Do it yourself

He explains, "Through industry leaders such as Otto or Lidl, the trend has already been started in recent years, traditionally known from the financial industry. In the coming year, more and more companies are questioning the costs of implementing and maintaining ERP software packages and are designing alternative business software based on open source platforms or platform-as-a-service services from hyperscalers."

There has been rumblings in the SAP community for many months: Customizing Hana and S/4 costs about as much as a new implementation of an alternative ERP software. What now?

SAP is still able to keep its existing customers in line. But if users feel the new freedom with low-code/no-code platforms, machine learning and hybrid cloud architectures, they could quickly replace the traditional ERP supplier in the digital transformation and conversion. Should the statement from Stefan Ried "Consolidated market leaders write their own business software" become reality, SAP is in the greatest crisis in its history.