ITTech Pulse Exclusive Interview with Iain Saunderson Chief Technology Officer Spinnaker Support
Welcome to ITTech Pulse! We chat with Iain Saunderson, CTO at Spinnaker Support, drives ERP support, enabling seamless migrations, cost-efficient solutions, and freeing teams to focus on innovation.
Can you share the moment or experience that sparked your passion for enterprise software support, and how that journey led you to your role at Spinnaker Support?
I worked for years as an Oracle partner reselling and implementing Oracle products and services. I realized with Spinnaker Support I was able to finally offer a meaningful service to customers beyond what Oracle was offering and a quality of service far beyond the constraints of the traditional Oracle support ecosystem.
Delaware County recently selected Spinnaker Support to support its SAP systems during the transition to Workday. What makes Spinnaker uniquely suited for these complex transitions?
Spinnaker Support has a global team of SAP engineers that are highly experienced in all aspects of SAP, allowing the Delaware County staff to focus on digital innovation projects. Spinnaker Support is able to offer product support that allows the Delaware County team to focus on forward thinking initiatives and not having to troubleshoot legacy system issues themselves.
Forced migrations and vendor maintenance cycles are increasingly complex. How does Spinnaker Support help organizations navigate these while keeping core systems operational?
Spinnaker Support focuses on helping customers stabilize systems and resolve issues with quality product support, regardless of version or vendor support status.
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How does your flexible, relationship-based support model benefit customers manage both legacy and new platforms?
Spinnaker Support is able to craft a commercial proposal that fits the customer’s roadmap. Spinnaker Support is able to take away the complexity of trying to support legacy systems with a “self-service” approach by providing high caliber engineers who are able to resolve issues independently and, in a time, critical manner.
What are the most common risks organizations face when moving from legacy ERP solutions like SAP to cloud-based platforms such as Workday, and how do you help mitigate them?
The biggest challenge we see is that existing teams don’t have the resources and capacity to continue maintaining legacy systems, while still being able to work on the implementation of the new systems. Spinnaker Support’s independent support model allows customers to free up resources and budget to allow the organization to refocus efforts on new forward-thinking initiatives.
Spinnaker has introduced Cloud Managed Services to support both legacy and cloud Oracle and SAP environments. How does this new offering empower organizations to modernize on their own timeline?
Our cloud Managed Services offering allows customers to “future proof” their legacy application by cloud enabling legacy environments and then have Spinnaker Support manage these environments in the cloud, freeing up valuable customer resources to focus on more forward-thinking initiatives.
Recently, Spinnaker has helped clients cut maintenance costs by over 50% Can you share insights on how cost-saving strategies fit into your overall client support philosophy?
Because Spinnaker Support’s focus is on providing quality support and an affordable price, we are able to offer superior support focused on the client’s systems and needs at a fraction of the price of the vendor.
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Looking ahead, what shifts do you expect in enterprise support needs as more organizations transition to cloud ERP, and how is Spinnaker preparing for this future?
We constantly see customers under pressure from ERP vendors to upgrade to cloud solutions before they are ready and on a timeline that introduces huge amounts of risk into their business operations. Spinnaker is able to support ERP systems beyond the support offered by the vendor, thereby relieving the time pressure of having to upgrade by a vendor prescribed date.
What is the biggest misconception IT leaders have about third-party support during ERP migrations?
That the quality of the support will not match the vendor – simply not true. Our reputation and references speak to the quality.
Advice for Our Readers: What’s the first step you recommend for CIOs considering a major ERP platform change, to ensure a smooth and secure transition?
Don’t let a vendor prescribed timeline dictate your transformation roadmap. Determine what makes sense for the business and then see where third-party support can be leveraged to enable your roadmap.
Thank you, Mr. Iain, for taking the time to share your insights with us.
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As Spinnaker Support’s Chief Technology Officer, Mr. Saunderson is responsible for the internal and external facing technology leveraged at Spinnaker Support, as well as managing the security practice.
Iain Saunderson has over 30 years of experience implementing complex technologies across a wide variety of commercial and government verticals. He has served in leadership roles in organizations including Oracle Corporation, P2 Energy Solutions, and DBAK. Iain’s experience is in leading enterprise architecture, development, and managed services organizations.
Mr. Saunderson lives in Colorado and enjoys spending time trail running and skiing in the mountains. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Business Information Systems from the University of Natal in South Africa.
Spinnaker Support is entrusted by over 1,000 companies worldwide to solve their most pressing and essential enterprise software needs.
Spinnaker Support experts provide an extensive services portfolio of third-party support, managed services, consulting, and state-of-the-art security to optimize clients’ software ecosystems. They support Oracle, SAP, and VMware – freeing up valuable capital and resources so customers can maximize the security and performance of their enterprise software ecosystem with certainty. With Spinnaker, enterprises are empowered to make software decisions based on their business initiatives rather than their enterprise software provider’s roadmap.
