SAP S/4HANA migra­tions look dif­fer­ent this year. The next-gen­er­a­tion enter­prise resource plan­ning (ERP) soft­ware plat­form launched 10 years ago, bring­ing along many experts and part­ners who have become cru­cial to com­pa­nies’ dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion jour­neys and hav­ing a suc­cess­ful go-live. Still, orga­ni­za­tions are find­ing the tran­si­tion more com­plex than anticipated. 

In a recent ASUG research report spon­sored by Bear­ing­Point, 168 ASUG mem­bers shared insights into their SAP S/4HANA jour­neys. Here are some top take­aways from the report:

The State of the SAP S/4HANA Migra­tion Journey

Even as dead­lines for main­stream main­te­nance of SAP ECC 6.0 approach in 2025 and 2027*, 56% of ASUG mem­bers are cur­rent­ly live or in the process of mov­ing to SAP S/4HANA. That marks an 11% increase over 2024.

SAP S/4HANA tran­si­tion can con­sti­tute a sig­nif­i­cant project for many SAP cus­tomers, tak­ing an aver­age of one and a half years (based on those sur­veyed). Those who have been live on SAP S/4HANA for over three years, mak­ing up 44% of respon­dents, can be con­sid­ered ​“pros” com­pared to those who’ve been live for less than three years, who can be con­sid­ered ​“S/4 new­com­ers.” Just 13% have been live on the tech­nol­o­gy for more than five years. 

Those ear­li­er S/4HANA adopters on aver­age took longer to real­ize val­ue — 2.8 months longer, to be exact. New­com­ers are real­iz­ing val­ue in only 4.4 months, com­pared to 7.2 among the pros. This accel­er­a­tion is like­ly due to bet­ter tools, clear­er onboard­ing process­es, and shared best prac­tices from across the SAP com­mu­ni­ty, help­ing new­com­ers ben­e­fit from lessons learned by ear­li­er adopters — set­ting new­com­ers up for suc­cess faster and sup­port­ing them toward faster ROI. 

Com­pa­nies that are live or in the process of mov­ing have gen­er­al­ly pre­ferred to main­tain their exist­ing busi­ness process­es, with 44% of them opt­ing for a brown­field migra­tion, also known as a sys­tem con­ver­sion. Hybrid or selec­tive data tran­si­tion — also known as blue­field — is the choice of 29% of those sur­veyed, while green­field was select­ed by 26%. 

The envi­ron­ment for SAP S/4HANA has many options: pri­vate cloud, man­aged pri­vate cloud, hybrid cloud, on-premis­es, pub­lic cloud. ASUG mem­bers had his­tor­i­cal­ly report­ed some reser­va­tions about mov­ing to the cloud, but those fears around secu­ri­ty and cost are eas­ing. Con­cerns about flex­i­bil­i­ty per­sist, poten­tial­ly con­tribut­ing to the hybrid cloud dou­bling in pop­u­lar­i­ty between 2024 and 2025 (9% to 18%).

Out­side Sup­port as the Norm

Part of the process of real­iz­ing val­ue faster involves tap­ping exter­nal sup­port. More com­pa­nies are hir­ing sys­tem inte­gra­tors (SIs) to assist in the migra­tion process, who are in turn play­ing a larg­er role in sup­port­ing these projects. Demand for SIs is increas­ing as the dead­line looms, mak­ing this the largest cost mem­bers report is asso­ci­at­ed with migration. 

Still, costs are becom­ing more pre­dictable. Only 31% of respon­dents report costs going above expec­ta­tions, decreas­ing 18% from 2024. Costs stay­ing in line with expec­ta­tions was report­ed 34% of the time, increas­ing 11% since 2024. 

Train­ing is top of mind for some orga­ni­za­tions, with one respon­dent say­ing that they start­ed ​“the devel­op­ment of train­ing cours­es well in advance of the S/4HANA migra­tion.” Anoth­er cre­at­ed self-use train­ing and ref­er­ence guides to pro­vide a resource with­out an offi­cial train­ing course. 

Risks and Post-Go-Live

Risks such as change man­age­ment, exter­nal resources, test­ing, doc­u­men­ta­tion of busi­ness process­es, and phased imple­men­ta­tions are top of mind for those in the process of migration. 

One cus­tomer report­ed delay­ing go-live for more than a year due to risks like these not being addressed. Anoth­er cus­tomer said, ​“We have some basic needs but get­ting align­ment on over­all busi­ness ben­e­fit is dif­fi­cult.” The most com­mon risk asso­ci­at­ed with SAP S/4HANA migra­tion? Too many cus­tomiza­tions com­pli­cat­ing the journey.

Change man­age­ment remains a huge pri­or­i­ty for those with suc­cess­ful go-lives — and a risk. In fact, 43% of respon­dents cit­ed change man­age­ment prac­tices such as train­ing and adop­tion as a risk, and 57% rec­om­mend­ed start­ing change man­age­ment ear­ly to improve migra­tion, up 7% com­pared to 2024. 

RISE with SAP is con­sis­tent­ly increas­ing in pop­u­lar­i­ty over the past few years. As it relates to over­all SAP S/4HANA adop­tion trends, though, this isn’t shift­ing plans for most of the respon­dents. How­ev­er, among com­pa­nies that are already live on SAP S/4HANA, RISE is steadi­ly gain­ing more of a foothold. SAP cus­tomers already live on SAP S/4HANA are poten­tial­ly see­ing val­ue and seek­ing to fur­ther lev­el up — increas­ing their invest­ment via RISE with SAP adoption. 

*Main­stream main­te­nance for the lat­est three enhance­ment pack­ages of SAP ERP 6.0 — includ­ing SAP ERP Cen­tral Com­po­nent (ECC) — ends Dec. 31, 2027, fol­lowed by an option­al extend­ed main­te­nance phase until Dec. 31, 2030. For cus­tomers on SAP ERP 6.0 with enhance­ment pack­ages 1 to 5, or with­out enhance­ment pack­ages, main­stream main­te­nance ends ear­li­er, on Dec. 31, 2025, after which point cus­tomers will auto­mat­i­cal­ly be moved to cus­tomer-spe­cif­ic main­te­nance. (For more infor­ma­tion about main­te­nance time­lines for SAP ERP 6.0, includ­ing how you can find your release and enhance­ment pack­age lev­el,click here.)

For the full SAP S/4HANA research, down­load the report and bench­mark your progress.