SAP users show pragmatism under pressure

SAP users in German-speaking countries will continue to invest in IT and SAP in 2026 — but more selectively and under greater economic pressure, according to a new study, from the German-speaking SAP User Group (DSAG).

DSAG’s Investment Report 2026 found that 38% of the nearly 200 companies surveyed in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland will increase their total IT budget in 2026, with investments in SAP rising by 43 percent. At the same time, however, budgets are falling for around a quarter of those surveyed.

“The budget trends reflect the ongoing economic pressure that many companies are under. Energy prices, geopolitical uncertainties, and a tense market environment are leading to investments being scrutinized more critically, prioritized, and in some cases postponed — including in the SAP environment,” said DSAG CEO Jens Hungershausen.

SAP remains strategically positioned

Even though investments are being made in a more targeted and critical manner, the Walldorf-based company remains relevant for the future orientation of companies. Only 16 percent of participants in the survey stated that the importance of SAP is declining, while for the remaining 84 percent, the ERP giant’s solutions have remained equally relevant (48 percent) or even increased in relevance (36 percent).

The target vision is clearly strategic and less operational, as the top three responses show:

• Digital transformation/process modernization,
• cost optimization/efficiency improvement, and
• Compliance/security.

“The results clearly show that companies no longer view SAP investments in isolation,” explains Hungershausen. “Digital transformation and process modernization remain the key drivers, but they are clearly flanked by the need to operate more efficiently and reliably meet regulatory and security requirements.”

However, numerous challenges influence SAP investment decisions, in particular:

• the cost-effectiveness of investments in SAP software (79 percent),
• the economic environment (79 percent),
• SAP’s licensing and contract terms (70 percent),
• the end of maintenance (63 percent),
• the implementation of legal requirements (59 percent), and
• the complexity of the system landscape (51 percent).

S/4Hana is gaining momentum, but…

With the clock ticking, migration to SAP S/4Hana is also an important issue for SAP users – unless it has already been completed. According to the survey, 42 percent of companies are planning high or medium investments in S/4HANA On-Premises in 2026. The private cloud variant accounts for 22 percent, while the public cloud accounts for only six percent.

S/4Hana On-Premises is already in use at 56 percent of respondents, with 17 percent running the solution in the private cloud and five percent in the public cloud – a sign, in DSAG’s view, that SAP’s cloud plan is not quite working out and that the Walldorf-based company needs to offer companies more freedom of choice.

At the same time, 54 percent of companies still use SAP ECC or the old SAP Business Suite (somewhere), although multiple answers were possible here. Of the companies using SAP ECC, almost half plan to use Extended Maintenance at an additional cost and migrate to SAP S/4HANA by the end of 2030. Thirty-seven percent want to migrate by the end of 2027, while four percent are aiming to complete the transition by the end of 2033 and thus plan to use SAP ERP, Private Edition, Transition Options.

As DSAG CEO Hungershausen explains, this is not happening on a whim. Many would not wait until 2030 to make the switch, but need this time due to the complexity of their system landscapes. Other reasons for choosing this path despite higher maintenance costs include a shortage of skilled workers, parallel transformation projects, and limited budgets.

SAP Business Suite needs explanation

According to the survey, SAP is still struggling to communicate the target vision of the new Business Suite with Cloud ERP, Business AI, Business Data Cloud, and Business Technology Platform to users: 35 percent said they were strongly or very strongly guided by it in their investment planning, while 62 percent said they were less strongly guided or not guided at all.

The integrated toolchain (Cloud ALM, Signavio, LeanIX, WalkMe) has also not yet really caught on with many companies: 24 percent already use the toolchain partially or fully, while 39 percent plan to use at least parts of it. Seventeen percent do not plan to use it, while 16 percent say they are not familiar with it or do not consider it relevant.

Hungershausen points out that individual components of the tool collection are already in use in many companies. For example, Cloud ALM is often used as a replacement for SAP Solution Manager.

“The picture is similar for both the integrated toolchain and the target vision for the new SAP Business Suite,” says the DSAG chairman: “Companies expect clear statements on added value, integration into existing landscapes, and economic viability. Only then will strategic target visions be translated more strongly into real investment decisions.”

Does SAP have an AI problem?

The company is also struggling with the topic of artificial intelligence, which SAP is currently promoting: 43 percent of companies have already implemented AI use cases, but the majority have not. It is also striking that productive AI scenarios are predominantly implemented with non-SAP solutions (77 percent), while SAP solutions have so far played only a minor role at three percent. Nevertheless, 62 percent are conducting proof-of-concepts with non-SAP solutions and 26 percent with SAP solutions.

DSAG attributes these results in particular to the varying complexity of application scenarios. “A use case in the SAP environment has different requirements than the use of standard solutions based on large language models,” says Hungershausen. It is important that customers make their existing system landscapes “clean core ready” in order to reap the full benefits of the multitude of SAP-based scenarios.

“The fact that most use cases are implemented with non-SAP solutions is also a signal to SAP. Many companies still work with on-premises systems or highly customized landscapes in which AI innovations have so far only been usable to a limited extent. As a user association, we would like to see more freedom of choice, transparency, and realistic migration paths,” states Hungershausen.