SAP’s Sisyphean Task

The DSAG Technology Days 2022 in Düsseldorf proved it once again: SAP is doing a good job but seems to be a victim of its own success! SAP is making an effort but has let the reins slip for more than a decade. SAP Business Suite 7 with its numerous Abap modifications is still going strong.

Mind you, AnyDB should have been replaced by Hana with the introduction of S/4. This backfired spectacularly. S/4 was still more of a marketing term than a finished product, which is why SAP invented kind of a middleman: SoH – Suite on Hana. The idea was to let people get used to Hana and boast installation figures. However, through customizations and in-house developments, SAP Business Suite 7 on Hana is working so well now that most customers do not want to switch to S/4. And why should they? ECC 6.0 provides just as good a foundation for Hana.

So, once again, we have to ask: Why switch to S/4? What value does S/4 add? It has become quite obvious that S/4 is a pain both for SAP’s customers and for SAP itself. Both parties put in so much effort, and yet, it always seems like they are right back where they started. S/4 is a Sisyphean task. SAP’s customers have to rework their Abap modifications and SAP has to ensure integration between S/4 and all other SAP products – a never-ending story. Will SAP ever be able to turn the S/4 torment into a functioning source code?