The rapid advancements of digital evolution are driving business growth through new systems capabilities and efficiencies, but keeping pace with the constant maintenance around software patching and upgrades can actually hinder the productivity these systems are built to encourage.

That’s why Seth Ravin (pictured), chief executive officer of Rimini Street Inc., a provider of enterprise software support products and services, created a support system to eliminate unnecessary operating costs and enable businesses to allocate funds toward innovation.

Ravin sat down with Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, at theCUBE’s studio in Palo Alto, California. They discussed the challenges of working within the constraints of expensive release cycles and how Rimini Street handles maintenance at a lower cost with unique customer needs in mind.

[Editor’s note: The following answers have been condensed for clarity.]

Give us a quick overview [of] what your core business model is.

Ravin: The enterprise software space has about $160 billion that’s spent every year on annual maintenance fees, but this market has not been a competitive market. Those companies drive north of 90 percent profit margins, and their customers are not all that happy with the service. So we came in and offered a service at 50 percent off that provides a better service overall.

What are some of the things that should be included in that maintenance fee?

Ravin: Tax, legal and reg updates, which everybody needs when you’re running a global company. When things break, you need to get them fixed. You also need advice and counsel in these very complex, large systems. We don’t offer upgrades. We don’t offer new versions of the product. We extend the life of these existing products for 15 to 20 years beyond what the vendor would consider their normal support life.

You could take your car to the dealer, [or] you could take it to your local mechanic who you might think is better at fixing that system. Do you go down the vendor’s roadmap, which includes upgrades, updates and costs that are very expensive [and] designed around what the vendor wants to do? Or, do you choose to go down a business-driven roadmap, which is focused around competitive advantage and growth? We are the company that works on the business-driven roadmaps.

We have hundreds of engineers around the world, and we are good at fixing these core systems and providing the updates needed to keep them moving forward. Instead of paying a 20 percent annual fee just for maintenance, they can [put] half of that money into new innovation.

How’d you come up with the idea?

Ravin: I was in a business where I had to try and force customers to take these upgrades, move people forward onto these new releases. I had an epiphany one day that said, “I am tired of selling people things they don’t want.”

The products that we deal with are so mature that they don’t need to be changed out that frequently. We want to move away from what the vendor wants and focus on what is right for the company to allow them to shift more spending into these systems of innovation. The mission of IT is to support competitive advantage and growth now, not just to run a data center.

When things need to be changed proactively, like a tax, legal and regulatory update, they have a very fast turnaround with an assigned engineer. Our customers call their engineers directly, which allows them to get support from senior people very quickly.

Many customers wind up spending 90 percent of their budget keeping the lights on, paying maintenance bills, running a data center, and that leaves very little money for innovation, which they need for that competitive advantage and growth. We are helping them shift money from the side of keeping the lights on into innovation.

Where do you guys go next?

Ravin: Today, we replace the vendor’s maintenance. Tomorrow, we may do more of the work inside the IT organization, expanding the definition of support so that we can provide freed-up capital, time and resources to focus on innovation. In today’s world, you’re either growing or you’re dying. We are helping companies make sure they keep their competitive edge and gain new ones.

Watch the entire video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s CUBE Conversations.

Photo: SiliconANGLE