The 39% Figure: What the Data Actually Tells Us

SAP's own investor disclosures and third-party industry analysis suggest that only around 39% of the company's ECC customer base had purchased S/4HANA licences as of late 2025. This single figure encapsulates a fundamental tension in SAP's growth strategy: the company's entire narrative around "digital transformation" and "cloud-first futures" depends on converting the remaining ~61% of its largest customer base before the ECC maintenance cliff arrives.

That 61% is not sitting passively. They're deliberate. They're waiting. And they know they have leverage.

For enterprise procurement teams, audit defence officers, and CFOs responsible for SAP spend, this statistic is your opening. SAP's sales organization is under relentless pressure to convert ECC accounts before the SAP ECC end of maintenance 2027 deadline. This structural pressure translates into negotiating room—if you know how to recognize and exploit it.

The 39% who have committed have already moved. The question now is not whether the remaining 61% will move, but on what terms. And those terms are far more favorable than SAP's published price lists suggest, if you understand the commercial leverage you hold.

Why SAP ECC Customers Haven't Moved

The 61% are not stuck or indecisive. They're rational actors responding to real barriers:

1. Migration Complexity Exceeds Business Value

S/4HANA migration is not a simple upgrade. It's a business process redesign layered with system migration. Organizations that have executed these projects report implementation cycles of 18-36 months, with substantial process disruption during cutover. For organizations running stable, well-optimized ECC systems—which is most of SAP's large customer base—the disruption cost often outweighs the business case for modernization.

2. Implementation Costs Dwarf Licence Costs

SAP licence fees are typically 5-15% of total migration cost. Implementation, integration, testing, training, and change management consume the remaining 85-95%. For a 2000-person organization, a full S/4HANA migration (on-premise or cloud) runs $10-20 million in SI fees alone. The 39% who have already committed to S/4HANA essentially made their bet before they fully understood the total cost of ownership. The 61% have had time to run the numbers.

3. The Business Case Disappears Without ECC Crisis

ECC is stable. Modern. Reliable. For most organizations, ECC is not the problem. Migrating ECC creates a problem—project risk, execution risk, budget overrun risk. The business case for S/4HANA typically rests on productivity gains, analytics improvements, and mobile access that are "nice to have," not "need to have." The 61% are asking: why run this project risk for capabilities we can achieve within our current system?

4. Cloud Lock-In Risk Is Real

Organizations that migrate to RISE with SAP or S/4HANA Cloud are signing 5-10 year commitments to cloud infrastructure they cannot easily exit. Once you commit to cloud, exiting requires another expensive migration. The 61% are right to be cautious about this irreversibility. SAP's cloud strategy is increasingly their strategy—not yours.

5. They're Waiting for SAP to Improve the Terms

The 61% are not hiding from the migration decision. They're timing it. They know ECC maintenance extends beyond 2027, and they know SAP needs the conversion more than they need to convert. Every quarter that passes without their S/4HANA commitment is a quarter that SAP's commercial desperation increases. Why commit at today's terms when next year's terms will be better?

What This Means for Your Negotiating Position

If your organization is among the 61% who have not yet committed to S/4HANA, you are holding an asset: scarcity of commitment. SAP's entire financial growth narrative depends on S/4HANA adoption. Missing migration targets costs SAP credibility with Wall Street, slows reported revenue growth, and puts pressure on executive compensation. You have that pressure working for you.

This is your moment to demand concessions that SAP will not advertise: ECC perpetual licence credits against S/4HANA purchase, implementation cost sharing, locked pricing for 3+ years post-migration, transition flexibility, and defined exit rights from cloud commitments. SAP's "standard terms" are negotiable precisely because conversion is their priority.

The sales tactics you'll encounter will be disguised urgency ("ECC maintenance deadline is approaching"), scare tactics ("audit risk after 2027"), and bundled pricing that obscures true conversion costs. Recognize these for what they are: signals that SAP is under pressure to close your deal, not that your delay is costless.

SAP's competitors—Oracle, Infor, Microsoft—are all sharper on ECC customers right now precisely because they know SAP is desperate to convert. The 39% converted without leverage. The 61% should convert with maximum leverage.

The ECC Deadline Commercial Strategy

You have three coherent commercial postures available as you approach the ECC maintenance decision. Each is defensible on commercial grounds, and each has different implications for SAP negotiation leverage.

