Scotland
£100m+
Global
1,000+
Financial
This Scottish campus provides a learning environment for more than 20,000 students and 1,600 staff from more than 100 countries around the world.
The university was one of countless organisations that would’ve been severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The organisation was unable to enroll international students at the start of the academic year, due to travel restrictions.
This disruption in student numbers caused a significant loss in the organisation’s revenue. They therefore had a new, critical priority for all departments. Senior management sent a missive instructing everyone to analyse cost-spend and identify any potential aspect costs which could be cut down.
With a number of faculties under immense pressure, its IT department felt that they had an obligation to push through any cost savings, and better support them as a whole. This led to their IT department therefore making the sensible decision to look at the organisation’s Oracle costs.
The software versions it was using – 10g and 11.5.10 – had fallen
out of Oracle Premier Support some time ago, meaning these versions were on Oracle’s lowest support tier: Sustaining Support.
Oracle software on Sustaining Support is not entitled to receive security, legislative, or BAU patches, and is also no longer eligible for support for new bugs on older versions. Despite and even though Sustaining Support provides such a limited level of service, organisations on this level are still expected to pay support fees.
As an additional downside, these fees are still subject to Oracle’s 4% increase annually. This, incidentally, has been above the average rate of global inflation for at least eight of the last ten years. This means that year-on-year, their Oracle Support gets more expensive, compared to the rest of the organisation’s spending.
While they remained on Oracle Sustaining Support, the organisation would continue paying support fees for a limited service. Oracle’s logic dictated that to overcome this issue, the only solution was for them to upgrade. That, however, was an even less appealing concept, and would have involved additional costs that the organisation did could not have spare.
Their budgets were being squeezed, and the organisation had minimal appetite to continue overpaying Oracle. Even so, they wanted to return to Oracle’s Premier Support, but for a much lower price, and without any requirement to upgrade.
They originally believed, like a lot of organisations, that vendor support was the only option available. We helped them see otherwise. For them, finding third-party support was like finding buried treasure. The organisation didn’t quite see what it had, at first, but quickly understood what it could be worth. Then, the events of 2020 accelerated the organisation’s move towards Support Revolution.
We were chosen due to our extensive track record of working with UK public organisations, especially
in Scotland. In addition, we had an existing business relationship with one of their key strategic partners, and another with a key organisation in the student accommodation market.
All combined, they felt confident that Support Revolution could help its situation. Once moved to our support service, we immediately reduced their annual support and maintenance bill, and moved its Oracle Database and E-Business Suite back into mainstream support.
This meant that, as well as fulfilling its cost-saving objectives, the organisation would also receive essential legislative and security updates, and BAU fixes for all its software versions.
As an organisation focused purely on support, we have no need to increase ownership costs, just to balance out R&D losses (on products you might not even use). We offer a best-in-class support service , and price point, and work to help organisations achieve their objectives, not our own.
They wanted Oracle Premier Support without having to upgrade. In the end, it received something even better. Our support model doesn’t just match Oracle Premier Support; it exceeds it.
It’s improved not just by the reduced price. We have aligned our services to the practices of ITIL, in addition toand our ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certifications. Using these measurements as the ‘base level’ of quality within our organisation puts us ahead of Oracle’s support guidelines.
While the 50% savings may sound like it requires compromise some sacrifices are required, they have successfully found a reduced price for a better service.
They had been hit hard by the pandemic and recession. Fortunately, they hadn’t been forced to face difficult and more long-term decisions, such as reducing its staff.
However, the organisation was still facing difficult and expensive decisions in other areas, such as having to upgrade 10G and 11.5.10 just to stay supported.
Our third-party support has effectively unlocked an unlimited lifetime for their software. We will support its software, even when Oracle no longer will. We Support Revolution successfully removed the stresses of support end dates, and we removed the need to upgrade, saving them that additional, unwanted cost.
With our help, the organisation has achieved huge savings in very little time.
If you’re looking for superior support, contact us and you’ll save up to 90%!
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