The 61% of SAP customers staring down the December 31, 2027 deadline to migrate from SAP ECC to S/4HANA are facing an inflection point. They must soon decide: conversion or transformation?
Conversions focus primarily on the technical task of migrating to S/4HANA. The project is typically brownfield, with change intentionally constrained — and often underestimated — as the existing system largely remains intact and the goal is as little disruption as possible.
A transformation, by contrast, uses the move to S/4HANA as an opportunity to rethink and advance how the business operates — redesigning processes, data usage, security models, and user experience to fully benefit from the platform’s capabilities.
The distinction matters. That’s because of an age-old rule in project delivery: fast, cheap, or good (time, cost, or quality). You can only choose two. While systems integrators offer templated conversions optimized for speed and cost, they often deliver little more than a technically compliant system, falling short of meaningful business change.
In other words, the system moves forward — but the business stays largely the same. In this blog, we’ll explore what you should consider to enable your S/4HANA migration to deliver real transformation.
What’s motivating the transformation advice you’re getting?
Once you understand the difference between a conversion and a transformation, the next question is why so many S/4HANA programs default to the former.
Much of it comes down to how SAP operates. SAP’s strategic focus on cloud adoption and subscription-based models naturally aligns with faster migration cycles, where success is often measured by technical completion rather than long-term business change.
Systems integrators operate within the same framework. Standardized conversion approaches are easier to scope, quicker to deliver, and better aligned with revenue targets, SAP credits, and delivery KPIs.
By comparison, transformation work introduces technical complexity, cross-functional dependency, and significant organizational change. These factors extend timelines, increase delivery risk, and make transformation far harder to package and commoditize.
As a result, important transformation elements are often pushed out of scope to the detriment of the business. Capabilities such as Ariba, Concur, SuccessFactors, EWM, and cloud security are treated as follow-on initiatives rather than being designed into the S/4HANA program from the outset.
The result is predictable: a migration that meets its technical objectives but falls short of its transformational potential.
Where does the conversion approach go wrong?
The problem is not that conversions fail technically, but that the delivery approach is optimized for system readiness rather than business readiness, security, and sustainable access design.
In a conversion scenario, the Discover and Explore phases of SAP Activate are often heavily truncated. These phases become checklist-driven technical exercises rather than opportunities to redesign business processes, access models, segregation of duties, or prepare the organization for change.
Deficiencies also appear in the design phase. The focus is often on delivering the bare minimum, relying on SAP simplification items without fully considering authorization impacts. Consolidated transactions such as Business Partner can introduce new risks if access is assigned without proper control.
Likewise, where new Fiori apps are technically delivered, little consideration may be given to process discrepancies, segregation of duties, or user access strategies.
Toward deployment, testing is often minimized, leaving gaps in authorizations, business role alignment, and segregation of duties.
Without early attention, security risks increase and the scale of business change is significantly underestimated, affecting adoption and productivity.
Missed opportunities — and the consequences
So what do you miss out on by choosing a low-cost, high-speed conversion approach?
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Missed opportunities to streamline and standardize business processes through automation and collaboration
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Higher total cost of ownership due to poor process optimization
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Lost adoption and productivity from suboptimal user experiences
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Increased organizational risk through gaps in security, compliance, and internal controls
Opting for a conversion approach delivers limited business value while still creating disruption. It defers transformation until after go-live, when it resurfaces under time pressure, audit scrutiny, or operational disruption.
True transformation goes beyond migrating functionality. A key part of this is embedding security into business change from the outset, integrating controls early, and avoiding retrofitting later.
How to approach the full transformation
While transformation may seem like more work than conversion, it simply brings that work forward — where it can be planned, governed, and aligned to business outcomes rather than addressed reactively.
Businesses that put the right preparation in place can better align stakeholders, improve security controls, and simplify business processes.
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Start with clear planning and a shared understanding of transformation goals
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Involve security early as an integral part of change
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Align IT and business adoption objectives
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Optimize processes for automation and standardization
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Ensure you dictate the terms of the transformation
In summary: putting your business at the heart of transformation
Remember that you’re in control of the transformation, and it should be guided by your business goals accordingly. Don’t be swayed by conflicting interests, don’t be pressured into a conversion that doesn’t meet your needs, and take the opportunity to embrace transformation for optimized, standardized, and simplified processes.
By planning carefully, engaging strategically, and aligning IT with business outcomes, you can maximize the potential of efficiency, adoption, and compliance. And by factoring in user needs as early as possible, you can ensure that the business investment of the transformation is fully justified.
Turnkey Consulting can ensure your technology, processes, and people are perfectly aligned to make your transformation as smooth, secure, and future-proof as it possibly can be. Get in touch with our team to find out more.
Frequently asked questions about S/4 HANA transformations
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What’s the difference between an S/4HANA conversion and an S/4HANA transformation?
Conversions focus on the technicals of moving to S/4HANA. Changes are technical in nature based upon the SAP delivered code base changes, not business process and adoption changes. The aim is keeping the system running, and the project is often brownfield. A transformation, on the other hand, redesigns business processes, data usage, security, and user experience to fully maximize the benefits of S/4HANA capabilities. -
Is security really impacted if my organization ‘just’ does a technical conversion?
Absolutely. S/4HANA introduces new transactions and applications, consolidated processes such as Business Partner, and Fiori apps that replace classic transactions. Few existing roles map cleanly to S/4HANA usage, meaning legacy authorizations still in place may break business processes, create SoD conflicts, or lead to over-provisioned access. -
When should security and access management be involved in an S/4HANA transformation?
From the beginning, and throughout process design, build, testing, and deployment. This is because security is more than just a technical control. It supports business change, training, testing, and adoption. Retro-fitting security later can lead to increased risk, cost and project timeframes, and so security needs to be funded and present for the duration of the program.
