2024 Predictions: A Look Back at How I Measured Up

After my reasonably successful predictions for 2023, I decided to turn my crystal ball to 2024 and share my thoughts on what’s ahead in the world of SAP S/4HANA. Admittedly, some themes are natural evolutions from last year, but given my decent track record, I’m pressing forward.

I’ve scored myself 170/220 this year. While my market predictions were generally on point, some changes are taking longer than anticipated. I’d love to hear your thoughts—comment on where I went astray, share your own experiences, and suggest anything I may have missed.

Next week, I’ll release my 2025 predictions—aiming for a shorter list and avoiding repetition from this year.

2024 Predictions and My Scores

1. SAP Market Growth?

"I think growth will continue in the SAP market, many more of the largest companies started their S4 Journeys in 2023 that I think it’s inevitable, also the large-scale deployment of S4 is more labor intensive than the road mapping. I expect to see at least 20% growth even with the macroeconomic global events we see. S4 seems to be ringfenced as a budget."

Score:?I think it was a 10/10 – Growth is happening, but it has been more “emotional,” with projects frequently changing direction or pausing.

2. Decline in Non-S/4 Clients

"Maybe at the start of 2023 there were over 30% large SAP clients who had not started their S4 Journeys, I think this is now lower than 15% , inevitably the different phases of a project need different skills, and so maybe less strategy and more delivery, more industrialized SI’s and less big 4 and strategy houses, but the work will ramp up and we will see more requests for deployment and AMS starting, once the pilots are live etc."

Score: Another solid 10/10 – The number of non-S/4 clients has dropped significantly. Only a few of the largest global clients remain to start their S/4HANA journeys, representing over 50% of the world’s S/4 resources. In the next wave, I foresee a surge from 2,000–3,000 mid-tier clients ($1–$10 billion) beginning their transformations, pushing overall project numbers higher, but not resource demand.

3. Event-Driven Architecture

"The use of Event driven architecture will help on some of the complex roadmaps, allowing us to unpick the complex landscapes we have built and rebuild better."

Score: An honest?4/10 – The clean core has become a cleaner core, but event-driven is yet to make waves – I’ll just say it’s ‘a work in progress’.

4. Products Like Solace and Signavio

"Following on from Signavio, low code,?and Lean IX I think products like SOLACE?(https://solace.com/) will be important and maybe bought by SAP."

Score:?Falling short at 3/10 – Solace has clearly not been bought !

5. BTP and PaaS Adoption

"There will be more use of BTP and PAAS to deliver the innovation and the clean core, I think this will be pretty standard and will be retrofitted in some cases, I also think some of the non-SAP/Hyperscaler products will struggle in this space, as SAP and the Hyperscalers have good answers."

Score: Whopping?10/10 – This is largely accurate. As they say, ‘If you can’t beat them, join them,’ and SAP’s ecosystem is proving its value time and again in supporting the clean core making non-SAP hyperscaler products losing relevance.

6. Mid-Market Wave Picking Up

"There are 40,000 SAP clients and most of the market growth has been driven by the large ones, in 2024 I think we will start to see the volume business picking up."

Score: A decent 6/10 - The mid-market surge is still a bit slow, much like waiting for your favorite coffee order during rush hour. It’s coming, but not yet in full force, probably backtracking their start based on when they move to S/4 is the key. While large clients have led the way, smaller players might not start until closer to 2028–29.

7. RISE with SAP

"2023 was the year that RISE proved that it would really take off, I think in 2024 the question will be what flavor of RISE you have and when will you move on it, as you move to S4 or after, really, I think it’s the new normal (but maybe in a hybrid environment to start with)."

Score:?9/10 – RISE adoption is strong, especially in secure environments like sovereign clouds. RISE has firmly embedded itself as the go-to solution for many organizations. A hybrid approach (multi- cloud) may still be in demand, but RISE is winning the race overall. Mid-market tweaking might improve uptake further.

8. FinOps in SAP

"FinoOps in SAP will be really important as RISE and PAAS become the norm."

Score:?4/10 – This hasn’t gained as much traction as expected but may pick up as more clients go live and see the costs . I think it will and I was too early

9. Contract Management for RISE

"Contract management (of SAP RISE) will be a new important skill - learn it and earn a fortune!"

Score:?Almost there with 9/10 – I’m seeing strong signals that contract management for RISE is now one of the hottest areas and several new skills showing up on top of contracts ??.

10. AMS Linked to Deployment and Enhancement

"Due to the use of cloud and the need to be faster etc., more AMS contracts will merge to be linked to deployment and enhancement and not just trouble tickets, and FTE’s… S4 needs a different model."

