More ASUG mem­bers are cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing SAP S/4HANA migra­tion ini­tia­tives than ever before, accord­ing to recent ASUG research. With main­stream main­te­nance for SAP Busi­ness Suite 7, which includes SAP ERP Cen­tral Com­po­nent (ECC), run­ning out in 2027, SAP users are increas­ing­ly mak­ing progress in the plan­ning and exe­cu­tion of dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion projects.

Near­ly half (45%) of the research respon­dents report­ed they’re already live on SAP S/4HANA or have start­ed to move, while 30% indi­cat­ed their orga­ni­za­tions will go live on SAP S/4HANA in the next six to 24 months, ahead of the 2027 dead­line. 16% not­ed they plan to go live on SAP S/4HANA more than two years from now; only 1% cur­rent­ly have no plans to move. 

Respon­dents are split between brown­field and green­field approach­es, with 34% of respon­dents pur­su­ing brown­field strate­gies, 33% green­field strate­gies, and 20% pur­su­ing hybrid strate­gies. Pri­vate cloud envi­ron­ments, mean­while, are the lead­ing choice for those run­ning SAP S/4HANA envi­ron­ments, con­tin­u­ing a trend from 2023 that grew fur­ther in 2024. Sim­i­lar­ly, inter­est and intent to use RISE with SAP for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, pri­vate edi­tion, is high­er than inter­est and intent to use RISE with SAP for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, pub­lic edi­tion, with­in the ASUG mem­ber community. 

While SAP S/4HANA migra­tions remain com­plex, SAP users are hav­ing an eas­i­er time get­ting there, com­pared to the find­ings in last year’s research. Risks expe­ri­enced as part of the move to S/4 have sta­bi­lized or decreased com­pared to 2023, but resources vital to enact­ing SAP S/4HANA migra­tion projects, such as con­sul­tants and migra­tion part­ners, are expect­ed to become more in-demand as more SAP cus­tomers reach the go-live stage of their migrations. 

The research was con­duct­ed ear­li­er this year to assess SAP S/4HANA migra­tion trends and ASUG mem­bers’ expe­ri­ences with sup­port, time­lines, expens­es, busi­ness risks, and real­ized ben­e­fits relat­ed to ERP imple­men­ta­tion. The research builds upon the find­ings of this year’s ASUG Pulse of the SAP Cus­tomer Research sur­vey while illu­mi­nat­ing SAP S/4HANA adop­tion rates and chal­lenges faced with­in dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion projects. 208 mem­bers of the ASUG com­mu­ni­ty par­tic­i­pat­ed in this year’s research. 

Here are three of the biggest take­aways from the new 2024 ASUG SAP S/4HANA Jour­neys: Voice of the ASUG Mem­ber research. 

Pro­ject­ed Bud­get and Time­lines 

The research reveals that SAP S/4HANA migra­tion costs can exceed expec­ta­tions. For SAP users already live on SAP S/4HANA, 49% of respon­dents indi­cat­ed costs exceed­ed their orig­i­nal bud­gets (up 17% from 2023). 

That said, costs aligned with expec­ta­tions for 23% of these respon­dents (down 13% from last year’s results). 24% of respon­dents were not sure whether actu­al costs aligned with their orga­ni­za­tions’ antic­i­pat­ed costs for their entire SAP S/4HANA projects, and 4% said that costs went below expectations. 

Respon­dents note that more accu­rate fore­cast­ing and resource dis­tri­b­u­tion are need­ed. Con­sult­ing fees are the main source of unex­pect­ed costs, increas­ing by 20% since 2023. Imple­men­ta­tion ser­vices through partners/​system inte­gra­tors (SIs) also rep­re­sent­ed the great­est costs to go live on SAP S/4HANA. 

Antic­i­pat­ed and actu­al time­lines for SAP S/4HANA imple­men­ta­tions are gen­er­al­ly con­sis­tent, with an aver­age migra­tion time of 1.5 years (slight­ly less than the antic­i­pat­ed 1.7 years). On either end of the spec­trum, some imple­men­ta­tions took up to six years, while oth­er imple­men­ta­tions took as lit­tle as four months. 

The research indi­cates that migra­tion projects are com­plex; although over­all time­lines weren’t sig­nif­i­cant­ly affect­ed, 46% of respon­dents not­ed that the mul­ti-step nature of migra­tion, com­bined with exist­ing busi­ness com­plex­i­ties, made the process ulti­mate­ly more time-con­sum­ing and resource-inten­sive than antic­i­pat­ed to stay on schedule. 

Sur­vey par­tic­i­pants note that prop­er resource allo­ca­tion, inter­nal sup­port, change man­age­ment, and busi­ness-wide col­lab­o­ra­tion are keys to suc­cess­ful SAP S/4HANA migrations. 

Lever­ag­ing RISE with SAP and GROW with SAP  

RISE with SAP, a ser­vice designed to help SAP cus­tomers accel­er­ate their embrace of cloud ERP, is gain­ing trac­tion in the ASUG community. 

RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, pri­vate edi­tion, is the most wide­ly uti­lized RISE option among ASUG Mem­bers, with 17% of respon­dents report­ing the ser­vice is cur­rent­ly at place in their orga­ni­za­tions. Over half (59%) indi­cat­ed they are plan­ning to lever­age it in the next year or are cur­rent­ly con­sid­er­ing it for future use. Only 14% report­ed they’re not con­sid­er­ing RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, pri­vate edi­tion, and only 8% have nev­er heard of it. 

RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, pub­lic edi­tion, is anoth­er mat­ter. Only eight per­cent of respon­dents are cur­rent­ly lever­ag­ing the solu­tion or report­ed using it in the past. While 28% said they are con­sid­er­ing using it in the future, 48% indi­cat­ed they are not con­sid­er­ing using it; only 10% have nev­er heard of the service. 

While three per­cent of respon­dents indi­cat­ed their orga­ni­za­tions are already using GROW with SAP, a trans­for­ma­tion-ser­vice offer­ing for the mid­mar­ket sec­tor, some mem­bers of the ASUG com­mu­ni­ty will con­sid­er select­ing the ser­vice in the future. Sev­en per­cent plan on doing so in the next year, and 25% are con­sid­er­ing future use. How­ev­er, 37% of respon­dents said they have no plans to lever­age GROW with SAP, and 29% said they have nev­er heard of the solution. 

Speak­ing to the adop­tion of RISE and the over­all aware­ness of GROW, David Robin­son, Pres­i­dent of RISE with SAP, told ASUG that ​“each cus­tomer is dif­fer­ent, with dif­fer­ent start­ing points, indus­try con­straints and oper­at­ing mod­els that shape their dis­tinct dig­i­tal journey.” 

Giv­en these dis­tinc­tions among its cus­tomer base, SAP strives to pro­vide its cus­tomers with options that will best fit their spe­cif­ic needs. 

“SAP has a long his­to­ry of pro­vid­ing choice and option­al­i­ty in the mar­ket giv­en the impor­tance cus­tomers place on lever­ag­ing SAP capa­bil­i­ties that fit with their choice of oper­at­ing mod­els,” Robin­son said. ​“Based on size, degree of fit-to-stan­dard, indus­try and oper­at­ing mod­el pref­er­ences, many enter­pris­es con­tin­ue to choose a ded­i­cat­ed ten­ant archi­tec­ture sup­port­ed via pri­vate edi­tion, and for those cus­tomers that are seek­ing a more autonomous expe­ri­ence based on reduced oper­at­ing mod­el com­plex­i­ty, pub­lic edi­tion is increas­ing as a stan­dard for enterprises.” 

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Migra­tions and Con­cerns  

The research exam­ined SAP S/4HANA envi­ron­ments in the ASUG com­mu­ni­ty, over­all find­ing an increase in cloud adop­tion for S/4HANA envi­ron­ments, com­pared to 2023 research. 

Pri­vate cloud envi­ron­ments are most pop­u­lar among ASUG mem­bers who are live on SAP S/4HANA, in the process of mov­ing, or mov­ing with­in the next two years, with 42% (up from 33% last year) report­ing they are either already live in the pri­vate cloud or will be live in this envi­ron­ment with­in the next two years. 

Man­aged SAP S/4HANA pri­vate cloud envi­ron­ments are the next most uti­lized option; 23% of respon­dents select­ed this option. Mean­while, less SAP users report­ed that their orga­ni­za­tions were adopt­ing hybrid or pub­lic cloud envi­ron­ments for SAP S/4HANA (9% for both, down from 12% for both in 2023). 

That said, a few ASUG mem­bers remain divid­ed on embrac­ing SAP S/4HANA cloud envi­ron­ments. Over half (54%) of the 16% of respon­dents who plan to move to SAP S/4HANA on-premis­es indi­cat­ed that data secu­ri­ty and pri­vate con­cerns are the main rea­son their orga­ni­za­tions are not mov­ing to the cloud. 

Jon Reed, ERP ana­lyst and Co-Founder of Dig­i­nom­i­ca, told ASUG that he believes the secu­ri­ty con­cerns around pub­lic cloud envi­ron­ments are overstated. 

“I do find these data pri­va­cy and secu­ri­ty con­cerns a bit frus­trat­ing,” he said. ​“I under­stand where those con­cerns are com­ing from, but I am not at all con­vinced that cus­tomers’ pri­vate clouds or on-premis­es instal­la­tions are more secure than pub­lic cloud. I believe that’s more of a per­cep­tion issue than real­i­ty, but it is inter­est­ing to think of how the data pri­va­cy con­ver­sa­tion could be fleshed out.” 

ASUG will con­tin­ue to dig into this impor­tant research in the com­ing months. As part of our cov­er­age, ASUG inter­viewed David Robin­son, Pres­i­dent of RISE with SAP, to get his thoughts on the research. Read the con­ver­sa­tion — and his addi­tion­al com­ments — here. 

To explore more in-depth research on SAP top­ics, vis­it our ASUG Research land­ing page.