Founded in 1951, Cubic Corporation plays a central role in global defense and transportation, providing military mission and training support and mass transportation solutions around the world. “Our mission is to provide innovative solutions that improve operational readiness and mobility worldwide,” Jack Lidington, Director of Enterprise Applications at Cubic Corporation, shared. That mission depends on enterprise systems that must be stable, compliant and capable of supporting long-lifecycle defense contracts and complex transportation systems. SAP sits at the heart of these operations, powering finance, project planning, production and payroll across multiple regions. “SAP is the backbone to all of our corporate business processes and functions,” Lidington explained.
Lidington, a lifelong “techie,” is committed to his role leading the global team that manages all of Cubic’s core enterprise platforms, providing technical support for other peripheral applications and driving transformational initiatives. “What gets me up in the morning is really helping people,” he reflected. “I enjoy everything from getting involved in the technical architecture that drives efficiencies in business operations to helping our end users complete their day-to-day tasks.”
Breaking free from vendor support to focus on IT transformation
When SAP announced the end of mainstream maintenance for ECC 6.0, Cubic Corporation found itself at a critical juncture. Lidington had to make a choice: stay with SAP and commit to a costly, disruptive upgrade or explore alternatives. After determining that the S/4HANA upgrade alone wouldn’t deliver the transformation they needed, Cubic decided to pursue a support model better aligned to its long-term SAP ECC roadmap, customizations and operational needs, and engaged Rimini Street.
“With Rimini Street, we were able to clearly reduce our annual spend on SAP support and maintenance. We could maintain our existing landscape without being forced into an upgrade,” Lidington said. Staying on ECC 6.0 was the right strategy for Cubic, but only if they could do so with confidence in compliance and security.
Operating under the strict regulatory and compliance demands of the defense and transportation industries adds weight to every IT decision. “We needed to ensure that we could remain compliant without SAP support,” Lidington said. “Rimini Street delivered that assurance with its proactive security processes, client-centric support model and global tax, legal and regulatory (TLR) services.”
In conversations with other clients, Cubic found additional reassurance that Rimini Support™ for SAP was the right third-party support provider for its SAP systems. “As a company whose mission is to provide innovative solutions that improve operational readiness and mobility worldwide, finding the right partner who can support that vision was a key factor as to why we selected Rimini Street,” said Lidington. “Rimini Street has a tailored approach, different than other vendors. They understand our existing technology stack, our vision and help us execute the roadmap from where we are today to where we’re headed.”
After a smooth onboarding experience, Lidington and team quickly felt the impact of the Rimini Street service model that provides 24/7/365 support worldwide with SLA-backed response targets for critical issues. “We can count on Rimini Street to respond to our cases in an expedited manner,” Lidington said. They’ve augmented our day-to-day production support model, helping free our resources to focus on transformational initiatives.
Those initiatives include modernization, automation and rethinking fragmented business processes. “AI is an area we’re starting to explore,” Lidington explained. “Rimini Street’s support gives us the bandwidth to participate in those conversations.”
Partnership spans beyond logging tickets to a strategic guidance
For Cubic, Rimini Street has become more than just a support provider. The Rimini Street team has evolved into a true partner in problem-solving and innovation. “It’s great to have Rimini Street’s pool of experts to bounce ideas off of. It gives my team another lever to pull to free up their time or explore outside opinions on different solutions.” Lidington said. “We have a capable internal team, but Rimini Street’s experts act as a sounding board, helping us pressure-test decisions and accelerate the path from plan to execution.”
That expertise has been especially valuable in transformation-ready areas. In accounts payable, Cubic uses OpenText™ Vendor Invoice Manager for SAP to process a high volume of invoices annually. With Rimini Street’s help, Cubic continues to analyze invoice formats across vendors to improve the rate of “touchless” processing, aiming to reduce the need for manual intervention and speed vendor payments.
The same pattern applies across HR, payroll and manufacturing systems. “Rimini Street delivers a more customized experience,” Lidington stressed. “They made the effort to not only understand our SAP systems but to also understand the peripheral systems that integrate with it. From OS upgrades to payroll legislation changes, Rimini Street has been responsive and thorough, making sure nothing jeopardizes continuity for Cubic’s mission-critical systems,” Lidington shared. “When we recently did an SAP Manufacturing Execution (ME) OS upgrade, our Rimini Street team was available and on-call as a precautionary measure assuring that resources were available if we ran into issues during that process.”
When Lidington receives the monthly Security Vulnerability Analysis Report. (SVAR), a unique Rimini Street service that provides threat research and analysis of vulnerabilities, along with mitigation options and actionable strategies to address them, the added benefits include the ability to have Rimini Street work in close collaboration with his team and technology partners to apply the necessary updates to keep systems secure.
Reimagining support as an innovation enabler
Lidington sees Cubic’s journey as relevant for other organizations weighing third-party support. “It’s a mindset shift,” he reflected. “SAP support tended to be a last-ditch effort. We trust Rimini Street as more than our software support provider. They work as a trusted partner to support the transformation vision we are leading while keeping us secure, compliant and ready.” Additionally, according to Lidington, it all adds up “to more efficiencies gained and more peace of mind.” Lidington acknowledges that being able to maintain the reliability and performance of their existing tech stack is critical in enabling smart investments in emerging technologies while optimizing existing systems.
By freeing up resources, reducing support costs by 50%, providing a deep bench of experts and tailoring support to each client’s stack, Rimini Street enables organizations like Cubic to keep ERP systems viable for years to come and use those systems as a springboard for innovation. “With the support of Rimini Street, we have been able to shift more focus toward value-add initiatives,” Lidington said. “Rimini Street’s support helps create capacity for us to explore modernization, automation and AI initiatives across our broader application landscape, while maintaining SAP ECC as the stable core.”
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