August 19, 2020

August 19, 2020 | Lee Mashburn | VP, Marketing 

When SAP announced in February that they had decided to extend Business Suite 7 (ECC) support to 2027 (and in a more limited way to 2030)SAP customers gave a collective sigh of relief. With only 10% of its customers switched from ECC to S/4HANA, SAP tacitly acknowledged that the 2025 deadline was unreachable – and undesirable – for most customers.  

In February, we discussed the new ECC deadline and its positive and negative implicationsNo matter how well planned, an ERP migration is guaranteed to be time-consuming, expensive, and disruptiveNow, as organizations continue to deal with the financial downturn and disruption, this extra time is especially welcome by SAP customers who are considering their long-term ERP strategy. 

Gartner’s Take on the 2027/2030 Extension 

This spring, Gartner analysts weighed in on this topic in greater depth in “Use SAP’s Business Suite 7 Support Extension to Manage Costs and Optimize Your S/4HANA Transition. Per our understanding, the recently published research delves into the details of SAP’s extension and recommends ways in which organizations can use this respite to evaluate their support options and SAP S/4HANA business case. 

We believe, by giving its customers more time to remain on ECC, SAP has inadvertently given them an opportunity to pause their rush towards a strategic ERP decision. SAP is sure to continue its pressure and incentives to migrate, but your organization now has more time to align your business case, build consensus with organizational stakeholdersdemand more information and pricing from SAP, and review your support optionsincluding third-party SAP support. 

The Gartner research explores these actions and includes recommendations on how to: 

  • Assess your S/4HANA business case and organizational readiness 
  • Use SAP’s new focus on transparency to gather the data you need to improve negotiations 
  • Compare your current SAP support cost and value as compared to third-party support options 

Who Will Benefit from This Research 

This report provides a wide set of recommendations for how to move forward with your ERP strategy, with practical advice for your IT leaders, executive management, and sourcing, procurement, and vendor management team. 

In our opinion, this is ideal for organizations that are under pressure to reduce annual IT costs, want an objective overview of their ECC migration options, and feel dissatisfied with the quality of their SAP-provided support.