As the 2027 deadline for migrating to SAP S/4HANA rapidly approaches, an increasing number of organizations are favoring quicker, incremental roll-outs instead of large-scale, all-at-once implementations, according to Abe Iruegas, Chief Revenue Officer at K2. Building the right SAP skills and ongoing S/4HANA training across teams is becoming essential to support these more agile migration strategies, he adds.
Historically, organizations have devoted several years to planning and deploying a comprehensive S/4HANA migration that goes live in one major launch. “That’s why many companies assume migration has to be a long, slow and complex process,” says Abe.
Although a complete transformation remains the best fit for some enterprises, more organizations are now adopting a step-by-step migration strategy – dividing the process into smaller, manageable segments rather than tackling an extensive multi-year project all at once. “It’s like renovating a house one room at a time with a trusted contractor, rather than tearing everything down and rebuilding all at once,” explains Abe.
As businesses break the migration into phases, equipping their workforce with the necessary SAP skills at each stage helps ensure smooth transitions and maximizes the value of each incremental deployment.
By taking a phased approach, companies can reduce operational disruptions and maintain the agility to shift priorities during the migration. This flexibility allows businesses to adapt their plans as new challenges or opportunities arise.
“The goal is small-t transformation: focus on quick wins, deliver incremental value, and avoid locking the business into a five-year plan before seeing any ROI from S/4HANA. We’ve seen large enterprises successfully migrate parts of their systems to S/4 in just a few months,” says Abe.
For instance, an organization may choose to implement financial process improvements during the first half of the year, then focus on supply chain enhancements later, with each stage guided by agile teams or pods.
Companies have until the end of 2027 to migrate to S/4HANA, when mainstream support for on-premise SAP ECC is set to end, although they can extend ECC maintenance until 2030 by paying an additional fee.
Preparing for an S/4HANA migration? Let’s make sure your team has the right skills
