This page explains why nearly half of SAP’s North American customers are still running legacy ECC systems with only two years before mainstream support ends. In short: it’s not laziness — it’s architecture, culture, and courage colliding. It matters because migration to S/4HANA demands unlearning as much as upgrading. Use it when you want a sober view of what’s slowing the shift and how to fix it; avoid it when you think a new licence key equals transformation.

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What this is

A reality check on the “why” behind the lagging S/4HANA adoption numbers. Forget the marketing slides — this is about fear, friction, and flawed framing.

Who it’s for

SAP leaders, project sponsors, and consultants who know the clock is ticking but the business case still feels half-cooked.

1. Two years left. Still two-fifths behind.

ASUG’s latest survey shows about 40 percent of SAP Americas users haven’t started their S/4HANA migration. Two years from the end of mainstream ECC support, that’s like being halfway through a marathon and still tying your shoes. Sure, extended support runs until 2030 — but that 2 percent surcharge is really just a tax on indecision.

2. The “business process change” myth

Half of respondents said the biggest barrier is “business process change.” Translation: our processes were never truly designed — they just grew like ivy around ECC. S/4HANA exposes that. It doesn’t break processes; it reveals how brittle they’ve always been. The hard part isn’t technical. It’s admitting how much of the old logic no one actually understands anymore.

3. Customisations: the comfort blanket

Forty-four percent fear losing their custom code. Understandable. Many of those ABAP mods keep the lights on. But SAP’s “clean core” strategy isn’t about killing creativity — it’s about stopping the chaos. If your business logic is so unique that only three people can explain it, that’s not differentiation. That’s dependency dressed as innovation.

4. Culture eats Cloud for breakfast

Thirty-seven percent cited organisational inertia. They’re right. Migration isn’t just code transport — it’s emotional transport. Change management in SAP programmes often looks like a footnote in the plan, yet it’s the main story. People don’t resist S/4HANA because it’s worse; they resist because it exposes how much they’ve normalised workarounds. You can’t RISE with SAP if your people are still crawling.

5. The business case black hole

The blunt truth: most users don’t see a burning platform. S/4HANA mostly replicates what they already have, just faster and cleaner. Try selling that to a CFO already allergic to seven-figure projects. According to Freeform Dynamics, 95 percent say building a positive migration case is “a big effort or genuinely challenging.” No surprise. Until leadership ties migration to measurable risk reduction or agility gains, it stays an IT vanity project.

What this means

S/4HANA isn’t the problem. Alignment is. The technology’s ready; the organisations aren’t. If you treat the migration as a software upgrade, you’ll drown in templates and false starts. Treat it as a governance reset, and suddenly the pieces make sense: data integrity, process clarity, accountability.

The ones who move first aren’t just upgrading systems — they’re rebuilding trust.

Author: Isard Haasakker