Park S4HANA - ECC6 is alive until 2030

Headlines scream that SAP is ending mainstream maintenance for Business Suite 7 on December 31st 2027 which includes ECC6 – Move to S4HANA before it is too late. But this not the full story! You actually have 6 years of grace.

Always refer / check with SAP as details may change

ECC6 maintenance can be extended to 2030

At the time of writing It appears that paid maintenance will continue until 2030 with just a 2 percent premium over current maintenance– So not too extreme.

Check out Martin Stenzig's SAP community article here

If ECC6 is working then don't fix it!

ECC6 is keeping thousands of businesses lights on and is trusted and tested - As an ERP it is about running your business that simple - Not AI nor dashaboards nor technology. These things work with ERP data reagrdless of version and are not hard wired in.

Advantages of delaying S4HANA

Sticking with ECC6 longer means that your adoption of S4HANA can be less frantic, more considered and critically, business can carry on smoothly.

Of course many companies may choose to migrate early but late adopters will learn from other’s mistakes, recruit battle proven S4HANA experts, enjoy minimal business disruption, realise a smooth cash flow and, be able to choose what the business needs not what IT thinks it needs. Pace yourselves.

The diagram below shows that SAP resources will be in demand resulting in availability plummeting and fees rocketing

Key Practical Considerations for S4HANA

There are plenty of reasons to migrate to S4HANA so here are some thoughts for making your S4HANA journey a success - And they are not just technical.

• Don’t Panic??????? Paid support last to 2030, it may cost a little more but is less than a botch job.
• Review ?????????????Don’t shift everything currently in ECC6, avoid transferring redundancy.
• Continuity????????? Remain active with ECC6 and ensure S4HANA benefit from lessons learned.
• Fail Safe?????????????Run ECC6 and S4HANA in parallel - Compare, contrast and you can roll-back
• Agility????????????????Don’t stretch S4HANA to absorb disparate data - It's an ERP not a Data Lake.
• Refreshing?????????S4HANA needs ongoing adjustments by users not just one-off data transfers.
• Inclusion IT does the heavy lifting but business will live with S4HANA - So involve them.

Where insightsoftware can help:

• Agility???????????????? Increases IT productivity, empower user to reporting, analyse and update.
• Focus??????????????????Combine ECC6 data & business know-how - agree master data for S4HANA.
• Input???????????????????Empower users to engage / prototype as S4HANA matures not at then end.
• Compatibility?? Gain insights with current ECC6 / Microsoft tools and then apply to S4HANA
• Parallel ??????????????Best-of-breed Reports, insights, write-back work with ECC6 and S4HANA.
• Transparency?? Surface, blend & analyse S4HANA, CDS-Views, non-SAP data and original docs.
• Automation ????? Write back and load data in bulk (no 999 limit) - auditable authorised precision.
• Enrich 1,000s of Out-of-the-box pre-built business, finance and supply chain rules
• Derisk Excel Live link ECC6 and S4HANA to Excel - No risky, slow and error-prone dumps

The costs of insightsoftware's SAP Optimisation technology is a fraction of the return and is deployed in just days – Basically an installation not an implementation – Who would go on roller coaster tropical vacation without being inoculated?

Learn more

I hope the above has been thought provoking and you have won back 3 years of your life! Here's a link with more on our SAP solutions.

Finally

When Morton is not challenging the marketing nonsense of the consulatancy firms, he heads up SAP solutions for solutions as insightsofware - Feel free to reach out