A Practical Guide to a Successful S/4HANA Migration
The migration to SAP S/4HANA has now become a strategic priority for organisations still running SAP ECC.
SAP has officially announced that mainstream maintenance for SAP ECC 6.0 and SAP Business Suite 7 will end on 31 December 2027. After this date, SAP will no longer provide standard maintenance, including patches, functional updates, and regular security fixes.
A paid extended maintenance option will remain available until 31 December 2030 for certain customers running the latest enhancement packages. However, this period no longer falls under official mainstream support.
However, beyond the timeline itself, the scale of the programme is considerable.
According to figures reported by CIO, based on Gartner analysis, SAP is estimated to have around 35,000 SAP ECC customers worldwide. By the end of 2024, approximately 39% had already migrated to SAP S/4HANA, representing around 14,000 organisations. This means that roughly 21,000 companies still need to complete their transition if they intend to move away from ECC.
And the pressure is only set to increase. Gartner projects that, at the current pace, nearly 17,000 organisations may still not have migrated by 2027, when mainstream maintenance ends.
This context is creating significant pressure across the market:
A large volume of projects being launched simultaneously, combined with a limited availability of specialised SAP consultants, particularly in the areas of adoption and change management.
For project managers and application owners in Finance, Procurement, Supply Chain and Manufacturing, the challenge is therefore twofold: to successfully complete the transition to S/4HANA within the required timeframe, while also ensuring that users fully adopt the new processes, without relying exclusively on increasingly scarce external resources.
While migration is often approached from a technical perspective, Greenfield, Brownfield, or Selective Data Transition, its ultimate success depends on a decisive factor: user adoption.
In this article, we outline the major changes associated with the migration and the practical levers available to secure effective change management and minimise operational risks.
Key dates:
December 31, 2027: End of mainstream maintenance for SAP ECC
December 31, 2030: Potential end of extended maintenance for eligible customers
1. Migrating to SAP S/4HANA: What changes for Finance, Procurement, Supply Chain and Manufacturing teams?
The transition to S/4HANA goes far beyond a technical upgrade. It introduces a simplified data model, real-time processing capabilities, and a modernised user experience through SAP Fiori.
Legacy transactions are streamlined, some are removed, while others are replaced with role-based applications. Screens become more analytical and contextual.
For Finance teams, this may mean a new approach to closing cycles or budget monitoring. For Procurement, approval workflows and requisition management may be presented differently, with redesigned navigation.
Even in a Brownfield scenario, where part of the existing configuration is retained, the functional impact remains significant. In a Greenfield project, the transformation is even more substantial, as processes are often redesigned from the ground up.
An SAP S/4HANA migration therefore becomes a full-scale business transformation programme.
💡 Tip: Map your most frequently used transactions and the roles most exposed to interface changes in order to prioritise change support efforts.
2. The business risks of a poorly managed migration
A successful technical migration does not guarantee a successful operational transition.
ERP projects rarely fail for purely technical reasons. More often, they fail due to partial adoption or resistance to change.
In the context of a transition to S/4HANA, several risks quickly emerge if change management is underestimated and user support is insufficient:
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Teams struggle to find their bearings in the new screens
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Data entry errors temporarily increase
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Users lose confidence in the new environment
Finance and Procurement users operate under strict time constraints. They do not have the time to explore new Fiori applications or fully understand the nuances of redesigned interfaces.
In Finance environments, these issues can directly impact data quality and closing cycles. In Procurement, they can slow down sourcing processes or create configuration inconsistencies.
The challenge is therefore not only to explain what has changed, but to ensure a gradual and secure transition, supported continuously (even after go-live) at the exact moment when users execute their processes.
💡 Tip: Prioritise support that is integrated directly into the tools and available within the flow of work.
3. Effectively Supporting the Transition with the Shortways Assistant
To secure the migration to SAP S/4HANA, it is essential to support users directly within the SAP environment, at the exact moment they execute a process and encounter a difficulty.
The Shortways Assistant is available on the SAP Store, ensuring compliance, security, and compatibility with the SAP ecosystem.
Through a lightweight plugin, it integrates with the following environments:
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SAP S/4HANA on-premise
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SAP S/4HANA private cloud
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SAP S/4HANA public cloud
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Any application built on SAP BTP, which has become the central technological foundation for modern SAP applications, including those within the Fiori ecosystem.
In practical terms, during the transition to S/4HANA, several use cases are particularly valuable in helping employees navigate their new environment:
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Notification bubbles to introduce new features on a screen or explain the removal of a legacy transaction
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Interactive step-by-step guidance to help users execute key processes, tailored to roles and business contexts
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Contextual help to clarify new field names or updated business rules
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Content updated in real time to prevent internal documentation from becoming obsolete as soon as the system goes live
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An intelligent ticket management system that allows requests to be qualified directly from the SAP screen and smoothly routed to ITSM tools such as Jira, EasyVista, ServiceNow, or any internal ticketing system
This approach not only reduces the volume of tickets related to user onboarding, but also improves their quality when a genuine incident needs to be escalated.
Results:
✅ Users become more autonomous
✅ Support teams receive better-qualified requests
✅ Post-migration overload is kept under control
✅ Process quality is preserved from the first weeks of stabilisation
💡 Tip: Prepare your support content in parallel with the technical migration workstream so that everything is ready at go-live and you avoid the typical post-deployment “black hole”.
Shortways is available on the SAP marketplace
Conclusion
Migrating to SAP S/4HANA represents far more than a technological upgrade. It marks a transformation in the way Finance and Procurement teams work and interact with their systems.
To fully realise the expected benefits — simplification, performance improvements, and modernised processes — it is essential to ensure that users can confidently adopt the new processes and interfaces.
By integrating the Shortways digital adoption platform into your migration strategy, you turn a migration project into a genuine driver of operational performance.
Shortways already supports major organisations in their SAP environments, such as Sodexo on SAP Fiori and Orange on SAP FC, helping them secure user adoption of new environments and maintain operational continuity during major application transformations.
👉 Are you preparing for an SAP S/4HANA migration and looking to secure user adoption? Contact us, our teams are here to help.
