SAP will end mainstream support for ECC in 2027, and many ECC customers still haven’t licensed S/4HANA. With migration projects commonly taking 18–36 months, organizations that haven’t started planning are already behind. Organizations already running SAP S/4HANA face their own challenge: keeping pace with a platform that now delivers major releases every two years, with embedded AI capabilities that only work well on a clean, well-governed foundation.
At Surety Systems, we work with organizations across both sides of that equation, guiding ECC customers through the complexity of migration planning and helping existing S/4HANA users get more out of the platform they already own.
This blog offers a clear look at the SAP landscape as it stands today, highlighting the key trends reshaping the ecosystem, what’s new in S/4HANA, and the practical considerations every decision-maker should work through before optimizing or upgrading their environment.
The State of the SAP Landscape in 2026
The December 31, 2027 deadline for SAP ECC mainstream maintenance is final, as SAP has confirmed there will be no further extensions. After that date, customers on an existing SAP ECC system move into extended maintenance (2028–2030) with surcharges above standard rates, or into customer-specific maintenance that drops legal and regulatory update guarantees. Remaining on ECC past 2030 risks compliance issues and cuts off access to crucial security updates and security patches.
The demand for experienced S/4HANA architects, ABAP remediation specialists, and system integrators is already critical. Organizations that wait risk higher project costs, compressed testing cycles, and unpredictable timelines. Surveys show over 60% of migration projects exceed original budgets, timelines, or quality targets; and resource scarcity only compounds that risk.
The landscape isn’t just about migration anymore. SAP adopted a two-year major release cycle beginning with the 2023 version, accompanied by Feature Pack Stacks (FPS) and Support Package Stacks (SPS). Each release from S/4HANA 2023 onward carries seven years of mainstream maintenance. For organizations already on S/4HANA, the challenge lies in adopting new business capabilities, managing the software upgrade cadence, and extracting value from features that ship between major versions.
What’s New: SAP S/4HANA Features That Matter
AI and Joule
SAP’s Joule framework has evolved from a generative AI assistant to an agentic AI platform capable of autonomously executing end-to-end processes, now shipping 40+ specialized AI agents and more than 2,400 Joule Skills. In the most recent release, Joule automates tasks like labor demand planning in Extended Warehouse Management, financial journal reconciliation, intercompany automation, and document processing in transportation workflows. Automating manual tasks within S/4HANA increases efficiency across these areas significantly.
Joule for Developers accelerates ABAP coding and testing tasks, with SAP reporting up to a 20% reduction in coding effort and 25% faster testing cycles. Automated testing tools can significantly reduce testing time during updates, and these tailored developer capabilities also assist with custom code analysis for migration readiness.
RISE with SAP now includes Joule AI at no extra license cost, with a consumption-based BTP bundle and Clean Core monitoring tools built in. The takeaway: AI isn’t a future roadmap item; it’s available now, and getting value from it requires clean, well-structured SAP system environments.
Clean Core: Why It’s More Than a Buzzword
Expanded no-code extensibility allows business users to add fields and logic without ABAP development, further reducing technical debt. Clean Core offers the foundation for everything AI-enabled in the platform and improves an organization’s overall ability to manage upgrades effectively. Effective SAP S/4HANA optimization requires cleaning up obsolete data and streamlining code, and that starts with a disciplined approach to what custom code stays, what gets retired, and what moves to side-by-side extensions.
Finance, Supply Chain & UX Improvements
On the finance side, the latest update delivers embedded automation in financial close, Universal Journal anomaly detection with AI, and intercompany automation that reduces manual journal effort. The Universal Journal combines financial data into a single line-item table and eliminates data duplication, utilizing tables like MATDOC and ACDOCA to reduce database table clutter. Embedded analytics in SAP S/4HANA enable real-time operational reporting, and AI-driven anomaly detection provides valuable insights for predictive accounting.
In supply chain and logistics, AI now analyzes outbound delivery risks, powers predictive labor planning, and assists with document processing to reduce data entry. The Live MRP Engine allows for real-time demand changes, and enhanced collaboration in supply chains facilitates faster order fulfillment. Advanced Extended Warehouse Management templates close the gap with standalone WMS solutions.
For UX, SAP’s most recent release introduces the Fiori Horizon theme as the default, with personalized home pages that surface relevant KPIs based on user behavior. Training employees on new interfaces maximizes workflow optimization, but these changes also raise the change management workload.
Sustainability Reporting
The latest S/4HANA update adds enhanced carbon footprint tracking at the product and order level, integrated with SAP Sustainability Control Tower, relevant for organizations navigating CSRD and other ESG mandates.
Migration Paths: Know Your Options Before You Commit
Choosing the right migration strategy impacts long-term optimization in SAP S/4HANA. Three primary approaches dominate, and the right one depends on your business complexity, not on what’s trending.
Brownfield (System Conversion): A technical upgrade of the existing ECC system that preserves configurations, customizations, and historical data. Generally faster (9–18 months for mid-market) and lower upfront cost, but carries forward technical debt, like custom code, process inefficiencies, and integration sprawl. SAP Software Upgrade Manager aids in ECC to S/4HANA conversion for this route.
Greenfield (New Implementation): Implementing a new S/4HANA system from scratch, redefining business processes aligned with SAP Best Practices, and migrating only needed data. Greenfield migration allows for re-engineering processes and adopting best practices. While it’s more costly upfront and longer timelines (12–36 months), with heavy change management demands, it yields a clean core and higher long-term agility. This approach is best for heavily customized ECC environments where starting fresh is cleaner than carrying legacy complexity forward.
