Fifty-five percent of organizations running SAP have deployed SAP S/4HANA. Yet Only 34% are running on it day to day, according to SAPinsider’s March 2026 benchmark research.
That gap is the story of the S/4HANA migration right now, and it points to one argument: Finishing the move depends less on the new system than on the information around it. What you carry in, what you connect it to, and how well it is governed decide how quickly deployed becomes done.
Earlier this week, we looked at why ERP modernization is more than a migration and how to shrink the move and retire what you leave behind. Here is what leaders running SAP say about moving less, connecting more, and running AI-ready.
Move less: budget is the top challenge
Budget is now the biggest challenge organizations running SAP report, cited by 61%, up 7 percentage points from the year before (CIO, May 2026, citing ASUG’s 2026 Pulse of the SAP Customer survey). Much of that pressure builds from everything carried into the move: inactive data, legacy applications kept running only for lookups, and years of customization.
SAP data archiving and application decommissioning take the first two off the table, as the second post in this series explained. Wind turbine manufacturer ENERCON shows what that looks like. It used OpenText™ Core Archive for SAP® Solutions to migrate 9 TB of on-premise data with zero disruption to business users. It decommissioned its on-premise infrastructure, kept 24/7 access to 20 million records, and is saving at least €23,000 a year.
Connect more: integration is a requirement
A smaller ERP migration is half the work. The information that stays has to reach the people and processes that depend on it. SAPinsider’s research also shows that 82% of organizations running SAP cite integration between core ERP and line-of-business applications as a key requirement for their transformation.
This is especially visible in the documents that move with every transaction: invoices, contracts, approvals, and employee files. When they sit outside SAP, people search across systems, retrieve information by hand, and spend time on work that could be automated. The audit trail can break, too. With SAP integrations that connect documents to the transactions they support, the right information reaches the right person at the right step. SCHOTT used OpenText™ Vendor Invoice Management (VIM) for SAP® Solutions to cut invoice processing from about five days to about five minutes and can handle three times the invoices—now more than half a million a year—while keeping its shared service center lean.
Run AI-ready: fix the information first
AI is now part of the case for moving to SAP S/4HANA , but the numbers show where leaders are looking first. The SAPinsider research shows data cleansing at the top of the list of technologies organizations running SAP are evaluating, at 45%, ahead of SAP Readiness Check at 42% and automated testing at 38%.
That is the right order. An AI agent is only as reliable as the information it draws on. That means knowing what you hold, who can see it, and how long you must keep it. Retention, access controls, and audit trails applied by default, not added later, are what let agents act on information safely. This is the information foundation OpenText provides for SAP clients.
It comes down to information and governance
The payoff shows up after go-live. The findings also show 36% of organizations already running SAP S/4HANA reporting reduced audit exposure as a benefit, up from 7% in 2024. Legacy systems left running unmanaged are one place that exposure can sit, so what you retire matters as much as what you move. Look across the three moves and the pattern is the same. Budget pressure, integration requirements, and AI plans all depend on information that is smaller, connected, and governed. Technology alone does not close the gap between deployed and done. Move less. Connect more. Run AI-ready.
See the full picture
The ERP modernization trends and insights report goes further. It covers seven findings, from why completion is lagging adoption to why ambition is outpacing infrastructure. Each comes with a takeaway for the people at your table: the program owner, the enterprise architect, and the governance lead.
Janine Wendling
Janine Wendling is a Senior Product Marketing Manager in OpenText’s Content Services business, focused on go-to-market strategy for OpenText’s SAP solutions. With more than 25 years at OpenText spanning HR technology, SAP partnerships, and product marketing, she has experienced SAP from both sides: as a partner and as a user, including leading OpenText’s own SAP SuccessFactors HCM implementation. She helps organizations get more value from their SAP investments through trusted information, automation, and AI, guided by the belief that technology should make work easier, not harder.
