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Mercury NZ has achieved significant cost reductions in its SAP maintenance after transitioning to Rimini Support, directing the saved funds towards innovative IT projects.
The energy provider, which operates SAP ECC6 on a HANA database, relied on SAP for various processes including reporting, customer billing, CRM, and e-commerce. Following the acquisition of Trustpower's retail business, Mercury NZ opted to switch its retail system support to Gentrack and Salesforce, selecting Rimini Street for maintaining its customised SAP systems during this transition.
This collaboration has enabled Mercury NZ to stabilize its core systems while exploring opportunities in artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Rimini Street's services have supported Mercury NZ in achieving cost efficiency and operational stability. These savings are now being reinvested in platform modernisation to meet evolving consumer requirements.
Tim Aynsley, Mercury NZ's former Head of Technology, commented, "Mercury is constantly looking to innovate, to make sure we are offering products and services that our customers value in modernising the way we operate. During this transition, Rimini Street has given us the stability to be future-ready and focus on innovation."
Mercury NZ's long history of nearly two decades as a user of SAP, utilizing it for critical functions like reporting and utility billing, set the stage for the recent shifts. The company had considered upgrading to S/4HANA, but this was postponed following the Trustpower acquisition.
"With Rimini Street, we were provided with a viable alternative to support our SAP systems, which has helped us to make savings in the way we operate," said Aynsley.
Coy Wright, Vice President of Energy, Utilities & Mining at Rimini Street, stated, "Many SAP Utilities customers have concluded that the investment needed to move to S/4HANA is better used to fund innovation around strategic initiatives. We're seeing the utilities industry as a whole move toward composable ERP architectures using best-of-breed applications surrounding the SAP core and we're proud to support our clients on their journey to deliver successful business outcomes."
Mercury NZ has acknowledged the role of Rimini Street in providing peace of mind with their support services. The organisation has noted the impact of Rimini's highly responsive team of engineers, who work in conjunction with Mercury NZ's other vendors.
Anita Grenside, Practice Lead at Mercury NZ, expressed the utility's reliance on Rimini Watch to replace SAP's Solution Manager, saying, "We replaced SAP's Solution Manager (SolMan) with Rimini Watch. This allows us to monitor business processes, diagnose performance, and mitigate issues proactively. Our customers expect our services to be available when they need them, and so that's just logical from a competitive point of view that we can provide stable, resilient services."
Aynsley further elaborated on the partnership, "Rimini Street is a capable partner that, in our experience, exceeds in delivering what they promise. They play a key role in keeping the services that we provide to our consumers as cost effective and innovative as possible."
