SAP Announce Mainstream Support Extensions for S/4HANA & Business Suite 7 - The NTT DATA Business Solutions View

With this maintenance commitment, SAP is providing more clarity and certainty about the long-term future of S/4HANA and better options for planning, preparing and executing your migration to S/4HANA.

On 4th February 2020, SAP announced a maintenance commitment for SAP S/4HANA until the end of 2040. At the same time, SAP will provide mainstream maintenance for SAP Business Suite 7 core applications until end of 2027. This off boarding phase will be followed by optional extended maintenance until end of 2030.

For clarity SAP Business Suite 7 core applications, which are also core applications of SAP Business All-in-One, include:

SAP ERP 6.0,
SAP Customer Relationship Management 7.0,
SAP Supply Chain Management 7.0,
SAP Supplier Relationship Management 7.0 applications,
SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA.

The full press release can be found here.

The NTT DATA Business Solutions view

For our customers this is good news primarily because it provides greater clarity and surety on the long term future of S/4HANA and greater ability to plan, prepare and execute their move to S/4HANA.

There are some things that have not changed:

All of the new development and investment is being made in S/4HANA rather than SAP ERP 6.0.
If you are implementing new capability or making changes in your ERP system you need to be careful that you are making these with full consideration to S/4HANA. Failure to do so may risk re-work and wasted investment.

The advice from leading analysts is not affected by this most recent announcement:

The longer you wait the higher the risk and cost to your organisation will be as the best resources become scarcer as the deadline approaches.
Even if your company decides not to adopt S/4HANA immediately, you still need to consider the changes imminent with S/4HANA and create your plan.

Our number one mantra from our 10 Mantras for a Successful Move to S/4HANA is ‘Forewarned is forearmed’. There is more than one path to move to S/4HANA and there are multiple implications to consider.

Do the due diligence to understand the right path for you.
Understand the shape, size, cost and impact of your path.
Understand how your S/4 move fits into a broader plan. When will you make the move? What are the dependencies and what is the right sequence of events? Create an overall applications roadmap for your business.

Assessment Service

NTT DATA Business Solutions provide an assessment service to help you create your plan.

If you want to find out more about S/4HANA then make sure you register for our #itelli2020 conference taking place in June. My colleague Andy Steer has written a blog giving you further insight and clarity on what the theme is for the conference.