Rimini Street CEO Visits Seoul, Addresses Changing IT Mission

Company significantly expands client base and investment in Korea, enables Korean CIOs to take control of their ERP roadmap

Rimini Street CEO Visits Seoul, Addresses Changing IT Mission (Photo: Business Wire)

SEOUL--()--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, is committed to helping South Korean companies reduce ongoing IT operating costs and freeing up significant IT budget to invest in innovation, competitive advantage and growth, co-founder and CEO Seth A. Ravin explained during a press conference in Seoul. Mr. Ravin also highlighted continued strong and growing demand in Korea for the Company’s award-winning, ultra-responsive enterprise software support model, which is disrupting the $160 billion enterprise software maintenance market worldwide. As the 4th largest economy in Asia, and the 11th largest in the world, South Korea represents a large market opportunity for the Company.

Rimini Street is the leading third-party enterprise software support provider for Korean headquartered companies. The Company continues to increase its investment in Korean staff and capabilities, supports many global organizations with operations in South Korea, and supports a fast-growing list of well-known domestic Korean headquartered clients, including Seoul Semiconductor, CJOlivenetworks, LSIS, iMarketKorea, Jusung Engineering, SIFLEX, EC21, Kolon BENIT and Jeju Air.

A Changing IT Mission

During the presentation, Mr. Ravin highlighted key dynamics affecting CIOs today, which in turn are creating significant market opportunity for Rimini Street – both in Korea and around the globe. The first aspect is the shifting priority for CEOs. While cost efficiencies are still critical, growth has become the CEO’s top priority and many CEOs see technology investment as the key enabler of this growth. This mirrors findings in a recent report – “2018 CIO Agenda: A South Korea Perspective” – which states that for South Korean CIOs, growth/market share was most commonly cited as the top business objective for their organization, followed by innovation, R&D, and new products/services.1 In order to remain relevant in an environment where business demands are accelerating every day, the CIO’s charter is to become a change agent, heading up initiatives that provide competitive advantage and support growth. They must also quickly transition their IT teams from a reactive, tactical cost center, to enablers of digital transformation.

Mr. Ravin further explained that lack of resources – time, money and labor – is one of the biggest constraints facing CIOs. Today, as much as 90% of the overall IT budget is spent on ongoing operations and enhancements, including the maintenance of back-office ERP systems. “This leaves many organizations with just 10% of their IT budget to invest in innovation that supports competitive advantage and growth. CIO’s need to find capacity in their IT roadmaps to fund and complete business transformation initiatives,” noted Mr. Ravin.

A second major challenge facing the CIO is the lack of flexibility they have in developing a best-in-class, agile technology strategy while they are currently locked into their enterprise software vendors’ roadmap. CIOs are at the mercy of vendor-dictated roadmaps which include mandatory upgrade cycles, forced migration and lock-in to immature, unproven technologies, and expensive recurring costs associated with maintaining systems. The notion of being locked in to a single vendor’s roadmap is no longer financially viable for their business. “Every aspect of their roadmap must be optimized and designed for flexibility and future change, which is not possible as long as they are on a vendor-dictated roadmap – and this is where Rimini Street can provide great strategic and economic value to clients,” Mr. Ravin said.

Powering Client’s Business-Driven Roadmaps

Rimini Street accelerates the ability for clients to adopt a business-driven strategy by freeing up significant budget – up to 90% of their annual support costs – and resources they currently have dedicated to their enterprise software landscape. When clients switch to Rimini Street, they are liberated from the vendors mandated roadmap of updates, upgrades and migrations – all of which cost time, money and resources – and they can take control of their IT destiny.

“By switching to Rimini Street, Seoul Semiconductor has been able to save on our SAP annual maintenance costs by more than 50%, and increase the efficiency of our internal resources,” said Myungki Hong, vice president, Seoul Semiconductor. “Seoul Semiconductor has succeeded in taking the first step in implementing innovative IT projects for the business. Without vendor lock-in, we are now able to drive our own business-driven IT roadmap, enabled by the premium-level support and partnership approach we receive from Rimini Street.”

“The Company has helped over 2,700 clients to date collectively save over $3 billion in total support costs. In doing so, we have enabled our clients to fund projects that drive innovation, competitive advantage and growth,” said Mr. Ravin.

