Are you an SAP customer who’s still using ECC? You may want to listen to this conversation between Jean and Raj on the upcoming deadline by 2027. According to SAP, 2027 will be the last year of support for ECC, and the maintenance fee will go up in terms of percentage. Hence, they recommend existing SAP customers move to S/4HANA by then. However, many businesses are still hesitant to make the jump, as they’re not sure what value they’ll get from it or see it as an unnecessary expense.
Jean: So, S4 implementation. Any general thoughts on the migrations and the deadlines by 2027.
Raj: SAP has declared 2027 will be the last year of support for ECC. Now that doesn’t mean SAP will not support it, but the maintenance fee will go up in terms of percentage. And so what they’re recommending all the existing SAP customers that are using ECC, to move to S/4HANA by 2027.
Raj: That’s the deadline that they have given. And as a lot of companies are now looking at using this opportunity to move to S4, not only from a deadline to a time perspective 2027, but also using this opportunity to see if “Are we at a point where we can bring in more innovation? Do we look at a new way of doing things?”
Raj: Also “if everything is looking good, should we go for S/4HANA now converting our system to S4 or should we wait till 2027?” There are a lot of questions among the clients, and we are helping our customers as well as speaking with our prospects about how to move to S4. Each customer has its unique is a unique requirement, unique case that we are dealing with.
Jean: When it comes to the hurdles for making the jump, what are some of the biggest business excuses for why they’re maybe postponing it or maybe second guessing whether or not they should implement it now as opposed to then?
Raj: There are a couple of main reasons why a lot of companies are still hesitant to move to S4 is because within their company, they are still not 100% sure what value that they are going to get by moving to S4.
Raj: Is it because SAP has put a deadline 2027 or is it any real business reason or business driver due to which they have to move? They’re still not sure. The business case around migrating to S/4HANA is still not very strong. So many
companies have approached us to help them in creating a business case.
Raj: Second reason is they are still thinking, “okay, 2027 is four or five years out from now. So why spend money now and wait till the last minute and do it?” So basically, they’re pushing out the inevitable. And also from a cash flow perspective, if some companies are not having enough cash, they’re pushing out to a later year.
Jean: Wow, that must mean that you’re going to be really busy near 2027.
Raj: Yes, we have been busy even the last couple of years. And now as the years passed by, as the deadline comes closer, we will be extremely busy.
Jean: Okay, so when it comes to SAP rollouts, ECC6 takes around six months. So people can plan, is that around the same timeframe for an S4 roll out?
Raj: Now it depends on what type of rollout we are looking at. If you’re looking at a new brand-new implementation and depending on what innovations we are going to bring in, the timeline could be different. And if you are doing a pure S4 conversion with not major other things that we need to bring in, like other innovations to bring in, then we are looking at about 6 months.
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