S/4HANA is not the destination. SAP has already moved on.
S/4HANA is not the destination. SAP has already moved on.
You don’t see me blogging or talking about S/4 anymore, but when you come to th mo about it, neither does SAP anymore, it’s moved on leaving much of the SAP
consulting industry in a weird state
of limbo
They industry knows the much touted S/4 migration tidal wave isn’t going to happen and haven’t come to terms with what that means yet.
Let’s be honest. S/4HANA PCE and Public are still the best ERP prodctd on the market. Many organisations will adopt it, and in the right place, Dragon ERP supports that.
But moving to S/4 is not a strategy. And it is definitely not the endgame.
For years, the industry has pushed a simple story. ECC out, S/4HANA in, everything else on hold until the migration is finished.
That story is starting to crack.
SAP is already extending timelines to 2033, opening selected AI capabilities to ECC customers, and pushing value through Joule, Business AI and cloud services that do not depend on a completed S/4 journey.
Why? Because AI value cannot wait five years. And neither can SAP.
This is exactly what I called out in my SAP 5x work and the “S/4 Bridge” idea. The direction of travel is no longer a single migration. It is becoming something far more fluid, layered and continuous.
At the same time, AI, agents and automation are moving faster than any traditional transformation programme can keep up with. By the time you “arrive”, the target has already shifted.
That is the real issue. Not ECC. Not S/4HANA. The belief that you can freeze an enterprise long enough to modernise it.
You can’t.
The future is not a destination. It is a moving target
And that is where the industry gets uncomfortable.
Because the factory model depends on S/4HANA being the finish line. It depends on long programmes, big budgets, and the idea that value only appears at the end.
We don’t buy that, in most cases rip it out modernisation is over
Dragon ERP starts with what customers actually have. Not what someone is trying to sell them. We look at the estate, the risk, the value already locked inside it, and what can be improved right now.
Some organisations should move to S/4HANA. Some should move partially. Some should stay on ECC and modernise around it. Most will need a mix of all three.
That is Enterprise Kaizen. Make Safe. Maintain. Innovate. Experiment.
S/4HANA is a tool. Not a belief system.
The outcome is the strategy.
SAP has moved on. Customers should too.
I’d suggest you go back and look at most of the previous additions of my newsletter to see more on this whole topic and the rise of the SAP Omniverse and Enterprise Kaizen.
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Alisdair
About the Author
Alisdair Bach helps CIOs and CFOs solve complex SAP problems and shape what comes next. He advises boards, investors and executive teams on SAP strategy, assurance, architecture, commercial decisions and how SAP should be consumed, delivered and embedded across the enterprise.
An independent SAP analyst, author and lecturer, Alisdair challenges conventional industry thinking. He is the author of The SAP Omniverse and the originator of SAP Upcycling and Enterprise Kaizen. His work anticipated the extension of ECC and the arrival of AI and Joule on existing SAP landscapes, challenging the assumption that every organisation must rip out its current estate and start again.
Through Dragon ERP, Alisdair combines original thinking with decades of practical delivery experience across private equity, public sector and international organisations. When an SAP programme is struggling, he provides board-level assurance, forensic diagnosis and experienced turnaround leadership to help executives regain control and determine the right way forward.
