SAP Migration Strategy


What Is SAP Migration Strategy?

With the last major release of SAP ECC, version 6.0 EHP 8, made available in 2016, the question facing SAP customers is around the move to SAP S/4HANA. While SAP has extended mainstream maintenance for the ECC 6.0 platform until the end of 2027, with an optional premium maintenance available for an additional three years, those running these solutions need to decide on the move to SAP S/4HANA. The three biggest factors around this move are when they will move, and how they will move, and where they will move.

What Is SAP Migration Strategy?

With the last major release of SAP ECC, version 6.0 EHP 8, made available in 2016, the question facing SAP customers is around the move to SAP S/4HANA. While SAP has extended mainstream maintenance for the ECC 6.0 platform until the end of 2027, with an optional premium maintenance available for an additional three years, those running these solutions need to decide on the move to SAP S/4HANA. The three biggest factors around this move are when they will move, and how they will move, and where they will move.

The when is a question that is up to each organization. However, with the majority of organizations taking between 12 and 18 months once the business case has already been made, the period before mainstream maintenance ends can approach very quickly. Once the decision has been made when to move, organizations must then determine what approach they will take to their SAP migration. Will they simply move everything as is into SAP S/4HANA? Will they start from scratch to produce as clean a system as possible? Or will they take an intermediate route? The last factor is where they will move. With most organizations moving SAP workloads to the cloud, this may be the route of choice. However, others will want hybrid environments or entirely local infrastructure.

Key Considerations for SAPinsiders

  • Understand what other organizations are saying about their SAP Migration Strategy. These include: 1) the fact that the biggest challenge is often building the business case, 2) moves to a new ERP system are both resource intensive as well as expensive, 3) newer versions of SAP S/4HANA include significant business benefits, and 4) the move to SAP S/4HANA represents a major opportunity to improve business operations.
  • Ensure that you have planned effectively for the migration. When migrating from your existing ERP system, there are important tips that you can follow to ensure that processes are successful. First, engage your business teams in the process. While this is an investment in resources, there will be more success with the overall project if your business teams are involved from the beginning. Second, remove unnecessary custom code. Limiting what you have to move forward will make the process much easier. And lastly, plan for a phased approach. You will want to have dry runs and even maintain both systems in parallel to ensure that they are working correctly.

49 results

  1. From SNP Transformation World 2025 – Sandrine Pons

    ERP Today’s Robert Holland sat down with Sandrine Pons, Managing Director of SNP France and General Manager of SNP Iberia and BeNeLux at SNP Transformation World, to talk about the unique challenges faced by the customers in the regions she manages and her experiences and successes as a woman in the technology field. In addition,…

  2. From SNP Transformation World 2025 – Don Mahoney

    Robert Holland from ERP Today sat down with Don Mahoney, Chief Customer Officer at SNP, to talk about the challenges that customers face in finding the right approach to transformation, the preparations they can make regardless of a final transformation decision, and what makes successful transformation projects different.

  3. From SNP Transformation World 2025 – Rami Amkieh

    ERP Today’s Robert Holland sat down with Rami Amkieh, Senior Vice President Middle East and Africa at SNP, to discuss the challenges faced by customers in the Middle East and Africa, how SNP is working with those customers to support their transformation goals, and the technologies that SNP is using to facilitate those transformations.

  4. From SNP Transformation World 2025 – Saleha F. Al-Kuaisi

    Robert Holland from ERP Today talked with Saleha Al-Kubasi, Head of SAP at Qatar Chemicals, and Ravi Mahalingam, Managing Director of SNP Middle East, about Qatar Chemicals’ recent move to SAP S/4HANA on RISE with SAP. With over 20 years of history with SAP, Qatar Chemicals needed to update their systems, user experience, and transition…

  5. From SNP Transformation World 2025 – Richard & Daniela Bühler

    Richard Bühler, Head of Global IT at Cerdia, and Daniela Bühler, Head of IT Applications at Cerdia, sat down with Robert Holland of ERP Today to talk about their move to SAP S/4HANA. Having a long history with SAP, beginning with SAP R/2 and SAP R/3, and following a launch as a standalone company in…

  6. From SNP Transformation World 2025 – SNP Japan & Accenture Japan

    Robert Holland from ERP Today sits down with Shuhei Hotosanhi, Managing Director of SNP Japan, Mitsuhiro Wake, Managing Director of Accenture Japan, and Hiroki Irisawa, Associate Director of Accenture Japan, to talk about the unique challenges faced by Japanese customers, how SNP and Accenture are collaborating to support digital transformation journeys, and what considerations will…

  7. From SNP Transformation World 2025 – SNP ANZ & IBM Australia

    Robert Holland of ERP Today sat down with Richard Checketts, Managing Director ANZ at SNP, and Marcus Scott, SAP Practice Lead at IBM Australia, to talk about how the unique factors impacting customers in Australia and New Zealand and how SNP and IBM are collaborating for success.Robert Holland of ERP Today sat down with Richard…

  8. From SNP Transformation World 2025 – Tara von Metzen

    SNP’s Head of Products and Innovation, Tara von Metzen, sat down with ERP Today’s Robert Holland to talk about new developments that have been launched over the last year as well as what is on the roadmap for the future. Kyano brings together the data migration capabilities that have been available for years in SNP…

  9. From SNP Transformation World 2025 – Adriana Bassi

    ERP Today’s Robert Holland talked with Adriana Bassi, IT Executive Manager at Raizen about the company’s crucial transformation to SAP Business Suite on HANA. Coming from a situation where their existing SAP ECC 5.0 deployment has been running without mainstream maintenance for over a decade, including the associated cybersecurity and business continuity risks, the strategic…

  10. From SNP Transformation World 2025 – Tim Garippa

    Tim Garippa, Transformation and Innovation Lead at Adobe Technology, sat down with Robert Holland of ERP Today to discuss Adobe’s recent transition to SAP S/4HANA including a migration from a very large source system and a short deadline for completion. Garippa appeared on stage during the SNP Transformation World keynote along with other SNP customers…