The SAP Omniverse: Why It Matters to CIOs and CFOs
In my summer newsletter and episode 17 of my podcast I touched upon the rise of the SAP Omniverse driven by AI and the paradigm shift this will trigger in terms of how SAP is leveraged by complex organisations.
Here is a little more detail to provide context and to help business leaders maximise their investment in SAP and AI.
What is the SAP Omniverse?
The SAP Omniverse is a new paradigm that recognizes how AI, robotics, and legacy SAP systems are converging to fundamentally reshape how SAP is consumed by the business —both as a product and as a business operating model. It’s not a new product or platform. It’s a way of seeing SAP as everything, everywhere, past and present—where AI connects all SAP landscapes (ECC, S/4HANA, Suite, BTP, LoB solutions, legacy) into a modular, intelligent thinking (Agency will drop by 2030) ecosystem, regardless of version or deployment model, enabling organisations to maximise their current SAP investment and SAP assets as a foundation to move to a composable industry 4.0 target operating model. Essentially organisations can be far more prescriptive and realise tangible benefits faster, no more rip it out and start again.
Why it matters now: The game has changed “Tactical innovation”
AI has triggered a convulsion in the SAP ecosystem—a shift from rigid, strategic 5-year plans and need for endless rainbow migrations to agile, tactical decision-making. The days of “rip and replace” ERP migrations are ending. CIOs and CFOs must now pivot towards tactical SAP consumption, AI-powered upcycling of existing SAP investments, and modular plug-and-play solutions that deliver immediate business value around a legacy core. This enables the evolution of the industry 4.0 operating model driven by the need and capacity and capabilities of the organisation to sustain and embed the change.
Key Messages for the C-Suite
Past investments are now future assets – A CFOs dream come true
AI now enables S/4HANA and Business Agentic AI microservices to wrap around ECC and BW, not just replace it, ECC will be gradually demised by wrap around agentic S/4. This means your legacy ECC and BW environments are not obsolete—they are now part of the Omniverse, open to upcycling and innovation without full-scale re-platforming.
Tactical beats transformational
Instead of betting the farm on monolithic rainbow S/4 migrations, CIOs can pursue smaller, outcome-focused innovations across finance, supply chain, HR, or CX—enabled by agentic AI and Robotics. This delivers ROI faster and aligns with how AI tech evolves: fast, unpredictable, and iterative.
RISE of a new adoption model
SAP’s RISE program served its purpose, but it's being overtaken by LoB-centric consumption models. Your roadmap no longer needs to follow a one-size-fits-all cloud narrative. On-premise is resurging, and sovereign cloud, black-box AI, and plug-and-play business functions are becoming the new norm.
Innovation will come from everywhere and not just SAP – Rise of the legacy Cash cow
Expect SAP to upsell AI-powered microservices across the full Business Suite, these services will support legacy SAP, they will be further enhanced by the partner ecosystem. Why would SAP do this ? well the legacy ECC customers are a cash-cow and if SAP don’t offer the agentic services, then other vendors will ! lessons will have been learnt from the hyper-scaler cloud wars, where SAP opened the door to competition and lost and revenue.
Tactical (Strategic is dead) Recommendations for CIOs and CFOs
Reassess your SAP roadmap: Shift from long-term migration to AI-first tactical initiatives. Start small, prove value, then scale.
Embrace SAP upcycling: Mine your existing SAP investments (ECC, BW,S/4 Legacy, APO, GTS etc.) for new AI and automation value.
Reframe the cloud discussion: Focus on AI capability and business outcomes, not deployment models or clean-core ideology.
Get help from agile, embedded SAP teams: The future isn’t big SI delivery armies—it’s 4-person AI squads. Fast, embedded, agile.
Understand the impact of Dark Forest AI – I still can’t get my chicken goujons from a major UK food retailer.
The Bottom Line
The SAP Omniverse isn’t a vision. It’s happening now.
SAP is no longer just a system of record. It’s becoming a thinking enterprise platform—autonomous, composable, and agentic. And it’s forcing a complete rethink of how CIOs and CFOs plan, buy, and deploy SAP technology.
The winners in this new landscape will be those who consume SAP tactically, think modularly, and act fast.
Need help then message me, and here is why
Well firstly, no one knows how to extract real value from SAP better than myself, the usual suspects are still trying to flog rainbow rip it out and start again S/4 migrations, clean core and cloud first nonsense.
Dragon ERP can help your teams enable the SAP Omniverse and deliver tangible benefits in productivity, EBIDTA and Liquidity gains.
We deliver a tactical Phase Zero, whereby we define a tactical SAP roadmap aligned to immediate business required outcomes and priorities linked to upcycling your current SAP investments and assets. We focus heavily upon defining an evolving I4.0 Target Operating model and enterprise design linked to embedding and sustaining the change. We work to embed the tooling and methodologies that will help you take advantage from the paradigm shift that is the SAP Omniverse.
And if you need help with any SAP programmes that are rocking, then we offer a full SAP turn around and assurance service.
Alisdair
alisdairbach@dragonerp.co.uk
