SAP has designated 2025 as the end-of-mainstream-maintenance deadline for the entire Business Suite 7 applications suite. This means there is no guarantee that its customers will receive vital support updates and may effectively be forced to “rip and replace” their current feature-rich 4.x and ECC systems for a new, early-stage, expensive S/4HANA system.
SAP customers are being forced to make difficult SAP application strategy decisions.Deciding now to embark on an expensive journey to implement a new system before the 2025 deadline is too risky an option for many SAP customers, especially with the documented lack of a business case for S/4HANA.2
However, the option of deferring S/4HANA under SAP support may pose even more risk, with time running out on the 2025 deadline, seemingly limited SAP investment in new capabilities within current releases, and costly annual support fees. In fact, if you haven’t started yet, it may already be too late.
Even worse, given the opportunity cost of both options, customers are already waiting for innovations and falling behind competitors, putting their businesses at a disadvantage in the market