Score: Half hearted 5/10 : Beginning to see this, but maybe this prediction was a little early as the rollouts etc are continuing to remain the priority?and clients are not focusing on support ( they should), again I think I went too early on this

?

11. Multi-Vendor Approaches

" Multi-Vendor and Vendor changes will be the new norm, for S4 delivery."

Score:?Perfect 10/10 – Increasingly common, this trend is reshaping delivery strategies.?

12. Hybrid Program Models

"Most large programs will be a mix of migration, renovation, and innovation, with more tooling being used, i.e., selective data migration."

Score: 10/10 - I can definitely see this happening, with large greenfield projects trending towards hybrid models. As programs face challenges, more clients are starting with SDT or brownfield enhancements, and the tooling and market experience are steadily increasing.

13. Agile and DevOps Methods

"Agile, trending to DevOps will win the day with some Waterfall for activities like upgrades."

Score:?10/10 – Agile and DevOps seem to be the new normal and well accepted as gold standard now.

14. SAP Team Experience

Over 90% of the Capgemini SAP team have an S4 project under their belt now, I think we may be ahead of others, but I think supply issues may start to ease (maybe not the pay demands for the best)

Score:?10/10 – As always, it’s more about the quality of your team, not just resumes. Capacity issues are easing, though architect roles and some niche skills remain in high demand and some firms seem to be letting go staff, as the market changes from design and roadmap to delivery.

15. Enterprise Architects as Key Players

"Enterprise architects (not just functional or technical) will be the new gods in the SAP worlds as we think end to end not just modules."

Score: Universal?10/10 – Enterprise architects are now the ‘rare rockstars’ of SAP. Their ability to think end-to-end makes them gods. It’s clear – enterprise architects are no longer in the background; they’re front and center, guiding the ship, if anything their role is more important than the program lead.

16. SAP Public Cloud Adoption

"SAP Public cloud will accelerate, and larger clients will look to use in a hybrid environment (back the event driven stuff)."

Score: Slow 3/10 - Public cloud adoption still hasn’t exploded the way I anticipated. It’s like waiting for a big reveal, only to find out it’s not quite time yet. It will happen I was too early

17. AI in SAP

?"AI is the new normal (it was for a few years but has grown in importance). It will automate etc. It will allow new digital business models, provide great insights, but also drive down estimates for SAP projects, and don’t start to do a role that can be AI’ed out of existence in SAP."

Score: Progressive?8/10 – AI is definitely the new normal and is firmly integrated into bids and solutions. SAP have included it in more places that we thought possible and its reducing delivery costs. It’s not fully transformative yet, but it’s definitely ‘on the right track’ as it continues to shape the landscape.

18. Rolling Out in Complex Environments

"Rolling out into complex environment is tough, it will be a big issue for many large projects and cause as many issues as the initial design."

Score: 10/10 – The challenges of rolling out in complex environments are still very real. As the saying goes, ‘The devil is in the details,’ and that’s where many clients face the biggest hurdles, there are a lot of templates built but deployment is the tough part and the same issues of designing a template without thinking about the whole business is causing issues ( ie the pilot and hope approach)

19. Sustainability in SAP

"Sustainability will be a big topic , where SAP has a roll to play , but more as part of an overall architecture not the soul answer"

Score:?1/10 – Sustainability didn’t pick up much momentum this year. It’s like ‘one step forward, two steps back.?Conversations have shifted towards clean core, BTP, and RISE.

20. Agility and Cost Efficiency

"Agility and low cost to serve will play a major part in business case’s"

Score: 10/10 – Yes , a lot more evolution and cloud thinking and less radical business transformation.?It’s all about finding ways to stay flexible and efficient while delivering value.

21. Hybrid Approaches

"Everything is hybrid, the cloud the method, the delivery team, the on-prem off-prem, we will live in a more complex/nuanced world but one that give people better outcomes."

Score: 10/10?– You need to be a genius to stay on top of all the options. Like I said, Solution architects are definitely the new gods.

22. Innovation with Fully Live S/4 Clients

"Once live on S4 and lovely PAAS and SAAS and with the correct support in place, clients will start to do more with SAP and provide more interesting innovation, following this some non-SAP satellites i.e., planning, procurement will come back to SAP."

Score: 8/10 – Fully live S/4 clients are leading the charge when it comes to innovative use cases. I am really seeing strong evidence that such clients , especially ones with a cloud-based architecture, are very happy and starting to use SAP for more things.

Final Thoughts 2024 has been a year of progress and challenges in the SAP S/4HANA ecosystem. From market growth to evolving delivery models, the journey continues.?

While I bring my predictions for 2025, as Neils Bohr , a famous physicist said "Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future." So, Let me know if this aligns with your expectations or requires further tweaks!