2020 Survey Results: Analysis of Global Oracle EBS Licensee Behavior
Many Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) licensees today recognize that the software vendor’s dictated Peoplesoft support roadmap is an expensive one and following it rarely enhances competitive advantage. It can lead to spending as much as 90% of the IT budget on daily operating costs, leaving just 10% for transformative initiatives.1
Depending on the specific EBS release (12.0 and earlier, 12.1, or 12.2), Oracle licensees face different support challenges that range from no longer being fully supported to having to apply continuous updates to maintain full support.2 This significantly impacts both resource allocation and strategic direction, and many licensees are seeing the amount of new value they receive from vendor support decrease, while costs continue to increase. According to Gartner, “This is leading many organizations to seek lower-cost third-party support options.”3
Many Oracle EBS licensees are rerouting their IT roadmaps, regaining strategic control, and setting a course driven by business needs rather than vendor timelines. They are taking both proven and innovative approaches to improve ERP support, optimize daily operations, and implement cloud strategies that bring more value to the business.
2020 Global Survey of Oracle EBS Licensees
In partnership with IDG, Rimini Street recently conducted a global survey of Oracle E-Business Suite licensees to gather data and insights on the major challenges faced and strategies applied in adapting to the current Oracle ERP support model, including what their future plans around the EBS platform might be. The Oracle – value of database and support survey revealed several key insights.
Insight
Survey respondents (Oracle EBS licensee IT organizations) are frustrated with high annual maintenance and support fees and poor support service quality.
Recommendation:
Know the value of your current annual maintenance spend. If your current Oracle EBS releases meet your business needs, you may not want or need to upgrade your software just to keep up with vendor support timetables, while getting lower-value support. You have better options to spend less, keep your stable ERP running longer, create greater business impact, and get more responsive ERP support from third-party support providers. You can then redirect the cost savings to more strategic initiatives.
Insight
Few EBS customers have definite plans to upgrade and are leveraging application management services (AMS) to help extend ERP life and free up IT resources.
Very few Oracle E-Business Suite customers feel compelled to upgrade their applications— less than 40% of those running EBS 12.1 or earlier have definite plans to.
The primary driver to upgrade to 12.2 is support-related rather than access to new features or functional enhancements.
At the same time, more than two-thirds of Oracle EBS customers are currently using AMS to offload daily operations for some or all of their Oracle EBS ERP applications.
Recommendations:
Understand what Oracle EBS releases you run today and if you are fully supported or not. If you are planning to upgrade to EBS 12.1 (for example, based upon Oracle’s full support deadline of December 20212), consider third-party support to allow you to avoid the forced upgrade, save on the cost of Oracle EBS maintenance and support, and still preserve the choice to upgrade later if you choose.
If resource capacity is a challenge, understand how you can leverage unified AMS for Oracle and third-party support to further streamline and focus IT. Together, these services can be a powerful change agent to liberate IT from routine day-to-day ERP operations, enabling even greater focus on those strategic priorities with the greatest business impact.
Insight
Many Oracle EBS licensees are starting their journey to the cloud for EBS by hosting on open-cloud IaaS for the greatest value and lowest risk.
Twice as many respondents (30%) indicate that they have already migrated some or all of their Oracle ERP to a cloud hosting provider as opposed to replacing their ERP with SaaS. Lifting and shifting existing EBS software to a cloud environment provides the cloud-related benefits noted earlier, while allowing the respondents to extend the lifespan of their proven, current software releases for many additional years without having to address aging hardware infrastructure challenges.
However, of those respondents evaluating, actively moving, or already having replaced some of their Oracle ERP with SaaS, nearly 70% are choosing non-Oracle SaaS as well as Oracle SaaS, indicating a preference for a best-of-breed approach rather than a single-vendor.
Recommendation:
For an initial cloud move with lower risk and greater sustained CAPEX and OPEX savings and ROI, begin with IaaS hosting and combine that with third-party support. This will help improve IT agility through simplified IT infrastructure operations and better support while preserving existing EBS investments without reimplementation. Then, for competitive advantage and strategic business impact, consider adding best-in-class SaaS applications around your Oracle EBS ERP if the business case goes beyond discounts that will expire or temporary cloud credits.
Third-Party Support Puts You Back in Control of Your Oracle EBS ERP Roadmap
No matter which Oracle EBS release you’re running, independent, third-party support can help you save up to 90% on total maintenance costs and extend the life of your stable, customized ERP for 15 years or more from the time you switch. You can also regain control of your IT roadmap, align it with business priorities rather than vendor timelines, and invest newly available savings in innovation and growth.
For further insights and recommendations, please read the complete 2020 global Oracle EBS survey research report.
1 Gartner IT Key Metrics Data 2021:— Executive Summary, 18 December 2020
2 https://www.oracle.com/us/assets/lifetime-support-applications-069216.pdf and http://www.oracle.com/us/support/library/057419.pdf
3 Gartner Predicts 2020: Negotiate Software and Cloud Contracts to Manage Marketplace Growth and Reduce Legacy Costs, published 18 December 2019 – ID G00463732
