2025 and 2027 are well documented dates in SAP circles. Many SAP users have viewed the transition to S/4HANA and Cloud ERP as an opportunity for transformation, eliminating technical debt and enabling innovation. Just as many have recognized the complexity and size of the project, and opted for a technical upgrade, often called brownfield migration or a lift-and-shift, as the first step of a larger Cloud ERP journey. Driving the migration project urgency, commercial incentives and transition options from SAP may ease end of support dates for existing systems.
For SAP users with complex estates, the incremental approach prescribed by a Technical Upgrade is common sense. A big bang approach of the entire estate all-at-once was certain to be a big blow-up, and impractical anyway given the number of landscapes, integrations and technical dependencies in existing systems. And while “brownfield” might be a bad word in the SI community, it’s a practical and reasonable choice for most large SAP customers.
Brownfield doesn’t mean bad – it’s often the smartest first step for complex SAP estates. There’s plenty of great opportunities to stage transition and innovation and begin the incremental adoption of Cloud ERP technology and advantages.
The time has arrived for a candid conversation about using the brownfield approach as a first step to cloud ERP. There’s a lot of good news here, and anyone critically evaluating their own journey should be pleased to know this approach – not a wholesale greenfield reimplementation in Public Cloud ERP – is also the most common first step for large enterprises.
Any customer making a “bare minimum” move to Private Cloud ERP would achieve the following benefits:
And just being on a Cloud ERP platform opens a host of new benefits:
One common narrative suggests technical upgrades are simply “kicking the can down the road”. This is simply not true, especially if there’s a follow-on plan to begin the incremental adoption of clean core concepts, cloud services, and adopting standardized processes where it makes business sense. The technical upgrade offers a lower risk, less disruptive path to Cloud ERP in exchange for a longer total transition time – a fact most complex, large enterprises have already accepted and planned for.
If the technical upgrade approach works best for your business, there are a few additional considerations to think through before beginning the project:
Depending on which version of Public Cloud ERP is selected, there can be considerable differences in the roles and responsibilities of operations between SAP, services partners and the SAP customer. It’s worth a deep dive into the Roles and Responsibilities matrix for the specific Private Cloud offering – there’s more than a dozen unique flavors available! In the past, we’ve written about this very topic in other blogs including "Considering SAP RISE? Consider this!.
For a SAP environment of any size and complexity, the first step to the cloud is also the beginning of a long relationship with hybrid operations. Think about the time between the start of the first Cloud ERP project and completion of the final landscape migration or decommissioning – it’s probably measured in years. During that period, there’s requirements for the management of existing on-premises systems and cloud systems concurrently. There may be project and QA environments managed on-premises for Cloud ERP production instances.
Then, reading the Roles and Responsibilities documentation for the selected Cloud ERP solution will reveal additional management requirements to consider, especially when these systems have integration and change dependencies between them. (You did that, right?)
And, because the company has been running SAP for years, the basis team has learned some tricks to accelerate provisioning, monitoring, system copy, and other common tasks. They might use any combination of Solution Manager, LaMa, or Focused Run. Like ECC, these solutions are reaching end-of-life and end-of-support, and new tooling from SAP is cloud-centric and does not provide the same level of functionality, especially for on-premises systems. Cloud ALM is SAP’s intended successor, but customers with hybrid estates often require third-party solutions to bridge the gap. So, it’s time to look for a new operations solution covering the specific needs and transitioning architecture of the journey.
Technical upgrades to Cloud ERP are appealing for many reasons. They are incremental, they are less disruptive, and they provide considerable business benefits without the risks of new greenfield implementations. Performed correctly, a technical upgrade is an excellent way to initiate the adoption of Cloud ERP technology while positioning a firm for further success and innovation along the journey.
When adopting the brownfield approach, consider SAP operations during the transition and ultimate destination. Technical upgrades offer a low-risk path to Cloud ERP and give large enterprises the flexibility to modernize at their own pace. By starting with a brownfield migration, businesses can reap early benefits, keep core operations stable, and gradually adopt cloud innovations – all while maintaining control over hybrid operations.
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