CASE STUDY | Stephen F. Austin State University

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Oracle Support Consolidation Eliminates Annual Spending Increases and Reduces Processing Time

Opportunity

Stephen F. Austin State University (SFA) procurement and IT departments were having to address the renewal of over 10 Oracle hardware and software support contracts on a yearly basis. These contracts all had different beginning and ending dates and incurred increased cost annually. To accommodate this structure, SFA was faced with having to issue a PO for each individual contract, as well as payout quarterly on each contract which equaled processing over 40 invoices yearly for their Oracle support. SFA wanted a better way to budget for, and manage their Oracle software and hardware support while also minimizing costs.

Solution

To address SFA’s challenges, RFD & Associates, Inc. (RFD) proposed combining all of the separate contracts and terming them out for 5 years. This solution would accomplish several goals, including allowing SFA to:

  • Issue a single PO
  • Enjoy cost savings for 5 years due to the elimination of the annual increase
  • Gain insight for future budget planning
  • See a decrease in the amount of invoices associated with their Oracle support contracts

In order to move forward with this plan, RFD worked with Oracle to combine SFA’s contracts into a single contracts (one for software and one for hardware), quoting the term out for 5 years. As part of this solution, RFD outlined a plan to charge a onetime annual increase in year 1, while keeping the cost flat for years 2 through 5. RFD also broke the fees down to a daily fee so that SFA could see how much they were spending for their support within their own budget cycles.

Results

SFA was able to issue a single PO for 5 years of Oracle support, saving the University considerable time and money, by:

  • Increasing visibility with the ability to see down to the exact dollar for their Oracle support expenditures within their (not Oracle’s) quarterly budgets
  • Reducing processing time, requiring the accounts payable department to contend withonly 4 yearly invoices opposed to 40
  • Simplifying operations by allowing SFA’s procurement and IT teams to table the Oracle support issues for another 5 years