When Your PeopleSoft Team is Drowning: How Managed Services Can Be a Lifeline

Is your PeopleSoft environment holding your business back or propelling it forward? For many organizations, the answer might be uncomfortable.

PeopleSoft teams everywhere are getting crushed by resource constraints, knowledge gaps, and backlogs of critical updates. I’ve seen it firsthand – when teams spend all their time keeping the lights on, innovation dies. This post shows how the right managed services approach doesn’t just fix technical problems—it can fundamentally transform how your team delivers value.

It’s a Tuesday morning when I receive an urgent call from Sarah, the IT Director at a mid-sized organization. Her voice carries the unmistakable tone of someone at their breaking point.

“We just lost Mike,” she sighs heavily into the phone. Mike isn’t just any team member – he’s their PeopleSoft guru, the one person who understands the intricate customizations that have been built into their system over the past decade.

“He gave two weeks’ notice, but honestly, we can’t transfer his knowledge that quickly. And we’re already behind on three critical updates and struggling with performance issues that keep getting worse.”

Sarah’s situation isn’t unique. In my 15 years working with PeopleSoft clients, I have seen this scenario play out countless times across industries. The technology is robust and reliable, but maintaining it requires specialized expertise that’s increasingly hard to find and retain.

The Hidden Costs of the Status Quo

When organizations rely on a small internal team (often just one person) to manage their PeopleSoft environment, they’re likely dealing with more than just technical challenges:

• Knowledge silos that create single points of failure with the departure of key team members
• Reactive firefighting instead of proactive management
• Delayed updates and patches due to time constraints or fear of breaking something
• Burnout and frustration as team members struggle to manage both daily maintenance and end-user support
• Postponed strategic initiatives because the team is consumed with keeping the lights on

For Sarah’s team, these issues compound daily. Their staff works weekends just to maintain basic functionality, and every custom report request or new business requirement feels like an insurmountable challenge.

From Crisis to Confidence

Three months after our initial conversation, I joined a video call with Sarah. The change was remarkable.  Her team’s collaboration with SpearMC’s Managed Services, resulted in noticeable improvements in system performance and her team’s general disposition.

“For the first time in years, we’re actually working on innovation instead of just maintenance,” she tells me with genuine enthusiasm. “Last week, we launched a mobile timesheet solution that our field staff has been requesting for years. Before, we couldn’t even consider it.”

What changed? By partnering with SpearMC’s specialized managed services support, Sarah gained:

• Knowledge Continuity & Expertise Retention: Ensures system knowledge continuity and mitigates key-person dependency risks.
• 24/7 Proactive Support: Round-the-clock monitoring that identifies and resolves issues continuously, reducing system outages by up to 75%
• Accelerated Innovation Cycle: Technical heavy lifting handled by experts, allowing internal teams to focus on strategic initiatives and business process improvements
• Cost Predictability: Reduction in overhead and emergency support costs by nearly 60%, without hiring specialized staff.

Real-World Transformation

This type of transformation isn’t just theoretical. I see it happen time and again with our clients at SpearMC across various industries—from manufacturing and retail to higher education and public sector organizations. Effective managed services can overcome PeopleSoft management challenges across all industries. One of our enterprise clients faced the daunting challenge of taking ownership of their system after outgrowing a shared environment with their business partner.

With SpearMC’s managed services support, they migrated to an in-house PeopleSoft environment while reducing customizations by 80%. The team transitioned its focus from the technical details to redesign business processes. Most importantly, they achieved this transformation while reducing their overall support costs by 35% compared to their previous arrangement.

Similarly, when SpearMC partnered with a construction management firm, they collaborated to update an aging version 8.9 system, integrated new modules, mitigated to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and eliminated all third-party applications – all while maintaining business continuity. Their post-implementation user satisfaction scores increase by 47%, and system response times improve by over 60%.

Finding the Right Fit

Not all managed services providers are created equal. When Sarah was evaluating her options, she found that many providers offer generic ERP support but lack deep PeopleSoft expertise. Others pushed for unnecessary cloud migrations that would disrupt operations without clear benefits.

What sets SpearMC apart is our:

• Exclusive focus on PeopleSoft rather than generalized ERP support
• Flexible, customized approach rather than one-size-fits-all packages
• Cross-industry expertise across multiple sectors and markets
• Vendor-neutral recommendations based on what’s best for your organization, not what generates the most profit

Getting Started Without Disruption

One of Sarah’s biggest concerns was the transition period. “We can’t afford downtime or additional disruption,” she initially told me.

That’s why SpearMC’s structured, four-week onboarding process was crucial to their success:

1. Week 1: Understanding their unique environment and priorities
2. Week 2: Stabilizing operations and addressing immediate pain points
3. Week 3: Transitioning to full support with a soft launch approach
4. Week 4: Completing the handoff while establishing ongoing optimization plans

“The process was so much smoother than I expected,” Sarah reflected. “By week two, we were already seeing improvements, and our team felt supported rather than replaced.”

Beyond Technical Support

Sarah wasn’t surprised by the technical improvements; she expected those. What truly amazed her was how the partnership transformed her team’s daily experience and career path.

“My team was stuck in a cycle of maintenance and troubleshooting. Now they’re developing new skills, focusing on business process improvements, and enjoying their work again,” she reports.

In my years working with PeopleSoft clients, I’ve observed that this human element is often the most transformative aspect of a successful managed services engagement. When technical teams are freed from the constant pressure of keeping systems running, they become innovation partners to the business rather than just support resources. This shift doesn’t just improve systems—it improves careers and job satisfaction.

Paving the Path to Modernization

SpearMC’s managed services help organizations prepare for future modernization.

Whether you’re planning to stay on-premises, considering a cloud migration, or exploring a hybrid approach, having a stable, well-maintained PeopleSoft foundation creates options rather than limitations.

For organizations feeling the strain of PeopleSoft maintenance, managed services isn’t just about keeping systems running – it’s about creating space for your team to do meaningful work that drives your organization forward.

Similar to Sarah, if your team is struggling with PeopleSoft management, maybe it’s time to consider how SpearMC’s managed services can transform not just your technology, but your people’s experience as well.

Want to learn more about how SpearMC’s managed services can transform your PeopleSoft operations?   Schedule your discovery call today →

About the Author

Joe Finlinson is a Managing Director at SpearMC Consulting with over 20 years of experience specializing in PeopleSoft implementations and cloud services. As a Forbes Technology Council member and former CTO, Joe has guided numerous organizations through complex PeopleSoft transformations and cloud migrations.

SpearMC is recognized by Gartner as North America’s leading PeopleSoft Managed Services Provider and maintains Oracle Partner status, demonstrating our commitment to excellence in delivering PeopleSoft solutions.

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