2027 is approaching quickly. And at its close comes the end of SAP’s mainstream maintenance for legacy ECC systems. This is a major deadline for thousands of organizations that have not yet completed an S/4HANA migration and are in the midst of discussions about what comes next.
Most ERP migration plans start by focusing on how to complete the move on time and on budget. But there is a bigger opportunity here. With extended maintenance carrying additional cost, organizations that are strategic about their ERP modernization can meet the deadline and, in the process, build a more streamlined, connected, AI-ready foundation.
Let’s explore how choices made in the coming months about your S/4HANA migration can help shape your SAP environment for years ahead.
It pays to start ERP modernization now
An S/4HANA migration is a unique chance for an organization to review its data, processes, and application landscape all at once, supported by a clear mandate, budget, and executive attention.
During the process, important decisions will be made. How much historical data should we bring along and how much should be archived? Which legacy applications should be retired through application decommissioning, and which should remain? How will content connect to the various processes it supports?
Timing matters, too, because both data and costs keep growing. A recent study by Deloitte estimates that technical debt takes up 21% to 40% of an organization’s IT spending. Quite simply: the longer you wait to start your ERP modernization, the more work your migration will require.
Your ERP migration should reduce complexity, not relocate it
Every ERP migration requires decisions about what to bring forward, and each decision has a cost. Data, customizations, applications, and content all need to be moved, tested, and operated in the new environment. This is one reason why Horváth reports that 60% of S/4HANA migration projects miss their budget, schedule, or quality goals. The good news is that scope can be controlled.
Not everything needs to move to the new S/4HANA environment. Inactive data may not belong in production. Legacy applications used only for looking up historical information might not need to stay. And decades of customization can add complexity instead of real business value.
That means ERP modernization is more than a straightforward migration. It’s a chance to build a cleaner technology foundation. The goal is not to move everything to the cloud, but to keep what the business needs, retire what it does not, and move forward with a stronger core.
Your AI roadmap depends on content S/4HANA doesn’t hold
A key reason to rethink ERP modernization is to address the AI readiness gap. SAP is shifting enterprise software from human-assisted tools to autonomous AI agents, and organizations want to be able to tap into these tools. But AI cannot work safely with information it cannot access, understand, or trust. Much of the context needed for business decisions is not in structured ERP data. It is found in documents, records, contracts, correspondence, and other enterprise content.
If this information stays fragmented, poorly managed, or disconnected from business processes, your organization might have an AI-enabled ERP environment but not an AI-ready information foundation.
Plan the content decisions inside your RISE with SAP journey
For CIOs, modernization should be seen as more than reaching a finish line. Migration is only one step in a bigger transformation that turns legacy complexity into a more connected and more intelligent enterprise. For most organizations, that journey starts with RISE with SAP, where data is a core element in the SAP agent-led toolchain rather than an afterthought. The content and data decisions made early in the transformation process will help drive faster migrations and better business outcomes.
Teams that plan early have more control over scope, which is where migration cost and delay come from. Start with three questions:
What can we eliminate? Reduce the data, applications, and complexity that do not need to come forward.
What should we connect? Bring the information and content that support business processes into the context where work happens.
What must we govern? Establish the controls, context, and trust required for information to support automation and AI.
These steps are connected, not separate, and build on one another. A cleaner migration lays the groundwork for more connected processes. When information is connected and governed, it supports trusted automation and AI. Skipping early steps makes later ones more difficult.
The S/4HANA migration deadline is set. Will it be just another milestone or will it be the moment your technology foundation becomes a competitive advantage?
See how OpenText™ solutions for SAP S/4HANA migration help you reduce migration scope, cost, and risk, and build an AI-ready information foundation.
