SAP change management still challenges enterprises

SAP managers are under pressure to speed up change and delivery of return on investment, and some are seeking AI’s help with that, according to the SAP Change Management Index 2025.

The survey, commissioned by Basis Technologies, found that 48% of respondents are facing pressure to implement changes more quickly, and 41% to deliver faster return on investment.

But change managers are squeezed between that pressure to perform and obstacles such as the amount of time needed to gather requirements (a challenge cited by 44% of respondents) and the inability to scale change management to meet business needs (cited by 42%).

The resulting fear that rapid change would disrupt business operations drove 84% of respondents’ organizations to avoid making SAP changes altogether. This is even worse than results reported in the company’s first survey in 2023, where 79% said they avoided change. At that time, 88% reported that challenges deploying change were inhibiting business progress.

No change in confidence

“It’s the second time we have run this survey, and one thing we took away is, despite its importance, we haven’t really seen much of a shift in terms of the level of confidence that customers have in managing change within their SAP estates,” noted David Lees, chief technology officer at Basis Technologies, in an interview. “SAP as a technology has been around for a very long time now, and it is technically different than a lot of the more modern cloud first, git-based solutions out there, so customers have to manage change in quite a proprietary way, and that brings with it some quite specific challenges to that SAP space.”

It doesn’t help that some organizations still use manual processes and track and manage changes using Excel spreadsheets, which, he said, may be because they’re unaware of better ways to do it.

Many enterprises are continuing to manage change in the same way they have since they days of waterfall development, unable or unwilling to attempt Agile-type delivery within their SAP ecosystem: “The SAP part of an enterprise is tends to be a bit of an island; it tends to be managed separately without an attempt to try and bring it into the same tool chain or technology processes that other parts of the business are managed in,” he said.

The role of SAP managers has expanded over the years, the survey found, to encompass leading cross-team communications, engagement and training (54%), responsibility for SAP initiatives that support the business (53%), contributions to early-stage strategic planning  (45%) and collaboration on what it referred to as “technology-driven business initiatives” (37%).

A competitive advantage

However, the survey noted, 86% of change managers are well aware that change management gives their business a competitive advantage — if they can do it fast enough.

And while 93% of SAP leaders think their teams have the right skills to manage SAP changes, the survey noted that the reality is that the teams have the skills to manage smaller, IT-centric changes, but can’t keep up with business needs. That leads to outsourcing of many of the processes, from strategy and planning (49%), and requirements definition (46%) through deployment and cutover (38%) and post go-live support (43%). While that solves the immediate problem, the survey pointed out, it creates extra cost and perpetuates the internal skills gaps.

Automation is key

So change managers are looking for new ways of bridging the skills gap, such as the use of AI, with 87% of respondents saying they believe that the technology will influence SAP change management in the next five years. Despite roadblocks such as resistance from stakeholders or leadership (42%), regulatory or compliance constraints (39%), and privacy and security concerns (36%), AI is in the cards for SAP change management to automate manual processes (59%).

“I am still surprised that we come across customers in that large, complex kind of category that are not using tools for this in this day and age,” Lees said. “They should have been doing this already 10-15 years ago.”

The survey was conducted in the US, UK, and Germany in August 2025. The 200 respondents were responsible for resource planning, transformational initiatives, or customer relationship management for SAP ERP (ECC) or SAP S/4HANA systems at companies with revenue of over £500 million ($680 million) and 250 or more employees.