Hybrid / Selective Data Transition: Combines elements of both greenfield and brownfield approaches. This means you stand up a new target system but selectively migrate configurations, master data, and transactional data. This lets organizations classify data and selectively migrate what matters while shedding baggage. The complexity is high as you must manage data mapping, governance, and the decision for what custom logic stays versus what gets replaced requires careful orchestration.
For organizations evaluating deployment models, RISE with SAP offers a SaaS-like subscription model with bundled infrastructure and managed services. It shifts costs from CAPEX to OPEX but does not eliminate migration complexity. Organizations should model total cost of ownership over multiple years, not just initial fees, whether choosing on-premise deployment or cloud.
The right path depends on your current business processes, customization volume, data quality, and timeline, not on what a vendor is pushing.
Key Considerations Before You Optimize or Upgrade
1. Run a System Health Check First
Before selecting a migration strategy or release target, invest in a thorough system analysis:
- Inventory your custom code (number of Z-objects, enhancements, modifications)
- Map your integrations
- Assess data volume and quality
- Understand your current system’s landscape complexity
An SAP readiness check analyzes system compatibility for S/4HANA migration and identifies potential roadblocks in the conversion process. A fit-gap analysis helps identify discrepancies between your existing system and the target system.
2. Custom Code Is Your Biggest Variable
Decades of custom “Z-code” built for SAP ECC are often incompatible with S/4HANA’s modern architecture. Custom code analysis, using SAP tools like the Custom Code Migration Guide and AI-assisted agents, helps classify which objects can be retired, rewritten, or offloaded to BTP extensions. Organizations with thousands of custom objects must plan months for remediation alone. Relying on ABAP Trace and Code Inspector identifies resource-heavy custom ABAP code, but automated tools don’t eliminate the need for expert-guided manual review.
3. Data Quality Can Derail an Otherwise-Solid Plan
Legacy ECC environments accumulate decades of legacy data that are often poorly governed. The migration to S/4HANA’s streamlined data model exposes data accuracy issues, missing references, and inconsistent data formats. Data cleansing ensures data is accurate and consistent for migration. Data classification involves categorizing data into hot, warm, and cold.
- Hot data is critical for daily operations and real-time decision-making
- Warm data is valuable for reporting and data analysis
- Cold data is rarely accessed and retained for compliance reasons
Data volume management helps optimize data transfer during migration, and data archiving is essential to control data growth in SAP HANA databases. Data profiling and automated cleansing with predefined rules, using data cleansing tools like SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward, can accelerate this work.
4. Integration Complexity Is Often Underestimated
Most ECC environments sit at the center of complex ecosystems of third-party applications, custom interfaces, middleware, EDI systems, and external data sources. Migration often breaks these connections. Every API, data feed, and vendor connection needs to be evaluated for S/4HANA compatibility. Adopting SAP Integration Suite or upgrading middleware adds cost, and organizations routinely underestimate the effort to rewrite, test, and operationalize integrations in a new system.
5. Resource Availability Is a Real Constraint Right Now
By late 2026, shortages of experienced S/4HANA specialists are affecting most projects, as demand is particularly high for data migration leads, finance consultants, QA/testing specialists, and cutover roles. Consulting and implementation services typically represent 45–60% of total migration cost. Securing the right talent early is as important as choosing the right migration strategy. Executive buy-in is also crucial for successful S/4HANA transformation; without it, resource allocation and organizational commitment suffer.
6. Change Management Is Not an Afterthought
A technically successful migration can still fail if users don’t adopt the new system. Training, stakeholder alignment, and organizational readiness need to be part of the plan from day one. Organizational change management, including role-based training, governance of configuration changes, and communication strategies, is a discipline, not a checkbox.
7. Don’t Mistake “Going Live” for “Optimized”
Many organizations reach go-live and stop. But S/4HANA’s value compounds over time through performance tracing and tuning, adoption of new FPS features, retiring remaining custom code, and building out streamlined business processes and business process analytics. Continuous performance monitoring helps identify bottlenecks, and performance management tools allow continuous monitoring and management of SAP S/4HANA health.
Organizations should regularly archive historical data to improve query performance. Managing the in-memory footprint is crucial for cost-effective system performance, ensuring proper infrastructure sizing helps prevent hardware bottlenecks, and load balancing enhances high availability. Architectural planning can distribute data across multiple nodes to maintain optimal performance. Regular tracking of memory and active sessions can highlight inefficient SQL statements and improve feature usability.
Post-go-live optimization, from improved performance tuning to resource utilization reviews, is its own discipline. Optimization requires a holistic approach covering infrastructure, data management, and process refinement. A step-by-step approach to continuous improvement, informed by key metrics and SAP Solution Manager or Focused Run, keeps the platform aligned with evolving business needs.
How to Think About Timing
Mid-market migrations often cost between $1 million and low single-digit millions; large enterprises can scale into tens of millions depending on user counts and complexity. Budget realistically – build in 15–30% contingencies and allocate sufficient effort for data cleansing, code remediation, testing, cutover, and post-go-live support. Cost effectiveness comes from thorough planning, not from rushing.
That said, the right time to start isn’t simply “before the deadline.” It’s when you have a clear plan, maximum control over scope, and the right people committed to the project. A successful transition from ECC to S/4HANA is built on clarity, not urgency.
Next Steps with Our Team
The organizations that come out ahead in this cycle aren’t necessarily the ones that moved first. They’re the ones that moved with clarity, the right expertise, and a plan built around their specific environment – their data, their custom code, their integration landscape, their people.
At Surety Systems, we help teams think through their SAP landscape with unbiased guidance, system health checks, readiness assessments, and senior-level expertise across every phase. Whether you’re preparing a smooth transition from SAP ERP to S/4HANA or looking to unlock more value from a current system you’ve already migrated, our consultants bring the depth and independence you need.
Contact us today to start the conversation.
