S/4HANA projects depend on specialist knowledge, but available evidence does not establish how many SAP experts are retiring—or that retirements are causing a skills shortage. The practical risk is broader: migration can put project-specific system, process and data knowledge under pressure just as organizations report difficulty securing SAP skills. Build a continuity plan around the work your migration requires, and treat retirement as a possibility to assess rather than a proven industry-wide cause.
What the evidence says about SAP skills and retirement
SAPinsider’s 2025 survey of 170 community members shows that many respondents were working through an S/4HANA transition: 32% said they had transitioned, 27% were implementing and 21% were evaluating. Those are findings from that survey sample, not global adoption shares. In the same benchmark, 68% planned to use specialists or consultants for their S/4HANA project, 20% planned to outsource the entire project to a systems integrator, and 12% planned to use internal teams only. These figures describe respondents’ plans, not a census of SAP customers. SAPinsider’s 2025 benchmark report and its detailed findings provide the survey context.
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SAP described SAP skills as scarce in an August 2026 article. That supports concern about access to expertise, but it does not establish a retirement rate or show that retirements caused the constraint. The same article reports an estimate from Stuart Browne, founder and CEO of Resulting IT: after analyzing roughly 180 typical migration activities, he concluded AI could potentially produce about a 60% cost reduction. That is an attributed estimate, not a verified realized saving or independent benchmark. Browne also cautioned, “What AI produces shouldn’t be fully trusted without review.” SAP News Center, August 2026.
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For planning purposes, separate the claims: specialist use is reported in the survey; SAP has described skills as scarce; the scale of expert retirement and its causal role remain unestablished. A practitioner discussion about whether SAP MDG and data migration experience are valuable, and another about planning for ECC maintenance in 2027, illustrate concerns raised by individual community members, not representative survey results. MDG and data migration discussion; ECC maintenance discussion.
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Why migration relies on detailed system and data knowledge
In SAP’s documented ERP-to-S/4HANA migration workflow, teams create a project, select migration objects, run test transfers, refine the results and create a production project when ready. Migration objects define which source tables and relationships are involved. The work therefore requires more than knowing a target application: teams need to understand the source environment, data relationships, process choices and the reasons behind project-specific decisions. SAP Help: migration process.
Compatibility is specific to the documented scenario and release. For the ERP-to-S/4HANA scenario covered by SAP’s prerequisite page, the cockpit uses an RFC connection and the lowest supported ERP release is ERP 6.0 on NetWeaver 7.0. Do not assume those requirements apply to every migration path; check the exact source system and target release against the applicable SAP documentation. SAP Help: prerequisites.
Maintenance timelines are also a planning driver, not a universal deadline that can be inferred from one survey figure. In SAPinsider’s 2025 findings, 57% of respondents cited the end of maintenance and support for core SAP Business Suite applications as an ERP strategy driver for 2025. A customer’s actual support path and dates depend on its products and circumstances, so verify them against current SAP maintenance policy before setting a project schedule.
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Choose a staffing model that preserves customer ownership
The 2025 SAPinsider benchmark distinguishes three reported approaches. Their survey shares describe respondents’ plans, not which model is best for a particular organization.
| Approach | Survey share | Ownership and skills question |
|---|---|---|
| Use specialists or consultants | 68% planned this approach | The customer retains project ownership while bringing in specialist capacity; define who owns decisions, documentation and handover. |
| Outsource the entire project to a systems integrator | 20% planned this approach | Agree the integrator’s scope and customer responsibilities, including access to design rationale, data mappings and test evidence. |
| Use internal teams only | 12% planned this approach | Confirm that internal capacity covers both specialist work and continuity needs through testing and production preparation. |
SAP’s 2025 private-cloud conversion guide strongly recommends expertise from a qualified migration partner or SAP-offered expertise for the conversion context it covers. That is SAP guidance for that context, not proof every customer needs the same provider or service. SAP conversion guide.
Make institutional knowledge usable before key people leave
Knowledge transfer is most useful when it captures decisions and operational details that another team member can apply, not just general system descriptions. Build it into project work rather than waiting until a departure is imminent.
- Map critical processes and customizations. Identify where a business process depends on a particular configuration, extension or integration, and record who can explain its history.
- Document decisions and data mappings. Preserve why a choice was made, which source fields map to which targets, and which exceptions require special handling.
- Pair experienced staff with successors. Use joint review sessions on migration objects, test results and unresolved issues so that tacit knowledge is explained while it is still available.
- Capture runbooks and test cases. Record repeatable steps, expected outcomes and known failure modes; include the cases that expose data or process edge conditions.
- Schedule handover time explicitly. Assign time for walkthroughs and review before a role change, rather than assuming documentation alone will transfer judgment.
These are practical safeguards derived from the documented migration workflow’s dependence on project-specific system and data knowledge. They do not depend on proving that retirement is widespread: turnover, reassignment or limited availability can all make undocumented expertise difficult to recover.
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SAP News’ August 2026 article reports Browne’s potential cost-reduction estimate from an analysis of typical migration activities, but it does not establish actual savings for a customer project. Any AI-generated migration output still needs review by people who understand the source and target systems, the business rules and the consequences of an incorrect mapping or decision. Use automation to support analysis and repeatable work, while assigning accountable specialists to validate outputs and approve production changes.
What to settle before committing to a plan
- Which exact source release, target release and deployment path are in scope, and which SAP prerequisites apply?
- Which migration objects, source tables, relationships, integrations and customizations need to be understood and tested?
- Who will make design and data decisions, and how will the customer retain access to their rationale?
- Which critical tasks rely on a small number of people, and what documentation, pairing and handover are scheduled?
- What maintenance dates and support options apply to this customer’s products and contracts, verified against current SAP policy?
There is no evidence here to quantify SAP expert retirements or to attribute the skills constraint to them. The defensible response is to plan for knowledge continuity while validating staffing, system compatibility and support timing for the organization’s own migration.
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