Strategic Partnership With Origina Nets Big Benefits For TIAA | FINANCIAL SERVICES

Although TIAA was a customer for several smaller products, Origina did not support TIAA’s OpenPages platform at that time. However, when hearing about the issues with IBM, Origina offered to help in any way it could. A call with the support desk was scheduled, and the company’s OpenPages experts were brought in to address TIAA’s issue.

Origina’s OpenPages global independent expert was an IBM developer of that product and within seven days, he was able to create the required export feature to export the data and allow TIAA to retire the product.

Origina did not force TIAA to put OpenPages under support, even though it took a hit on commercial costs to develop the feature. TIAA was able to decommission the platform as required to meet stringent business deadlines.

Over the years, Origina has helped the company maintain a few software systems and then decommission them.

“They’re in the business of maintaining software,” says Thomas Nimblett, OCAO Business Management, TIAA. “We asked them to maintain it for a year and then get rid of it.”

This was not a problem for Origina, who knew they were building a long-term relationship with TIAA. Origina also brough subject matter experts in that helped reduce TIAA’s IBM footprint, as well as its requirements on licensing metrics for PVUs and RVUs.

As the strategic partnership continued to grow, Origina became a proactive ally that aided TIAA in mitigating risk, streamlining costs, and maximizing the life of their current systems.

Origina stepped in again when in 2019, IBM threw TIAA a curve ball and decided to move BigFix to another company. TIAA used BigFix and ILMT as standard systems they had in place to stay compliant. TIAA had already paid for their maintenance on BigFix upfront.

“IBM did not provide us with a good transition plan,” says Nimblett. “Origina gave us resources to help us get by.”

Origina also helped TIAA with a massive IBM audit. TIAA was able to stay compliant, fix the challenges, and even found a way to further reduce their yearly ELA.

“Most of the time, vendors tell you they will save you 50%. One thing I look at from my old procurement days is if a company tells me they are going to save me money, put it in writing, and Origina did,” Nimblett says. “There’s no question we feel we can’t ask Origina.”