Tier1 one year on

Last August Inoapps bought Oracle services specialist Tier1. The acquisition coincided with the start of our financial year, and at our company kick off that month it was the big-ticket item.

We promised our new colleagues we would add to what was offered to their customers, not reduce the service, and several of the Inoapps leadership team, including myself, went to meet customers and made the same commitments.

It was very clear to me as I spoke to these customers that they loved the service they got from Tier1 and there was some concern that Inoapps, who are known for their excellent Oracle Cloud implementations, may push them in that direction. That was the motivation for my blog: Why did Inoapps buy an Apps Unlimited service partner?

Roll forward a year and we’ve recently had another company kick off. In preparation for that I spoke with a number of the customers we inherited in the acquisition about how they felt things are going.

That nervousness that was palpable last year was gone. Our conversations showed clearly that they are still happy customers, and they agreed to let us share their thoughts with you.

“When our account manager told us about the acquisition, we were worried. We've been a Tier1 customer for a couple of years and we specifically chose Tier1 because of the skillsets they had and also that it was a smaller company. We liked having access to management. We liked being a bigger part of their portfolio. Today I’m happy that we’re really not seeing a difference. It's working really well for us, and additionally Inoapps is helping us evaluate a couple of new EBS modules and we have a multi-year program.”

Chris Beavin
Manager IT Apps
Tri Arrows Aluminum

Much of what Tier1 provided for customers was Managed Services, and unique in this market, offer a choice of Oracle Private or Public Cloud for hosting. Managed Services ensures a customer has the support they need to run their Oracle estate. And when that partnership works well, the Oracle partner can bring in additional skills to top up what the customer needs—from a one-off professional service to a full program of works to grow the solution. Inoapps, as a full Oracle portfolio partner, has brought those additional skills to the table.

And our Managed Service today isn’t simply Tier1 plus Inoapps. Since Brian McCabe joined last year as the SVP for Managed Services, he’s been elevating the overall offering and has fully integrated the former Tier1 employees into his growing Managed Services organization.

Part of the reason for the acquisition was to grow our presence in the US as our Managed Services offering was mainly UK based. Now we are a truly global team with more than half the leadership experience gained from Tier1. Our Marketing, Sales and Business Development teams have also grown and benefited from this experience.

As well as keeping the excellent service customers had, we promised our new customers our wider portfolio of skills. Family Research Council had been trying to modernize their bespoke Oracle Forms application for almost a decade and had struggled to find a cost effective solution.

“Once our account manager told us Inoapps was now running the show and had APEX experience, I asked if we could do a proof of concept. This cost us 1/5 the cost I had been quoted elsewhere and now we are ready and excited to move forward.”

Paul De Windt
IT Manager
FRC

Bradford White use Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS), Oracle Transportation Management and other applications and had started to look at Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC) for the integration.

“Inoapps brought OIC skills and we use them to help review our practices with OIC. They provided some suggestions as far as different procedures and best business practices and that was really helpful to our team, who have been very eagerly going back to work and reviewing what we've done in the past and incorporating those improvements. We are looking at a plan of enhancements and will use Inoapps to help us.”

Dan Leedy
Senior Director, Business Partners
Bradford White 

One area Inoapps is well known for now is as an advisor about what to consider when looking at your Oracle roadmap. This is my personal area and you can read some of my views in my recent blog: Every journey is easier with a roadmap. I am also honored to be presenting this from the show floor at Oracle Cloud World.

As I always say: as long as you can articulate why, your answer is correct for your organization. As I spoke to the customers, I had the opportunity to understand a little more of what one customer, Tri Arrows Aluminum have planned.

“We're getting ready for some company growth and Inoapps is helping us with that, so for the next few years Inoapps will remain our partner as we go through these various implementations. Right now they're supporting us on the road map. We need to revisit it regularly and they are doing a good job for us.”

Chris Beavin
Manager IT Apps
Tri Arrows Aluminum 

The Tier1 acquisition was good for their customers, their employees and for Inoapps. We talked here mainly about EBS customers but we equally provide the services for all Oracle products, and the next most popular on-premises application is Hyperion. If you need a partner who can help you know, understand and help look at your longer roadmap, without pushing you to do something too quickly, then reach out.

And if you are visiting Oracle CloudWorld, come and say hello to us at Booth 25 in the Hub.