Strategy A: Commit to RISE with SAP (or S/4HANA Cloud) With Hard-Negotiated Terms

If cloud aligns with your IT strategy and you have the capital budget for SaaS consumption, RISE with SAP may be the right choice—but not at published pricing. SAP's RISE offering bundles infrastructure, support, and transformation, but the bundled pricing is designed to obscure the actual cost of each component.

If you choose this path, demand: (1) clear separation of licence, infrastructure, and transformation costs, (2) credit for your existing ECC perpetual licences, (3) shared implementation cost (SAP contributes 15-25% of SI fees as migration incentive), (4) price protection for 5 years post-migration, (5) defined exit rights from cloud (the ability to re-migrate on-premise without penalty), and (6) audit moratorium during migration.

The fact that ~39% have already committed suggests that SAP has room to offer concessions to the remaining 61%. Use this fact.

Strategy B: Commit to On-Premise S/4HANA to Avoid Cloud Irreversibility

On-premise S/4HANA preserves optionality. You own the infrastructure, control your data residency, and can exit cloud vendors without penalty. From a commercial risk perspective, this is the defensible choice for organizations that want to modernize without accepting SAP's cloud lock-in.

If you choose this path, the negotiation is clearer: licence pricing, implementation support, and transition timelines. Demand the same concessions as Strategy A but without the cloud lock-in risk. SAP will discount perpetual S/4HANA licences if you're willing to make the commitment, because perpetual licence sales improve their reported revenue metrics.

Strategy C: Continue on ECC with Third-Party Maintenance—Buy Time

This is the option SAP doesn't want to discuss, but it's commercially available: extended ECC maintenance through SAP third-party maintenance options (Rimini Street, Spinnaker, Accel) offer functional equivalence to SAP's extended maintenance at 30-50% lower cost. The 12-month ECC action plan framework can guide this timeline.

If you choose this path, you're not making a final decision. You're buying 2-3 years of additional runway. SAP's commercial pressure to convert increases with each quarter. Their terms in 2027 will be better than their terms in 2026. This is not a evasion strategy; it's a rational timing strategy.

Whichever strategy you choose, the key commercial insight is the same: you have negotiating leverage precisely because 61% of SAP's customer base has not yet committed. Exploit this fact.

What SAP Is Doing to Accelerate Conversions

SAP is acutely aware of the 39% vs. 61% split, and the company's commercial tactics are becoming increasingly sophisticated as a result. Understanding these tactics helps you distinguish legitimate business case arguments from manipulation.

Tactic 1: Audit Pressure as Compliance Theater

SAP is increasing audit cadence on ECC customers, citing "compliance risk," "data protection," and "cyber vulnerability" of older systems. The implicit message: ECC systems are becoming unsafe. This is largely theater. SAP's own documentation supports ECC maintenance through extended agreements. Audit pressure is a sales tool, not a technical necessity. Don't confuse SAP's commercial interest in ECC exit with genuine compliance risk.

Tactic 2: Cloud Incentives Disguised as Modernization

RISE with SAP marketing emphasizes "cloud transformation," "AI-first architecture," and "digital-native design." The real incentive is SAP's shift to recurring cloud revenue. RISE pricing bundles licence, infrastructure, support, and transformation into a single SaaS fee that obscures the actual cost per component. When you see RISE marketing emphasizing "simplicity," what you're seeing is commercial obfuscation.

Tactic 3: Migration Incentive Bundling

SAP's deal teams are increasingly bundling "migration incentives" into RISE contracts—ostensibly free implementation support, accelerated timelines, or reduced infrastructure costs. These incentives are real, but they're negotiated, not fixed. They exist because SAP needs ECC customer conversion more than you need to convert. If you see a migration incentive in a SAP deal, interpret it as a signal of pricing flexibility on the underlying licence terms.

Tactic 4: Total Cost of Ownership Manipulation

SAP will present financial models showing that S/4HANA cloud reduces 10-year TCO compared to ECC on-premise. These models typically underestimate migration costs, overestimate productivity gains, and ignore cloud lock-in risk. Ask SAP to itemize each assumption. You'll often find that the cost advantage disappears once you disaggregate ECC support costs from S/4HANA infrastructure costs.

The Negotiation Checklist for Uncommitted ECC Customers

If you are among the 61% still deciding, use this eight-point checklist before signing any SAP migration contract. These are non-negotiable from a fiduciary perspective.

