Independent, Third-Party Support Definition (in 1,300 Words or Less)

The primary differences between third-party support and in-house IT support are with specialized expertise, scope and cost structure:

• Specialized expertise: While both in-house IT support and third-party support can have specialized expertise, third-party support often offers hundreds of enterprise software experts from around the globe, with depth of knowledge that includes supporting older releases, customizations and cybersecurity expertise. In-house IT teams may lack the expertise to support older releases or niche systems as well as deep cybersecurity knowledge.
• Scope: In-house support teams are often responsible for both day-to-day IT maintenance and managing innovation initiatives, but may not have the expertise or bandwidth to provide all the capabilities needed for ongoing compliance and operations. In contrast, third-party support not only manages day-to-day IT maintenance, but it also includes a greater scope of services than in-house support, including tax, legal and regulatory updates, interoperability solutions, security solutions, advisory services and support for customizations. By outsourcing IT maintenance to third-party support, in-house support teams gain the bandwidth, time and resources to devote to innovation initiatives.
• Cost structure: Recruiting, training and retaining an in-house IT support team is often much more expensive than outsourcing IT support to a third-party. Third-party support also offers a predictable service model, which typically reduces ongoing support costs, unlike in-house IT support where costs rise as new employees and systems are added. Third-party support doesn’t replace internal IT support. It augments it and allows internal teams to focus their efforts on business priorities instead of “keeping the IT lights on.”

No, you won’t lose your relationship with your existing ERP vendor if you choose to move to third-party support. You retain your existing licenses and maintain your relationship with the vendor. Third-party support simply replaces your vendor’s support services while allowing you to continue using your current software release. This approach helps you maintain flexibility in your IT roadmap, extend the useful life of your existing, stable systems and reduce costs — without unnecessary upgrades or disruption.

Yes, you can still upgrade or migrate your existing system after you switch to third-party support. Third-party support allows you to defer upgrades or migrations while you plan future transformation on your own timeline. It creates greater flexibility in your organization’s IT strategy and reduces the pressure to undertake costly or premature migrations that don’t align with business priorities. Rimini Support™ offers archiving services to help you safely store your rightful entitlements for later implementation as your business needs evolve.

If you’re seeking an alternative to your ERP vendor’s support services and considering third-party support services, look for the following qualifications:

• Full support for your existing release beyond vendor end-of-support dates: Your provider should offer a rolling 15-year commitment to supporting existing software releases and include tax, legal and regulatory updates to help keep your ERP systems up to date and compliant.
• A dedicated Primary Support Engineer (PSE): You should have direct access to a PSE based in your time zone, available 24/7/365 and able to provide support in your preferred language.
• Quality support experience: Your chosen support provider should enable seamless, person-to-person handoffs between engineers — not just through call notes — while preserving case priority levels and providing frequent progress updates to keep you informed on your case resolution.
• Guaranteed SLAs: Your provider should offer guaranteed response SLAs, so you aren’t waiting for days for an initial response to your issue. Ideally, they should also offer guaranteed resolution times for critical cases. Rimini Support™ offers guaranteed response and resolution times, including a 10-minute response SLA for P1 cases with updates every 2 hours and a 4-hour resolution SLA for P1 cases (Resolution can be a solution, a workaround or an action plan).
• Support cost savings: You should be able to significantly reduce support costs compared to vendor support. With Rimini Support™, for example, clients can achieve potential savings of up to 90% off TCO, helping free up budget for innovation. Calculate your potential maintenance savings.
• Unified support and managed services: Your ERP support provider should offer integrated support and managed services. This unified approach enables deeper knowledge of your environment for faster, more seamless service and issue resolution.
• Patented and proprietary AI tools and processes for faster resolution: The provider you choose should be able to offer AI-powered support tools and processes that help resolve issues faster. Rimini Support™ includes patented and proprietary AI support tools and processes to match your case with the best-fit engineer based on dozens of vectors, all within seconds. Our unique, in-house-built technology detects signals to proactively assist clients, reducing cases that develop urgency and lowering business risk.

Take a look at our third-party support provider checklist to see what else you should consider when evaluating providers.

Yes, third-party support can help improve your organization’s cybersecurity, even if your existing support provider does not include patches or security services for the product version in their support services. Most vendors do not offer any security services or patches for products that have reached end of support, so if your product version is no longer supported by the vendor, then your system is not protected against vulnerabilities and security threats. For example, Oracle customers who currently have Oracle Sustaining Support do not receive new security patches or new critical updates. They only receive access to fixes released before the product entered Sustaining Support.

Rimini Street includes proactive security protection as part of our third-party software maintenance services. We offer:

• Continuous monitoring and threat assessment to help protect your environment from known and unknown vulnerabilities
• Hardening guidance to help mitigate security risks across your products we support
• Monthly or quarterly security vulnerability analysis reports (SVARs), which identify specific product vulnerabilities and provide guidance for threat mitigation
• The ability to open a support ticket for immediate assistance in identifying active security threats, neutralizing them and implementing preventative actions

We also offer add-on security services to further strengthen your security posture across your entire enterprise application and IT landscape, including hypervisors, ERP, databases and much more. Through Rimini Protect™, our comprehensive suite of security solutions, we offer managed security services, Advanced Database Security, Advanced Application and Middleware Security services, Advanced Hypervisor Security services and more. With Rimini Street, your systems remain protected without reliance on vendor security patches. Learn more about Rimini Protect™.