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SAP is one of those things that comes up constantly in project and transformation work, and most people in the room have no idea what it actually is. They nod. The meeting moves on. Nobody wants to be the one to ask.
I get it! But it is worth actually understanding, because if you work in this space, it is going to keep coming up, and the stakes around it right now are higher than most people realise.
So, let’s break it down…
What actually is SAP?
SAP is software that runs the back office of large organisations. Finance, procurement, supply chain, HR all in one place, all connected. Rather than having five different systems that do not talk to each other, SAP is supposed to be the single source of truth for how a business operates. When a purchase order goes in, it flows through to finance. When stock drops, procurement is triggered. Everything is linked.
It is also extraordinarily widespread. A significant chunk of the world’s largest organisations run on SAP. It is part of a business’s key infrastructure. And if it stops working, the business stops working.
Why are there so many versions of it?
SAP has been around since the 1970s. The original product was built for a world of physical servers sitting in a company’s own building. It worked, and it worked well, for decades. A huge number of organisations built their entire operations around it. That product, over time, became what is now known as SAP ECC.
A lot of those organisations are still running ECC today. Not because they have not noticed the world changing. Because replacing the system that runs your entire business is not a small thing.
Then came the cloud, and SAP had to do something it had never really had to do before: rebuild almost from scratch. That rebuild is called S/4HANA.
What is S/4HANA?
S/4HANA is the modern version. It runs on a faster database that SAP built itself, which means real-time data rather than waiting for overnight reports. It can run on SAP’s cloud, a private cloud, or still on-premise for organisations not ready to make the full move. It is where SAP is putting all of its money, all of its development, and increasingly all of its customers.
You might also come across the term RISE with SAP. It is not a separate product. It is a bundle that packages S/4HANA together with migration support and managed services. Worth knowing when it comes up, because it does.
Why is SAP such a constant presence in transformation conversations at the moment?
SAP has confirmed that mainstream support for ECC ends on 31 December 2027. After that date, security patches and compliance updates stop as standard. Extended support is available through to 2030, but it comes at a premium, and it buys time, not progress.
The problem is that tens of thousands of organisations are still on ECC, and a significant number of them have not started moving yet. A typical S/4HANA migration takes anywhere from 12 to 24 months. For large or complex organisations, longer. Which means the window for a well-planned, well-governed migration is narrowing fast. The programmes that are not already underway are starting to feel the pressure, and that pressure is only going to increase as 2027 gets closer and the pool of available expertise gets tighter.
So where does ByDesign fit in?
Business ByDesign was SAP’s attempt to build something lighter for mid-sized organisations that did not need the full enterprise version. Launched in 2007, it was genuinely ahead of its time. A cloud-native product before most people were talking seriously about cloud. The ambition was to bring thousands of smaller businesses into the SAP world on more accessible terms.
It never quite delivered on that ambition. Technical problems early on did real damage, and the product always sat a little awkwardly between SAP’s other offerings. Last September, SAP confirmed it would stop selling ByDesign to new customers from April 2026. Existing customers are not being cut off, support and compliance updates continue, but the direction is clear. SAP is consolidating everything around S/4HANA, and ByDesign is not part of that future.
Why does any of this matter for transformation professionals?
SAP migrations are among the most complex programmes running within large organisations right now. They touch every part of the business and every stakeholder group. As with most transformation projects, technology is rarely where these programmes come unstuck. The harder part is people.
Processes change. Roles change. The way someone does their job on a Monday morning changes. That is not an IT problem. That is a change-management problem, and getting it wrong is where most of the value is lost.
You do not need to be technical to work on one of these programmes. But understanding the landscape, what the platform actually is, why the organisation is moving, what 2027 means in practical terms makes you a sharper BA, a better PM, a more credible voice in the room.
The ByDesign news is a footnote. What it points to is the bigger picture: a company simplifying its portfolio, doubling down on its modern platform, and accelerating the pressure on organisations to make a decision they have been putting off.
That decision, when it finally gets made, usually means a programme. And programmes need good people.
Connect with Jane on LinkedIn or at jane.olden@barden.ie