South Korea Opportunity and Global Expansion

Rimini Street opened its local office in Seoul’s Gangnam District in August 2016, and continues to expand its local marketing, sales, operations and experienced engineering staff to serve its growing list of Korean clients from its operations in Korea, in local language. Rimini Street Korea is led by country manager, Hyungwook Kim. Mr. Kim is a seasoned Oracle and SAP sales leader.

“Rimini Street established its presence in Korea due to strong local demand for an alternative approach to paying high SAP and Oracle support costs for their enterprise systems, and a desire to avoid required, low-value, expensive and unwanted vendor upgrades just to obtain software support. South Korean CIOs, like their counterparts around the world, are looking for trusted technology partners to help them navigate this challenge and identify ways to optimize their current software investments while creating a long-term business-driven roadmap to support company growth,” Mr. Kim said.

About Rimini Street, Inc.

Rimini Street, Inc. (Nasdaq: RMNI) is 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. The Company has redefined enterprise software support services since 2005 with an innovative, award-winning program that enables licensees of IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP and other enterprise software vendors to save up to 90 percent on total maintenance costs. Clients can remain on their current software release without any required upgrades for a minimum of 15 years. Over 1,800 global Fortune 500, midmarket, public sector and other organizations from a broad range of industries currently rely on Rimini Street as their trusted, third-party support provider. To learn more, please visit https://www.riministreet.com follow @riministreet on Twitter and find Rimini Street on Facebook and LinkedIn. (C-RMNI)

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements included in this communication are not historical facts but are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally are accompanied by words such as “may,” “should,” “would,” “plan,” “intend,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential,” “seem,” “seek,” “continue,” “future,” “will,” “expect,” “outlook” or other similar words, phrases or expressions. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding our expectations of future events, future opportunities, global expansion and other growth initiatives and our investments in such initiatives. These statements are based on various assumptions and on the current expectations of management and are not predictions of actual performance, nor are these statements of historical facts. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties regarding Rimini Street’s business, and actual results may differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, changes in the business environment in which Rimini Street operates, including inflation and interest rates, and general financial, economic, regulatory and political conditions affecting the industry in which Rimini Street operates; adverse developments in pending litigation or in the government inquiry or any new litigation; the final amount and timing of any refunds from Oracle related to our litigation; our need and ability to raise additional equity or debt financing on favorable terms and our ability to generate cash flows from operations to help fund increased investment in our growth initiatives; the sufficiency of our cash and cash equivalents to meet our liquidity requirements; the terms and impact of our outstanding 13.00% Series A Preferred Stock; changes in taxes, laws and regulations; competitive product and pricing activity; difficulties of managing growth profitably; the success of our recently introduced products and services, including Rimini Street Mobility, Rimini Street Analytics, Rimini Street Advanced Database Security, and services for Salesforce Sales Cloud and Service Cloud products, in addition to products and services we expect to introduce in the near future; the loss of one or more members of Rimini Street’s management team; uncertainty as to the long-term value of Rimini Street’s equity securities; and those discussed under the heading “Risk Factors” in Rimini Street’s Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on March 14, 2019, and as updated from time to time by Rimini Street’s future Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and other filings by Rimini Street with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, forward-looking statements provide Rimini Street’s expectations, plans or forecasts of future events and views as of the date of this communication. Rimini Street anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause Rimini Street’s assessments to change. However, while Rimini Street may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, Rimini Street specifically disclaims any obligation to do so, except as required by law. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing Rimini Street’s assessments as of any date subsequent to the date of this communication.

© 2019 Rimini Street, Inc. All rights reserved. “Rimini Street” is a registered trademark of Rimini Street, Inc. in the United States and other countries, and Rimini Street, the Rimini Street logo, and combinations thereof, and other marks marked by TM are trademarks of Rimini Street, Inc. All other trademarks remain the property of their respective owners, and unless otherwise specified, Rimini Street claims no affiliation, endorsement, or association with any such trademark holder or other companies referenced herein.

1 Gartner “2018 CIO Agenda: A South Korean Perspective,” April 3, 2018.

Contacts

Michelle McGlocklin
Rimini Street, Inc.
+1 925 523-8414
mmcglocklin@riministreet.com

Release Summary

Rimini Street significantly expands client base and investment in South Korea, enables Korean CIOs to take control of their ERP roadmap

Contacts

Michelle McGlocklin
Rimini Street, Inc.
+1 925 523-8414
mmcglocklin@riministreet.com