The possibility of having support done remotely was an important reason for choosing Inter Access as our support partner.
After a thorough restructuring of the IT organisation, consultancy and engineering company Grontmij chose a policy in which a clear distinction is made between policy development and policy execution. As a result of this choice, Grontmij enlisted Inter Access for the complete support and management of the central Oracle e-Business Suite and the Linux cluster on which the suite operates. Inter Access is responsible for the systems and the Oracle e-Business Suite. “We were looking for an integrator with whom we can cooperate in an organic way,” says Bert Huijsen, CIO at Grontmij.
Together with its customers – government and trade and industry - Grontmij works on the quality of the environment. With building, infrastructure and environment as its field of work, the consultancy and engineering company has been involved in, amongst other things, urban and rural development, infrastructure and telecommunication, environmental technology and waste materials, sustainable building and the development of living and business areas. Grontmij is a regional network organisation with offices in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Via the network of offices, approximately 28 in the Netherlands, the company can track customers closely and quickly and immediately respond to local needs. In order to direct and control the large number of projects, carried out by approx. 4,000 employees, Grontmij uses the Oracle e-Business Suite. With this, employees can access all the information the need to function optimally everywhere and at any time.
Considering the business critical character of the Oracle e-Business Suite, technical and application management are important to Grontmij. That is why the company carefully analysed how the company wide ERP application could be managed optimally and cost effectively. Grontmij has a lot of in-house management and support knowledge. However, to carry out these management and support activities themselves would require an enormous and durable investment in knowledge and infrastructure. “This was not really an option,” says Bert Huijsen, “especially because of the scarcity of internal resources. The analysis showed that outsourcing of technical support and application management to an external party was better from a quality, risk management and financial perspective, than implementing the solution ourselves.” In this context, Grontmij looked for a partner and people who would match with Grontmij. “That way, you avoid two totally different cultures literally ending up on opposite sides of the table. We already knew Inter Access based on previous activities. If we could make the two organisations fit together properly, there were therefore enough arguments to completely hand over management of the systems: it was cheaper, Inter Access has more expertise and develops more, and we could lift contacts with Oracle to a higher level.”
Grontmij operates as a professional service provider in a market that requires cost reduction, but at the same time has a great need for operational efficiency. By choosing the Oracle e-Business Suite via Oracle On Demand by Inter Access, Grontmij can completely concentrate on its core competences, while at the same time the company is optimally supported. Within the Oracle On Demand concept, Inter Access agrees on and commits to results with and for the customer, with the following objective: to provide the best possible support of business processes at the lowest possible TCO. Together with the customer, Inter Access realises the continuous reduction of TCO on the complete lifecycle of the application by deploying the right combination of in-depth knowledge and the latest technology. Grontmij, for example, uses a Linux/Intel platform with HP blade servers, which is constantly fine-tuned; basic principles are reliability, performance standardisation, scalability and cost reduction. Multiple customers share the infrastructure, with the required data security of course, so that Inter Access can offer a flexible adjustment of capacity and can forward the benefits of scale to the customer directly.
“The possibility of having support done remotely was an important reason for choosing Inter Access as our support partner,” Bert Huijsen emphasises, “as well as the speed of putting it into use. It was also important that Inter Access, due to its extensive experience, was able to make set agreements in advance on the required time and costs of implementation and support. That way, Grontmij is not confronted with unexpected costs in arrears.” The integration between both companies is further expressed in the shared risk contract on which the cooperation is based; both profits and losses are shared. The helpdesks are shared as well: Grontmij carries out first line support itself, Inter Access takes care of second line. Inter Access and Grontmij have set up a data centre for the Oracle e-Business Suite on network, server and application level and concluded a five-year management contract. Inter Access does not just support Grontmij on application management and technical support level. Database management and server management is also part of the core tasks of Inter Access. Moreover, Inter Access also provides technical support in projects for adjustments and extensions.
“The open approach of Inter Access helps us realise our targets and completely matches the openness theme as a strategic choice within our organisation. We already save an estimated 30 percent and have only just started using the benefits of the On Demand concept,” says Huijsen. “Inter Access provides open and measurable results and advises us on the current and future use of the Oracle e-Business Suite. Now that we are live, the expectations of a high performance at much lower costs are quickly fulfilled.”