Anne Plese: What’s happening in the market right now, and where are our PeopleSoft clients in the lifecycle of their core systems?
Rodney Kenyon: “We see an established ecosystem with a steady stream of point solutions … ”
“PeopleSoft clients in general are seemingly more focused on keeping the lights on, not upgrading. Their systems are established, and they have the functionality they need for financials, human capital management, and core HR.
There is no 9.3 roadmap, and updates are generally required several times per year to maintain full support.
Over the years, we’ve seen an established ecosystem with a steady stream of point solutions that plug and play, like resource planning tools or self-service reporting tools. Some clients run a mix of PeopleSoft 9.1 and 9.2. They love 9.2 because of the automation and the ability to receive updates, not necessarily the promise of innovation.
There are gaps emerging as these clients struggle to staff and keep these mission-critical systems running while their IT budgets are constrained.”
AP: How do client relationships begin, and how do you see the Rimini Street combination of support and AMS helping our PeopleSoft clients?
RK: “We understand what our PeopleSoft clients are trying to do as they evolve their technology stacks.”
“Companies on older releases of PeopleSoft start the relationship by moving maintenance; tax, legal, and regulatory support; and break-fix support to Rimini Street. Then, a natural progression is to engage Rimini Street for their AMS.
Most Peoplesoft clients are very customized with aging infrastructure, and that leads to very complicated patching and potential structure breakdowns. But that’s no problem for us. We’re experts in integrated support for ERP and AMS, and we support some of the largest, most complicated PeopleSoft landscapes out there.
One of the biggest benefits to PeopleSoft clients is that Rimini Street engineers understand their landscape, common journeys, and pitfalls. They know what clients are trying to do as they evolve their technology stacks. We help ensure application interoperability with virtualized servers, hardware, operating systems, browser compatibility, and desktop refreshes.”
AP: Why did Rimini Street expand into managed services?
RK: “Clients wanted us to manage their entire PeopleSoft systems.”
“Rimini Street clients saw their success with our enterprise software support and wanted us to manage their entire PeopleSoft systems. They’d rather not staff, support, and maintain them daily, so their IT talent can work on projects that make a meaningful difference for their businesses.
We expanded our support catalog to include Application Managed Services for PeopleSoft, part of our broader managed services for Oracle, and it’s been a strong fit for clients. Our depth in root-cause analysis for these systems is unmatched and completely transparent — all while ensuring documentation is up to date.
Rimini Street experts also know where business outcomes can be improved — especially around reducing ticket backlogs. So, we designed an AMS catalog that includes unlimited incidents and service requests.
We work closely with clients to scope a budget-friendly, predefined number of enhancements hours, then deliver good code into production — done correctly the first time — resulting in reduced costs and labor down the line. In fact, we’re helping one of our Application Management Services for PeopleSoft clients deliver near-term projects including a Vertex upgrade and implementing Escheats process enhancements — all while planning for a data center migration.
We also routinely fix bad code and bad processes delivered by clients’ outsourced lower-cost, lower-skilled AMS resources, which gives us more opportunity to provide value to clients.”
AP: How do PeopleSoft clients benefit from Rimini Street integrated AMS and support services?
RK: “Our global network of PeopleSoft engineers is always available, and every day we train even more.”
“PeopleSoft skills are increasingly hard to come by. Many PeopleSoft specialists are moving to Workday or other cloud solution providers. Rimini Street has a large always-available network of PeopleSoft engineers around the globe, and every day we train even more.
Having experts available for knowledge transfer is key to keeping systems optimized and is critical for clients. The Rimini Street combination of software support and managed services means fewer escalations, less volatility, and more predictability. And we can deliver higher quality outcomes in managing PeopleSoft systems because of our unique ability to access insight from historical PeopleSoft cases and the engineers who led them.
For one PeopleSoft client, we’ve focused on reducing its backlog of incidents, including closing aged cases that we inherited from its previous AMS vendor.
All Rimini Street clients benefit from the fact that we specialize in support. Unlike other AMS providers, we do not practice a “land and expand” approach. We are not trying to grow a consulting business or sell clients additional services that they may or may not need. We simplify client SLA oversight, meet critical key performance indicators (KPIs), and there is no scope creep. We even partner with clients’ other AMS providers when they need help hitting project milestones.”
AP: What do our PeopleSoft clients value most about Rimini Street management services?
RK: “We own the entire effort, from Level 2 through Level 4 support.”
“Rimini Street clients value the productivity, scale, and newfound IT resource capacity. They trust us to deliver the support they need, and their confidence level is high.
Rimini Street delivers an improved overall support experience of the highest quality, unlike other managed services providers. We own the entire effort, from Level 2 through Level 4 support, and have specific expertise in:
- managing tax, legal, and regulatory updates
- preparing for Workday and cloud migrations
- building and maintaining third-party application interfaces
- proactive knowledge transfer
- integrating technology stacks
- applying data fixes
Clients also appreciate that their IT teams can now develop new digital capabilities while we fix the bugs. The IT teams like it, too!”
AP: What are the most common use cases for our PeopleSoft Clients?
RK: “We simplify IT operating models.”
“Top client use cases include filling resource gaps, reducing incident backlogs, decommissioning systems, reducing costs, and facilitating IT for mergers and acquisitions. During uncertain times we see a lot of interest in simplifying IT operating models, reducing complexity, and moving away from dependence on multiple vendors.
We have a history of partnering with managed services providers and system integrators — and we continue those partnerships today. However, increasingly we are replacing an existing AMS provider who is not meeting client needs. One client engaged us when it grew tired of an AMS provider’s ongoing backlogs, bugs, and extra charges to re-repair their own ‘fixes’.”
That’s not our world.”
1 http://www.oracle.com/us/support/library/057419.pdf
Learn more about Rimini Street integrated Application Management Services + ERP software support.
