Exclusive: Rimini Street CEO says ERP software is dead

Rimini Street CEO Seth Ravin believes the days of traditional ERP software are numbered.

In an exclusive interview with TechDay during a visit to Sydney, Ravin outlined his vision for enterprise technology, predicting the decline of legacy ERP models and the rise of Agentic AI ERP processes.

His stop in Australia and New Zealand is part of a wider regional tour, where he has been meeting clients, prospects and government agencies.

Ravin, who launched Rimini Street in 2005, said his company's mission was simply to "redefine enterprise software support" with services offered at half the cost of major vendors. Now the company offers a full suite of support, optimisation and innovation solutions that help leaders fulfill their IT vision faster and without delay or disruption to the business. 

Today, Rimini Street supports Oracle, SAP, IBM, Microsoft and other systems, serving clients in more than 150 countries, including the Australian and New Zealand governments.

'ERP systems are dead'

Discussing his firm's partnership with ServiceNow, Ravin explained how companies are increasingly using AI to layer innovation on top of existing ERP systems rather than embarking on costly migrations.

"The ERP companies, of course, would love everyone to continue using their platform, lock them in for years into the future, to protect that revenue," he said. "There's only one problem, the ERP systems, the software, we're saying is dead. ERP systems are going to go away, we believe, in the next five to 10 years."

Instead, Ravin predicted that "agentic AI processes" will replace ERP functions altogether. He said Rimini Street had already installed such systems for clients, noting the financial and operational risks of traditional migrations were increasingly unjustifiable.

SAP migration hesitation

Much of the interview focused on the challenge facing SAP customers, many of whom are still running ECC despite SAP's push to shift them to S/4HANA. Gartner data shows only 39% have made the leap.

Ravin said the reluctance was understandable: "The cost and risk and investment to move from one to the other is so expensive, so risky, that for most customers, the ROI of the move doesn't pay off."

He added that most customers delaying the shift were making sensible choices: "If it was so good and so valuable, they would be tripping over each other to get there. But it's not the case. It's been out for 10 years and the customers are not moving."

Extended support until 2040

To address concerns about SAP's deadlines, Rimini Street has committed to supporting ECC through 2040. Ravin contrasted this with SAP's extended support plans, which in some cases only stretch to 2033 and often require customers to commit to future migrations.

"Our system support has no dependency on SAP whatsoever," he explained. "Our customers don't even know what SAP is supporting now and what their dates are. It's irrelevant to our customers, because we're already supporting it through 2040 with no dependency on SAP at all."

He argued that enterprise systems can often operate for far longer than official support timelines suggest: "Some of your largest banks just the other day in the region are still running systems designed in the 1960s. They are still running these systems today. So saying we're going to support [ECC] till 2040 is not a stretch."

AI in practice

Ravin offered a concrete example of agentic AI at work. A Brazilian pharmaceutical client, under pressure to migrate, instead used Rimini Street and ServiceNow to automate its manufacturing systems.

"It was so amazingly successful, we've now automated with agentic AI over 70% of the manufacturing system where they had human intervention," Ravin said.

He also described how AI could streamline day-to-day tasks, such as inventory management. "Jason's job goes to three clicks, and he gets it done in two minutes what used to take 20 minutes. Jason can save 12 hours a week alone just because we put this agentic AI… doing the work that he used to have to do."

Caution in uncertain times

Ravin also discussed the broader economic and geopolitical environment, citing factors such as tariffs, protectionism and shifting supply chains.

"This is one of the most complicated times in geopolitical history," he said. "While tariffs and everything else look chaotic, it is causing tremendous amounts of disruption in the business world. People are kind of frozen. Why would you spend big money on big projects when the world is shifting under your feet?"

The uncertainty, he argued, was pushing companies and governments alike to rethink spending priorities. "Cash is blood. If you run out of cash, you're done," he said. "We'll continue to help [clients] deliver better value for their constituents."

Balancing savings and innovation

For Ravin, the solution lies in self-funded innovation. "Let's stop doing all the things that cost you money, that you don't need to do," he said. "We'll run certain applications longer, right? We'll extend the lifespan, and then we'll take all this people, time and money that we saved, and we'll use that to go buy innovation."

This, he argued, enables organisations to show savings while also driving forward new projects. "There's nothing here that says you have to do one or the other. We have a formula to drive both for companies and governments."

The AI revolution ahead

Ravin framed the rise of AI as a turning point on par with the birth of the internet. 

"Cloud was not transformative. Cloud was just a new way of moving things around," he explained. "This is an industrial revolution, and it may replace 40% of the jobs out there today."

He noted that most organisations are still in the experimentation phase, pointing to an MIT study which found that 95% of AI projects have yet to deliver productivity gains. But he stressed that the pace of change will accelerate.

"This is really, truly another industrial revolution underway - one that will fundamentally change the way humans work all over the world," Ravin warned.