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SAP is leaving (numerous) customers in the lurch when they choose S/4HANA implementations outside of the cloud. Although support continues through 2040, innovation will only occur in cloud
SAP is leaving (numerous) customers in the lurch when they choose S/4HANA implementations outside of the cloud. Although support continues through 2040, innovation will only occur in cloud deployments.
SAP is somewhat letting down customers who run S/4HANA on their own infrastructure. SAP wants customers to migrate from their existing SAP system to SAP S/4HANA by the end of 2027. Such a migration costs months and hundreds of thousands of euros or more and has been ongoing in many organizations for some time. SAP gave customers the choice between S/4HANA in the cloud or on-premises, with or without a colocation data center. It now appears that those who have not embraced the cloud are missing out on functionality.
Specifically, SAP will introduce ERP solution innovations such as AI in the cloud for customers working with SAP via RISE and GROW. If you choose on-premise, you get nothing. In itself, this doesn’t have to be a problem if SAP hadn’t pointed out in advance that one edition would be given preferential treatment over another. Anyone who has invested a lot in SAP on their own hardware now realizes that they have made a mistake.
The user association UKISUG, which represents Ireland and the United Kingdom, denounces this practice and calls it a breach of trust. 79 percent of association members who migrated to S/4HANA chose on-premises.
They note that IT managers at these companies have defended their strategy to the board, saying migration is a huge investment that requires approval. Now they have to go back to the council and the cash register if they want the latest SAP functions, whereas SAP never communicated it like that back then. The ERP specialist’s decisions put the IT specialists in a very difficult position where they appear amateurish due to poor communication from SAP about what, where and how will be supported in the future.
SAP notes that it will continue to provide support to on-premises customers through 2040. The situation is somewhat complex as new AI functionalities for ChatGPT and the AI tree were obviously not on the roadmap in the same way. In principle, SAP will continue to support existing ERP implementations, as promised. The fact is that the cloud versions of these implementations are getting better and more comprehensive and can provide a competitive advantage to their users. Anyone who has chosen on-premises will be missing out, without SAP ever saying that the choice between their own hardware and the cloud was also a decision between new (AI) functions or not.
Source: IT Daily
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