The S/4 hope

Existing customers are now being given more time to migrate to the new ERP version S/4. This delay is also urgently needed, as many companies are lagging behind with their digital transformation and often have other priorities than converting their ERP world.

On the other hand, many companies still lack a concrete strategy for migrating to the S/4 world. Another problem to which SAP has responded with its announcement is the lack of skilled workers for the ERP conversion.

The market research and consulting company Lünendonk und Hossenfelder published these and other results in the study "Into the digital future with S/4 Hana".

CIOs, IT managers and CTOs from 153 large companies and groups from various sectors in the DACH region were surveyed. It is available free of charge at luenendonk.de.

For many existing customers, the migration to S/4 may seem like a necessary evil due to the discontinuation of maintenance for version ERP/ECC 6.0 (Suite 7). However, the switch also offers companies the opportunity to subject their IT and business processes to an urgently needed modernization.

In the study, Lünendonk therefore determined what business and technological potential companies are hoping for. 63% of participants would like to see a significant reduction in maintenance and servicing costs for the ERP landscape - a wish that also exists at SAP: After all, there are hundreds of system configurations under Suite 7 with AnyDB and NetWeaver to which SAP Support has to respond.

However, it is noticeable among existing customers that companies do not necessarily expect lower IT operating costs as a result of the reduction in maintenance and servicing costs.

"The result suggests that there is some uncertainty about the new license costs and the costs of indirect use of S/4"

explains Mario Zillmann, Partner at Lünendonk and Hossenfelder and author of the study.

In addition, topics such as process automation and the standardization of databases are an added value that S/4 should offer from the perspective of the study participants.

On the business side, users hope that the new ERP version will meet the requirements of digitalization and market players. This also includes adapting business processes to the requirements of digitalization. 40 percent of study participants place a very large focus on this aspect.

"The application scenarios and opportunities for optimizing business through S/4 and Hana are diverse, whether through more e-commerce activities, the expansion of multi-channel customer communication, the digitalization and automation of the process landscape or the development of new data-based business models"

summarizes Tobias Ganowski, Junior Consultant at Lünendonk and Hossenfelder.

As the market researchers also determined, companies are primarily looking for specialists with business process know-how as well as ERP and IT expertise as part of their ERP conversion plans.

"These skills are required significantly more frequently by the companies surveyed that are not only migrating technically (brownfield) but also introducing new business processes (greenfield) than by the other companies"

explains Mario Zillmann. Business and IT architects are also in high demand.