1. ECC Perpetual Licence Credit

Demand credit for your existing ECC perpetual licence value against S/4HANA licence costs. You paid for ECC perpetual rights that terminate at migration. That sunk cost should reduce your S/4HANA outlay. SAP will offer 5-10% credit as "standard." Push for 20-30%. You have negotiating power here; the 61% are proof of it.

2. Implementation Cost Contribution

Demand that SAP contribute 15-25% of SI implementation fees as a migration incentive. This is standard in Salesforce transitions, Oracle migrations, and modern SaaS implementations. SAP's deal teams have authority to offer this but rarely do without being asked. The 39% who already committed did not get this. The 61% should.

3. Locked Price Protection (3+ Years Post-Migration)

Demand that SAP lock S/4HANA licence pricing for 3-5 years post-migration, with annual increases capped at inflation or a fixed percentage (typically 3-4%). SAP will attempt to insert annual price-increase clauses tied to their own cost inflation. Resist this. Your migration decision creates switching costs; SAP should bear pricing risk for the post-migration period.

4. Transition Option Inclusion

If you migrate to cloud, demand contractual flexibility to transition back to on-premise S/4HANA without penalty during the first 24-36 months. This is your insurance against cloud lock-in and poor cloud performance. SAP will resist this but will accept it for significant migration commitments. The fact that they resist proves it has value.

5. Explicit Exit Rights

For RISE with SAP commitments, demand contractual exit rights at year 3 and year 5 without penalty. A 5-year contract with exit rights at year 3 gives you optionality; a 5-year contract with exit only at end-of-term locks you in. SAP will claim exit rights create "financial uncertainty." Exactly. That uncertainty should work in your favor, not theirs. This is your deal protection.

6. Defined Migration Support SLAs

Demand that SAP define service-level agreements for migration support (cutover support, data validation, hypercare staffing) in writing. Don't accept vague "we'll provide migration support" language. Define hours, response times, escalation paths, and resource commitments. This is where SAP implementation failures become your cost problem; make SAP's obligations explicit.

7. Audit Moratorium During Migration

Demand that SAP commit to an audit moratorium during migration and for 12-24 months post-cutover. This protects your organization from SAP's tactic of initiating audits on legacy systems during migration (when IT resources are consumed and audit defense becomes expensive). A moratorium keeps SAP from weaponizing audit timing against migration project resources.

8. AI/Generative Model Use Allocation and Cost Clarity

If you're committing to RISE or S/4HANA Cloud, demand clear contractual definition of AI model training, generative AI feature costs, and data usage rights. SAP's cloud terms are increasingly including AI model training on customer data. You need explicit opt-out rights and clear pricing for any AI-related features. This is the emerging licensing battlefield; don't accept vague "AI capabilities included" language.

These eight points are your baseline, not your opening position. Enter negotiation asking for 50% more on each dimension. SAP will negotiate down, and you'll settle near the baseline. This is how professional procurement works. The 39% who already committed likely didn't have these items in their contracts. The 61% should.

The Strategic Moment Is Now

The 39% vs. 61% split is not a permanent feature of SAP's customer base. Over 2026 and 2027, SAP will convert more ECC customers. As the 61% shrinks to 50%, then 40%, then 30%, your negotiating leverage decreases. The ECC customers who convert earliest in this window will have the most favorable terms, but only if they negotiate hard.

The 2026 SAP negotiation window is your optimal timing window. SAP's pressure to convert is highest. Your leverage is highest. Commercial terms are most flexible. Organizations that navigate this window well will establish S/4HANA positions that reduce cost and increase optionality for the next 5-10 years. Organizations that let SAP set the terms will carry that cost burden for a decade.

This is not about whether to migrate. ECC ends, and you will migrate. This is about when to migrate and on what commercial terms. The 61% of SAP's customer base that hasn't yet committed has won the right to make that decision with maximum leverage. Execute that leverage.

If you need expert guidance through SAP migration negotiations, S/4HANA migration licensing advisory exists to help you navigate this decision and extract maximum commercial value from SAP's conversion pressure. SAP contract negotiation support is available for organizations committed to converting on the best possible terms. And if you want to explore non-migration options like RISE exit strategy frameworks or timing options, that expertise is available too.

The decision is yours. The leverage is real. Exploit it.