SAP’s mainstream support for ECC ends within the next two years, with extended maintenance options stretching several years beyond that. Oracle and Microsoft have set their own timelines with different logic. Yet when we speak to companies in the middle of these choices, readiness drives the conversation more than dates: architecture clarity, internal project bandwidth, and a credible business case to move.
A company we worked with earlier this year had committed to an S/4HANA migration within the next two years. Six months into planning they paused. Budget and executive sponsorship were in place. Their finance team had customised ECC so heavily over fifteen years that the migration scope kept expanding with each discovery phase. They are now running a parallel track: stabilising what they have while re-scoping the project for a later window. The vendor deadline stayed fixed. Their estimate of the actual work tripled.
Companies across the DACH region repeat this sequence. A vendor announcement feels like a forcing function. Then the accumulated internal complexity refuses to fit a clean timeline. The deadline functions as a prompt to start estimating properly. Companies that began scoping two years ago now have realistic project plans. Companies that assumed they could compress the work into eighteen months are revising those assumptions.
Demand for S/4HANA migration experience stretches well past any single deadline. Companies moving late will compete for experienced hands precisely because they are moving late, and the pool of consultants who have already seen multiple full-cycle migrations remains limited. Hiring managers deciding when to build that capability face a straightforward trade-off: secure it now while search timelines are manageable, or wait and pay a premium when compressed project schedules leave less room to negotiate.
Prompted by reporting from ERP Today.