LAS VEGAS - Wednesday, 24. August 2022
Rimini
Street support and security enables university to slash support wait
times, improve security, reduce support costs and improve its service
delivery as tertiary education sector adopts hybrid learning and
navigates labor shortages
(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, today announced that the
University of Technology Sydney (UTS) has switched from Oracle to Rimini
Street for improved support and security of its Oracle database and
technology platforms. In doing so, the University has slashed wait times
for support requests, enjoyed improved service quality and innovative,
advanced security to protect its database and application middleware.
Rimini Street is also helping the University manage through the ongoing
IT skills shortage by reducing the amount of IT labor required for
support and instead, allowing resources to focus on the rapid transition
to hybrid learning.
UTS is one of Australia’s leading
universities, with around 45,000 students and 4,000 staff. The IT
department employs around 300 staff and is responsible for the digital
experiences supporting the people, processes, and culture at the
university. The University faced challenges during the pandemic
including a massive shift to online learning and remote work, and a
growing IT skills shortage. The large decline in the number of
international students enrolling in Australia has also seen IT budgets
shrink. Because of these limitations, UTS needed to refocus its
strategic resources more efficiently.
“UTS, like all universities
in Australia, has had to rapidly transition to a hybrid learning model
that includes classroom and online service delivery. There are many
innovations and technologies needed for the transition to hybrid
learning; budgets are tightening across the board and the
quality-of-service delivery expectations remain the same or higher,”
said Daniel Benad, group vice president and regional general manager,
Australia, New Zealand and Oceania, Rimini Street. “Students can now log
into their online classes from almost anywhere in the world which adds a
new layer of complexity for the IT team. Fast, reliable, and secure
systems are needed to keep up with the changing world and to remain a
leading provider in the education market.”
Focusing on the big issues with more time and money to spare
Maintaining
their Oracle database landscape was draining on the university’s IT
budget and internal resources. Support tickets were often slow to be
resolved by the software vendor, preventing IT staff from completing
other system maintenance and responding quickly to new IT challenges.
Staff were preoccupied with keeping databases operating properly in a
rapidly scaling up environment and had little time to focus on
university initiatives to support growth and innovation.
“Skilled
staff are only getting more expensive to hire and retaining these
employees just to work on support and operational tasks for our
enterprise software is no longer sustainable,” said Brian Kelly, Head of
IT Operations at UTS. “We’ve had to really maximize the resources we
have to keep our IT services growing, improving and meeting the needs of
the university.”
In addition, as UTS increasingly moved towards a
hybrid learning model for its students, and a remote working
environment for its staff, cost, capability, supportability, and
flexibility were key to guaranteeing robust and reliable IT services.
The rapid move into the remote workspace also opened new avenues and
risks for cybersecurity attacks and breaches. As the number and location
of users increased, so too did opportunities for unauthorized access.
As such, the University was conscious it needed to increase the security
of its Oracle software, particularly as routine patching was a costly
and time-consuming endeavour for its IT team that did not necessarily
provide the fastest protection model in the case of a discovered
vulnerability.
“UTS is relatively new to the hybrid working and
learning space, and it’s important to be mindful of risks from such a
rapid transformation,” said Kelly.
The University began to look
at ways to get improved support, better security and reduced operating
costs for its Oracle Database landscape while also reducing the resource
drain on its IT team. UTS turned to Rimini Street’s enterprise software
support and security solutions.
Lowering Costs and Response Times
Each
Rimini Street client benefits from the Company’s flexible,
premium-level enterprise software support model, including its
industry-leading Service Level Agreement of 10-minute response times for
all critical Priority 1 cases. All clients are also assigned a Primary
Support Engineer with an average of 20 years’ experience in enterprise
software and backed by a team of functional and technical engineers.
In
addition, Rimini Street’s Database Management Services provide UTS with
new expert skills from skilled and responsive engineers. Since
partnering with Rimini Street, resolving support tickets is easier and
quicker, with expert engineers available to respond to challenges at any
time.
“Being able to shrink how much time is spent on routine
work has really allowed us to prioritise the bigger picture, and Rimini
Street gives us time back in our day,” said Kelly. “The team is no
longer worried about how long a patch or upgrade will take, how long
it’ll take to get issues resolved, or how many hours they’ll have to
dedicate to something routine. Rimini Street has taken care of that for
us, and having such a quick turnaround for support has really eased up
our workload.
