Customer evolution with legacy issues

Many ERP legacy issues and unanswered SAP questions

Successful existing SAP customers naturally also have Abap modifications and other legacy challenges. At a gathering such as the DSAG Annual Congress 2025 in Bremen, the DSAG Executive Board and DSAG members expect SAP to provide relevant answers to current questions. The catalog of open SAP construction sites is long: AI integration, Databricks or SAP BDC, Rise with third-party IT tools, SAP Build versus Joule Studio and public cloud, private cloud, on-prem or a sovereign "on-prem cloud".

SAP board member Thomas Saueressig did not want to and could not answer any questions about the numerous SAP construction sites and DSAG board chairman Jens Hungershausen apparently agreed with Christian Klein on a friendly approach and cautious cooperation. Criticism and questions were neither possible nor desired. The DSAG members in Bremen were left astonished and ignorant.

ERP Greenfield as SAP conversion standard

SAP Executive Board member Thomas Saueressig presented the S/4 customizing of jewelry manufacturer Pandora in Bremen. The company is a new customer and therefore free of legacy issues. The Greenfield project was rolled out in Austria and Germany within a short space of time. Saueressig interviewed the successful IT manager at Pandora with great interest. Every DSAG member in the audience knew the answers. For experienced SAP users, customizing on a greenfield site is not a challenge. Saueressig's entertaining interview therefore provided no added value for the DSAG annual congress audience.

After ten years of experimentation, Customer Evolution is at a critical point: an S/4 release change that has not worked for ten years is now to be completed within a few years. If Thomas Saueressig continues to lose himself in greenfield fantasies, then it will not work until 2033 - the new, magical date for the final release change. However, Saueressig made it unmistakably clear that this is not an extension of the maintenance period.

SAP legacy license management

The SAP journey to the cloud is complex and creates new legacy issues if it fails. The process was dissected at the DSAG Annual Congress 2024 in Leipzig: Rise with SAP is always two contracts! A release change and a rental agreement. The existing SAP customer is required to rent a cloud space for the future ERP system. At the same time, the Rise transformation process begins, which, like any other IT project, can naturally fail. But then the rental contract for the cloud can no longer be canceled: In addition to the legacy burden of an old ERP, a failed S/4, the existing SAP customer then also has the rental costs for an unused cloud space - you can't get any more legacy burden than that!

The DSAG user association refused to provide its members with an exit strategy for this legacy dilemma this year. In view of the new harmony between DSAG and SAP, an information event on the subject of Rise and Cloud contracts was not planned. DSAG's original motto of "critical and constructive" has obviously become obsolete. DSAG members could only hear that there are no legacy issues on the greenfield, so what now?

Legacy ERP on-prem versus sovereign SAP cloud

Because SAP refused to address the issue of a sovereign cloud for a long time, an on-prem solution was presented shortly before the DSAG Annual Congress 2025. Cloud functionality is to be available in the data centers of existing SAP customers. SAP is thus opening up a further infrastructure and operating model without providing precise details on function and management. How should a "cloud" in the data center of an existing SAP customer be maintained by SAP? In Bremen, Thomas Saueressig also failed to answer this question. The public cloud of the young existing SAP customer Pandora had to be sufficient as a keynote.

However, existing SAP customers are now faced with a choice for many applications: on-prem, private or public cloud. There are SAP applications that are available in all three operating models with slightly different functions. Which version is suitable for your own company and which version has a future and will be further developed by SAP? This question was not answered in Bremen either, but at least it was asked by a DSAG member on the main stage. SAP was no longer present at this time - in Bremen, the existing SAP customers and partners were left to their own devices in many ERP cases.

In front of around 5000 congress participants, SAP board member Thomas Saueressig presented a barely relevant, young public cloud solution. Because the many DSAG members are successful and long-standing SAP customers, the insights gained were limited. It would therefore be important to answer the questions: What happens to my Abap modifications, how can I link ECC and BTP, do AI and Joule work with a sovereign on-prem ERP in my own data center? None of the relevant questions are answered by Thomas Saueressig.

But S/4 conversion succeeds without legacy. Without legacy, the young existing SAP customer stays on time and on budget. With legacy, the release change from ECC 6.0 to S/4 becomes an expensive and very complex challenge - as SAP board member Thomas Saueressig knows. At the DSAG Annual Congress in Bremen, Saueressig chose the simple and risk-free route.