The travel industry is frozen right now; organisations need to find cost savings. The aviation sector alone looks set to lose $250 billion (£215 billion) in revenue according to the latest reports. This seems to have come as a result of the travel ban, with cancelled flights and planes grounded. Organisations such as FlyBe, British Airways, and Virgin Atlantic are faced with the difficult decision of reducing employee numbers just to stay afloat.
The freeze isn’t just impacting the travel and transport organisations themselves. It also affects organisations connected to the travel sector, such as manufacturers, suppliers, insurers, etc.
Put simply, organisations everywhere are struggling to maintain service during the pandemic. The universal underlying need is to cut costs, but in ways that minimise damage to the business or staff.
Cost savings are essential in the travel industry
When looking to make savings, you may cancel upcoming projects, downsize operations, or even try to negotiate with your suppliers. One area many organisations don’t think to examine is the cost of ERP and database software support.
But while these elements are an absolute necessity and cannot be turned off or removed to make savings, one area where you are spending unnecessarily is support for these products.
ERP vendors like Oracle and SAP will continue to charge 22% of your licensing fees each year to pay for support and maintenance. This usually takes up a significant amount of IT department expenses while showing very little ROI, so why do you keep paying so much for so little?
To most, paying Oracle and SAP for support may be considered an “unavoidable” cost. They need to protect and secure their ERP systems even if they haven’t raised a support ticket in years. Many think that Oracle/SAP Support is a necessary evil to protect the organisation and that they have no viable alternative.
That, however, is where we come in. Recognised by Gartner, Support Revolution can replace Oracle/SAP Support for databases and ERP software/applications, cutting your annual bill in half. We simply replace the vendor in the support cycle.
How Arriva saved millions with third-party support
We have experience in helping organisations in the travel and transport industry. Arriva, a multinational public transport company, was locked into an Oracle-managed Cloud contract at a time when it was looking to save money and move its systems to SAP.
Arriva’s team came to us because, “we offered more than they knew they needed.” So, to help the organisation save money and take back control of its IT roadmap, we:
- Transitioned Arriva away from Oracle Support, saving 68% on its annual costs
- Switched its systems to the AWS Cloud, giving it freedom to up/downscale its operations as needed
- Gave back the flexibility it wanted to ignore Oracle’s upgrade demands
All this, and without a drop in service and support quality:
“Support Revolution has been able to provide a tailormade service to suit our needs. Our previous supplier could not do that. In addition, Support Revolution is very responsive, and we have regular service reviews. We are happy with our decision to move our service to Support Revolution and we would recommend it.”
Alan Sherwen, Director of IT Services, Arriva plc
With Support Revolution, Arriva was able to escape Oracle’s restrictive contracts and make huge savings. It has successfully reinvested in its own future (not Oracle’s).
Cut unnecessary costs now
It can be all too easy to make budget cuts, not just in IT but company-wide, which can fundamentally damage an organisation. Sudden losses can affect your ability to operate and innovate, both in the short and long term.
We don’t want organisations to make difficult decisions that may be regretted later on, especially when there are simpler, faster, and less risky ways of cutting costs.
With Support Revolution, we can unlock savings for you in a short amount of time, all while improving your current level of support quality. We believe this is one of the best kept secrets in IT. We’re happy and proud to be able to offer organisations a chance to make savings, without making compromises.
Arriva is just one of many organisations in the travel industry making cost savings. Don’t delay any longer; click below and see just how much you can save.