“Rimini Street gives us high-quality support for
these business-as-usual activities without breaking our budget. Being
able to be flexible with what senior ICT staff we hire means we’re
putting a microscope on what our team actually needs, rather than
allowing necessity to dictate it.”
Rimini Street Protect - Proactive Security
Having
the time and resource availability enabled UTS to develop and deploy
additional enterprise security enhancements. Further, Rimini Street’s
security solutions gave UTS peace of mind that it would be secure and
remain live while it implemented the additional security enhancements.
“Completed
security enhancements include secure identity management and access
controls,” said Kelly. “Thanks to Rimini Street, we now have time and
budget to spare and we are now looking at developing and deploying
additional security measures utilizing a cloud-first strategy. We’re
also working on automating service management and migrating to the cloud
anything that improves the quality of user experience.”
“UTS is
yet another example of an institution that has benefited from Rimini
Street’s comprehensive and effective database support and security,”
said Benad. “As international borders continue to open and students
choose Australia as an education destination, UTS’ improved service
delivery and flexibility supporting a hybrid education model will play a
huge part in improving the student learning experience.”
About Rimini Street, Inc.
Rimini
Street, Inc. (Nasdaq: RMNI), a Russell 2000® Company, 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 offers premium, ultra-responsive and
integrated application management and support services that enable
enterprise software licensees to save significant costs, free up
resources for innovation and achieve better business outcomes. To date,
more than 4,200 Fortune 500, Fortune Global 100, midmarket, public
sector and other organizations from a broad range of industries have
relied on Rimini Street as their trusted application enterprise software
products and services provider. To learn more, please visit
http://www.riministreet.com, follow @riministreet on Twitter and find
Rimini Street on Facebook and LinkedIn.
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 expectations of future events,
future opportunities, global expansion and other growth initiatives and
our investments in such initiatives. 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, the amount and timing of repurchases, if any, under our
stock repurchase program and our ability to enhance stockholder value
through such program; the impact of our credit facility’s ongoing debt
service obligations and financial and operational covenants on our
business and related interest rate risk, including uncertainty from the
discontinuance of LIBOR and transition to any other interest rate
benchmarks; the duration of and economic, operational and financial
impacts on our business of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the actions
taken by governmental authorities, clients or others in response to the
pandemic; changes in the business environment in which Rimini Street
operates, including the impact of any recessionary economic trends,
including inflation, rising interest rates and changes in foreign
exchange rates, as well as general financial, economic, regulatory and
political conditions affecting the industry in which Rimini Street
operates and the industries in which our clients operate; the evolution
of the enterprise software management and support landscape facing our
clients and prospects and our ability to attract and retain clients and
further penetrate our client base; catastrophic events that disrupt our
business or that of our current and prospective clients, including
terrorism and geopolitical actions specific to an international region;
adverse developments in and costs associated with defending pending
litigation or any new litigation; our need and ability to raise
additional equity or debt financing on favorable terms and our ability
to generate cash flows from operations to help fund increased investment
in our growth initiatives; the sufficiency of our cash and cash
equivalents to meet our liquidity requirements, including under our
credit facility; our ability to maintain an effective system of internal
control over financial reporting and our ability to remediate any
identified material weaknesses in our internal controls; changes in laws
and regulations, including changes in tax laws or unfavorable outcomes
of tax positions we take, or a failure by us to establish adequate
reserves for tax events; competitive product and pricing activity;
challenges of managing growth profitably; customer adoption of our
products and services, including our Application Management Services
(AMS) offerings, in addition to other products and services we expect to
introduce in the future; the loss of one or more members of Rimini
Street’s management team; our ability to attract and retain qualified
employees and key personnel; uncertainty as to the long-term value of
Rimini Street’s equity securities; the effects of seasonal trends on our
results of operations, including the contract renewal cycles for vendor
supplied software support and managed services; our ability to prevent
unauthorized access to our information technology systems and other
cybersecurity threats, protect the confidential information of our
employees and clients and comply with privacy and data protection
regulations; and those discussed under the headings “Risk Factors” and
“Cautionary Note About Forward-Looking Statements” in Rimini Street’s
Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed on August 3, 2022, and as updated
from time to time by Rimini Street’s future Annual Reports on Form 10-K,
Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and other
filings by Rimini Street with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 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.
© 2022 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.
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Contacts
Jeff Spicer
Rimini Street, Inc.
+1 415-297-6488
pr@riministreet.com
