The slow way is the goal

Three quarters, however, still have the digital transformation on SAP's future platform ahead of them, and the pace of migration has slowed slightly. Many companies have experienced difficult geopolitical and financial years, which experts believe may also play a role in the current decline in enthusiasm.

Brownfield

The majority of companies prefer brownfield approaches in varying degrees, i.e., an initially more technical migration to S/4 with slight to more pronounced improvement and optimization initiatives. However, after a small decline in the previous year, the greenfield approach is also enjoying a significant increase in popularity again. With Greenfield, companies take the opportunity to put their processes and their solution architecture to the test and optimize them on the occasion of the migration. Greenfield is more costly, but the result, especially for older SAP solutions, brings clear business benefits.

SAP's Rise cloud initiative has increased in awareness, from 69 percent in the previous year to 76 percent in 2023. However, SAP's Pri-vate cloud offering has also made a giant leap upwards, from 42 percent in the previous year to 73 percent. At least in terms of awareness. Skepticism towards the cloud as a deployment model is decreasing noticeably and significantly for the first time this year.

The SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) does not yet seem to have fully arrived at the DACH companies. Just under half of the survey participants are using the BTP or are in the process of introducing it; the other half have so far kept their hands off it. The main reason given is: We have not yet dealt with BTP sufficiently. The estimated high costs are also keeping just under 18 percent of the survey participants from introducing it.