju Air.
A Changing IT Mission
During the presentation, Mr. Ravin highlighted key dynamics affecting CIOs today, which in turn are creating significant market opportunity for Rimini Street – both in Korea and around the globe. The first aspect is the shifting priority for CEOs. While cost efficiencies are still critical, growth has become the CEO’s top priority and many CEOs see technology investment as the key enabler of this growth. This mirrors findings in a recent report – “2018 CIO Agenda: A South Korea Perspective” – which states that for South Korean CIOs, growth/market share was most commonly cited as the top business objective for their organization, followed by innovation, R&D, and new products/services.1 In order to remain relevant in an environment where business demands are accelerating every day, the CIO’s charter is to become a change agent, heading up initiatives that provide competitive advantage and support growth. They must also quickly transition their IT teams from a reactive, tactical cost center, to enablers of digital transformation.
Mr. Ravin further explained that lack of resources – time, money and labor – is one of the biggest constraints facing CIOs. Today, as much as 90% of the overall IT budget is spent on ongoing operations and enhancements, including the maintenance of back-office ERP systems. “This leaves many organizations with just 10% of their IT budget to invest in innovation that supports competitive advantage and growth. CIO’s need to find capacity in their IT roadmaps to fund and complete business transformation initiatives,” noted Mr. Ravin.
A second major challenge facing the CIO is the lack of flexibility they have in developing a best-in-class, agile technology strategy while they are currently locked into their enterprise software vendors’ roadmap. CIOs are at the mercy of vendor-dictated roadmaps which include mandatory upgrade cycles, forced migration and lock-in to immature, unproven technologies, and expensive recurring costs associated with maintaining systems. The notion of being locked in to a single vendor’s roadmap is no longer financially viable for their business. “Every aspect of their roadmap must be optimized and designed for flexibility and future change, which is not possible as long as they are on a vendor-dictated roadmap – and this is where Rimini Street can provide great strategic and economic value to clients,” Mr. Ravin said.
Powering Client’s Business-Driven Roadmaps
Rimini Street accelerates the ability for clients to adopt a business-driven strategy by freeing up significant budget – up to 90% of their annual support costs – and resources they currently have dedicated to their enterprise software landscape. When clients switch to Rimini Street, they are liberated from the vendors mandated roadmap of updates, upgrades and migrations – all of which cost time, money and resources – and they can take control of their IT destiny.
“By switching to Rimini Street, Seoul Semiconductor has been able to save on our SAP annual maintenance costs by more than 50%, and increase the efficiency of our internal resources,” said Myungki Hong, vice president, Seoul Semiconductor. “Seoul Semiconductor has succeeded in taking the first step in implementing innovative IT projects for the business. Without vendor lock-in, we are now able to drive our own business-driven IT roadmap, enabled by the premium-level support and partnership approach we receive from Rimini Street.”
“The Company has helped over 2,700 clients to date collectively save over $3 billion in total support costs. In doing so, we have enabled our clients to fund projects that drive innovation, competitive advantage and growth,” said Mr. Ravin.
South Korea Opportunity and Global Expansion
Rimini Street opened its local office in Seoul’s Gangnam District in August 2016, and continues to expand its local marketing, sales, operations and experienced engineering staff to serve its growing list of Korean clients from its operations in Korea, in local language. Rimini Street Korea is led by country manager, Hyungwook Kim. Mr. Kim is a seasoned Oracle and SAP sales leader.
“Rimini Street established its presence in Korea due to strong local demand for an alternative approach to paying high SAP and Oracle support costs for their enterprise systems, and a desire to avoid required, low-value, expensive and unwanted vendor upgrades just to obtain software support. South Korean CIOs, like their counterparts around the world, are looking for trusted technology partners to help them navigate this challenge and identify ways to optimize their current software investments while creating a long-term business-driven roadmap to support company growth,” Mr. Kim said.
About Rimini Street, Inc.
Rimini Street, Inc. (Nasdaq: RMNI) is a global provider of enterprise software products and services, the leading third-party support provider for Oracle and SAP software products and a Salesforce partner. 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 maintenance costs. Clients can remain on their current software release without any required upgrades for a minimum of 15 years. Over 1,800 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
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1 Gartner “2018 CIO Agenda: A South Korean Perspective,” April 3, 2018.
