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SAP ECC support is ending in 2027.
This means you have three years to plan your next move, start your transition, manage any changes or delays, and successfully complete the migration of your whole SAP estate. All on time, and within budget.
Sounds easy, right? …
We don’t think so either.
Deciding whether to adopt SAP S/4HANA or not is huge; it’s not one to be taken lightly. And it’s a decision many organisations are still yet to make.
Many customers are also unhappy about SAP’s decision to only make innovation releases available in the Cloud via RISE and GROW with SAP. A recent survey by the UK & Ireland SAP User Group (UKISUG) showed that, of those planning to move to S/4HANA, a huge 70% are planning to move to an on-prem or hosted version. As a result, most will be missing out on these releases despite the colossal upgrade costs.
It’s also a decision that should be made by you and not the vendor. Yet SAP has imposed these support deadlines to force you into a quick decision, whether it benefits you or not.
Support for SAP ECC 6 Enhancement Packs (EHP):
Despite the big headlines that support for ECC doesn’t end for another three years, many organisations on older EHPs have until the end of next year to plan and migrate their systems (or not!).
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you’re on EHPs 1 – 5, and plan to migrate to another vendor, you have even less time. As SAP requires a 3-month notice period, you only have until the end of September 2025 to plan your move and hand in your notice to SAP, not December 2025.
The time to make your decision is now if you don’t want to face delays or lose support for your business-critical SAP systems.
To avoid losing support, spending more than you need on an expensive upgrade, or removing the need to make an urgent decision, there are five options to consider before your next SAP move:
Move your SAP ECC systems to S/4HANA at great cost, time, and drain on your teams’ resources, requiring you to revisit or rewrite many of your business processes, plus any additional training on how to use the new system.
This needs a full reimplementation, with a great risk of it overrunning and costing much more than planned.
Risk it going wrong and compromising the stability of your business-critical software.
Move to another ERP provider at great cost, time, and drain on your teams’ resources, plus a full rewrite of existing processes, and additional training on how to use the new system.
Risk it overrunning and costing much more. Any potential savings made by moving away may be swallowed up by transition costs anyway.
The move risks destabilising processes that you’ve been so used to with your old software.
Experience similar issues you had with SAP, just with a different brand name (deadlines, upgrade cycles, aggressive sales etc.).
Do nothing and hope for additional deadline extensions.
SAP will probably stick to its current 2027 deadline. This will see your SAP systems go unsupported or fall into a more basic and expensive support model.
If you eventually decide to switch, it won’t be a quick upgrade. The process can take 12-18 months (or more!), meaning you’ll be stuck with a more basic and expensive support option for a long while.
Build your own in-house SAP software support team.
The cost of building your own SAP support teams could total more than support from the vendor themselves.
Not only that, but recruiting for these roles is a huge challenge, is time-consuming, and is extremely expensive.
Receiving the most up-to-date information on legislative updates will require registering with different organisations across multiple regions, further complicating the process.
Keep existing SAP ECC systems that you’re familiar and happy with and move to third-party support for SAP.
Receive a premium support service for your systems no matter the software version you’re using.
Retain this premium support for as long as you want (no deadlines!). This gives you longer to decide if S/4HANA is the right move for you, effectively extending SAP’s 2025 and 2027 deadlines indefinitely.
Receive support for old and new customisations on your ECC systems.
Reduce your SAP support costs by up to 90% giving you spare budget to put back into other Digital Transformations and AI projects.
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Recent estimates suggest that only 1/3 of ECC customers have bought or subscribed to licenses to start their transition, as of 4Q23.
There must be a reason for this slow uptake.
Organisations are clearly not keen on relinquishing their perpetual licenses for a Cloud subscription model where you don’t really own your licenses.
You can take back control of your SAP strategy, and stop being held hostage by the vendor’s self-imposed deadlines, by moving to Support Revolution’s third-party support for SAP.
Give yourself breathing room from SAP’s support deadlines and save up to 90% on your support bill.
Speak to one of our dedicated SAP team today to find out how this works for your organisation.
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