- UK
- £200m+
- Europe
- 3,000+
- Public Sector
The organization delivers public protection informed by both community priorities and evidence-based analysis of public and policing needs.
The Problem
With Oracle’s E-Business Suite 12.1.3 going out of support at the end of 2021, they felt stuck between two options: moving into Sustaining Support and falling out of compliance or undertaking another costly upgrade (with few resources to spare).
With Premier Support for Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.3 set to end in a matter of months, and with no Extended Support available, the software will move straight into Sustaining Support. This means that they would be subjected to an increase in support costs, despite no longer being eligible to receive security and legislative updates.
As the organization’s systems are audited annually, going without regular security updates could have resulted in serious compliance issues. In addition, if the organization was not able to receive any future financial legislation updates, it would not have been able to raise invoices or pay suppliers.
Throughout its time with Oracle, they had grown frustrated with the quality of service it was receiving. On a number of occasions, the organization had to spend time chasing the vendor for information and updates, despite already struggling to find the resources to apply critical patch updates that would have otherwise left its systems vulnerable to attack.
To add insult to injury, the organization was also subjected to an audit by Oracle, which resulted in a hefty bill to cover additional licences. This only placed further strain on the already waning relationship between them and the vendor.
The organization has identified a number of key projects it would like to invest in. However, its ongoing relationship with Oracle left them with limited time, resources, and budget, hindering any opportunity to work on these transformation projects.
The Solution
Support Revolution helped them avoid a costly upgrade and uphold compliance, while providing a much greater quality of service for half the cost.
Resigned to believing its only option was to undertake a costly and disruptive upgrade, the organization was concerned about putting additional pressure on an already stretched budget. That is, until, the organization learned about third-party support.
The organization was impressed with Support Revolution’s track record and experience working with other police organisations throughout the UK, as well as high-profile and central UK government organisations. Owing to our extensive expertise, the organization felt confident in our abilities to meet its needs.
The organization considered our core SLAs (for response and resolution times) a crucial deciding factor. The knowledge that we could resolve incidents efficiently in-house, and without issuing the organization’s internal team with self-help fixes, offered them the freedom it needed to progress major transformation projects. This, too, was further affirmed when we were able to reduce the organization’s annual support bills by approximately 50%.
Furthermore, our partnership with Trend Micro offered much needed assurances for them. As a world-leading security solution that provided more regular updates than Oracle, remaining compliant and secure was made easier to manage and reduced the risk of downtime for the organisation.#
Additionally, as we are able to support the organization’s current system version (E-Business Suite 12.1.3), the organization did not have to undertake an unnecessary upgrade or accept the move to Sustaining Support.
Now, the organization feels like it can rely on Support Revolution – as part of our collaborative partnership approach – to continue delivering an exceptional service while helping it avoid any unnecessary costs in the future.
The Benefits
Freedom from forced upgrades
With more than 20 years of experience as an Oracle partner, we have the technical understanding and expertise to take care of Oracle software (even versions long forgotten by the vendor). So, they can remain on its existing software versions for as long as the organization needs, without the pressure to perform costly and disruptive upgrades to remain supported.
Maintaining secure and compliant systems
During its time with Oracle, they struggled to find the resources to apply critical patch updates, and frequently experienced delays for incident resolutions, which could have left its systems vulnerable. Now, the organization has all the required security updates and legislative changes at no additional costs and with minimal resources required, so it can be certain its systems will remain secure and compliant.
Savings to reinvest into the organization
As the organization was able to stay with its current system version, it avoided Oracle’s increasing support costs and did not have to find the resources to undertake an upgrade. Opting to move to a third-party support provider meant the organization was able to cut its annual support bill by more than 50%. These savings can, instead, be reinvested into other areas of the organization that had been neglected as a result of its experience with Oracle.
Reclaiming vital resources
In addition to significant cost savings, they have been able to free up other vital resources that have been, until now, inaccessible due to the demand of maintaining its Oracle estate. As we’ll be managing incident resolution, as well as the testing and applying of critical patches, the organization’s internal teams can turn their attention fully to their day-to-day roles (without the frustrations and disruption of an unresponsive vendor) and will also be able to pursue more important IT transformation projects.