Latin American automotive parts and accessories manufacturer leverages support savings to expand business and fund future innovation initiatives
LAS VEGAS, August 28, 2020 – 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 Rassini NHK Automotive (RNA), a leading automotive parts and accessories manufacturer in Brazil, has switched to Rimini Street Support for its SAP ECC 6.0 applications. RNA plans to redirect the savings generated by migrating to Rimini Street Support for business expansion and future innovation initiatives, including improving production management with Internet of Things (IoT) technology, deploying industry 4.0 predictive maintenance in its manufacturing equipment, automating manual processes, and enhancing the company’s project management capabilities.
RNA, a Japanese-Mexican automotive group, is a leading provider of automotive parts and accessories across the region. The company’s products are distributed nationally, covering passenger and light commercial vehicles equipped with coil springs, as well as pickups, trucks and buses equipped with spring bundles. With a downturn in the automotive industry in Brazil, the company embarked on a widespread cost optimization initiative across the business, asking its department leaders to identify and reduce fixed costs that were deemed unnecessary or non-critical to the company’s growth and survival.
In addition, the company is challenged with continuous innovation in a competitive market, which requires significant investment in engineering and new technologies. RNA’s IT department had already been operating with a lean structure internally, but as it carried out its cost optimization due diligence, the support and maintenance costs for their SAP system were immediately flagged. In addition, RNA’s CIO noted that the support provided by the vendor was not only expensive, with no new perceived innovation or enhancements in the product releases to justify the high costs, but the vendor’s support was unsatisfactory as well. All of these reasons led RNA to explore third-party support as an option, and ultimately the company chose Rimini Street Support.
“The move to Rimini Street and the savings generated as a result has helped us through this moment of business uncertainty worldwide,” said Fernando José Andrade da Silva, CIO, Rassini NHK Automotive. “In addition to the savings, Rimini Street’s service level agreement (SLA) is excellent – the company delivers on everything it promises, which gives us a tremendous amount of peace of mind across our IT group and the business at large. The support provided by the vendor was slow and, in one specific case, it took two months to resolve a single support issue. With Rimini Street, the quality of service and the expertise of its engineers are much higher compared to what we were experiencing before.”
Support for Brazil’s Complex Tax, Legal and Regulatory Updates
“When I brought the possibility of switching to Rimini Street Support to RNA decision makers, I gathered data, studies and references to support the change and the benefits it would bring, including a higher quality support, significant cost savings, and support for our tax, legal and regulatory compliance needs. This was essential to ensure that the migration would not harm the company. It was also very important to have the CFO as an ally in this journey of change,” continued Andrade da Silva.
Award-Winning Support for SAP and Oracle Licensees
As with all Rimini Street clients, RNA was assigned a Primary Support Engineer (PSE), backed by a team of technical and functional experts, who have an average of 15 years’ experience in the client’s enterprise software. Clients also receive the Company’s industry-leading SLAs with a guaranteed response time of 15 minutes for critical (P1) issues. In addition, RNA can now run their current stable SAP system for a minimum of 15 years from the time that they switched to Rimini Street Support, allowing them to step off the vendor’s upgrade cycle just to remain fully supported by the vendor. In addition to supporting RNA’s SAP ECC 6.0 applications, Rimini Street also provides support for RNA’sOracle Database software which its SAP system runs on.
“For companies that are looking for ways to optimize and rationalize their costs, particularly during an economic crisis where they need to preserve cash, switching to Rimini Street’s third-party support is a fast, effective way to achieve this,” said Edenize Maron, general manager, Latin America, Rimini Street. “RNA has discovered what our more than 3,500 clients around the world to date have experienced – an immediate pool of funds that can be diverted to business critical initiatives, plus an ultra-responsive support model that provides CIOs with peace of mind and delivers a true partnership approach to their enterprise software support needs. We are pleased to help RNA accomplish its business objectives including cost savings, business continuity and innovation.”