Are you ready for SAP’s upcoming maintenance deadlines?
Over the last few years, our annual member surveys have shown growing user adoption of SAP S/4HANA, with our most recent data indicating that 50% of members are now on SAP’s latest ERP system.
However, this still means a large number of organisations are needing to navigate critical end-of-life milestones over the next two years.
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Support for SAP ECC 6.0 with enhancement packs 0-5 runs out this year.
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Support for SAP ECC 6.0 with enhancement packs 6-8 finishes at the end of 2027.
Even early adopters of SAP S/4HANA are at a crossroads, with support for versions 1503 to 2020 ending this year, support for 2021 ending next year, and support for 2022 ending in 2027.
What does this mean in practice?
After these deadlines, SAP will no longer provide mainstream maintenance, including new functionality, regular enhancements and full support, under a standard maintenance contract. For those SAP ECC 6.0 customers, they have the option of an extended maintenance period available until 31 December 2030. However, this comes at a premium and covers a reduced service scope (e.g. security patches and legal/regulatory updates) rather than additional product innovation.
For these organisations they must decide whether to migrate to SAP S/4HANA before mainstream support ends, pay for the extended maintenance option, go down the third-party support route or accept the risks of operating an unsupported platform.
If you haven’t yet developed a clear migration roadmap to S/4HANA or a viable long-term support strategy for ECC 6.0, the clock is ticking.
How can UKISUG help?
At UKISUG we aim to provide the insight and resources to help organisations on their SAP S/4HANA journey. In our latest episode of SUGTalks we explore this topic further with UKISUG Director, Ian Mallinson, and David Yawalkar, Head of Solution Management RISE with SAP. They ask the question “What is the cost of doing nothing?” and offer practical insights to organisations who are at an end-of-life crossroads.
We also have our SAP S/4HANA Community and Focus Groups, which offer a great forum for users to network and learn from each other – wherever they are in their migration journey. And last but not least, we have our annual user conference UKISUG Connect, which features a whole dedicated stream on all things SAP S/4HANA.
Many organisations need to make critical decisions about their future SAP landscape in the coming weeks and months. As a user community, we are here for you!