Why is the end of ECC support a critical point?

.Institutional

Why is the end of ECC support a critical point?

  • May 6, 2024
  • 6 minutes of reading

Normal support for SAP's ERP ends in 2027 and customers need to move.

SAP is a crucial system for storing and organizing business data, playing a key role in improving internal processes. SAP is committed to continually updating its software, prioritizing the development of new versions and, consequently, discontinuing old ones.

This strategy aims to encourage customers to migrate to the latest versions, such as SAP S/4HANA, ensuring they benefit from the most advanced innovations and efficiencies available.

The discontinuation of ECC, announced in 2020 by SAP, is an important milestone. Companies that still use the second generation of software need to migrate to SAP S/4HANA by 2027 to avoid using an obsolete system and high costs.

This transition is also necessary to maintain Enterprise Support, technical support that provides benefits such as access to regular updates, bug fixes and patches, identification of potential problems with and assistance, access to libraries, technical documentation and educational materials.

In addition, Enterprise Support provides analysis of factors such as areas in which SAP can help improve production times, provide data and information to improve the organization's inventories, for example. 

In this step, when all versions of a generation are discontinued, this generation is terminated in SAP and all users still in it must migrate.

Until they carry out this migration process, they will be charged 2% of the value of their contract to continue using the system. This detail highlights the urgency and importance of updating to the latest version of the software.

The migration challenge is not small, considering the number of companies affected and the resources required. With more than 1,300 companies in Brazil and 40,000 worldwide needing to migrate, the time and labor available suggest that it may not be possible for everyone to complete the transition by the established deadline.

Digitizing internal processes offers significant benefits, including greater operational efficiency, reduced errors, increased productivity, improved security, faster analysis, as well as greater simplicity and flexibility during processes.

These improvements directly impact organizations' revenue and are essential for agile business models.

OS/4HANA is also evolving to, among other things, adapt to future trends that are part of digital transformation, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain and advanced data analytics.

These future trends are shaping the digital transformation of companies, driving innovation, improving customer experience and creating new business models.

Unlike the previous version, the system was designed and developed in accordance with the organizations' current operating model, adapting better to changes. This demand came from the companies themselves, which expanded into new markets and created new needs.

Previously, the processes consumed a lot of time and resources, since the previous version was created for business models that did not change so quickly, in addition to no longer supporting technological advances on the market.Ā 

Another example is reports, which are simpler and provide more complete information with fewer clicks, which helps save time and resources, increasing employee productivity by being able to deliver results more quickly and efficiently. 

Designed to meet the current demands of organizations, SAP S/4HANA facilitates changes, acquisitions and the introduction of new sales channels. The new interface, Fiori, optimizes operations, minimizes data redundancies and accelerates decision making, standing out for its flexibility and ease of use.

From its intelligent data design reduces aggregate tables and data redundancy for greater efficiency, instead of storing data in a data warehouse and waiting for it to load, the system provides faster analysis and insights. 

OS/4 HANA is also designed to work with the in-memory database (IMDB), offering fast recovery and optimized performance. IMDB stores data in RAM instead of traditional disks or SSDs and is 3,600 times faster than traditional databases, with a response time of less than 1 second.

Banks are used in applications that require speed and capacity, such as telecommunications and banking systems can adopt in-memory banks for analytics, predictive modeling and more.

Existing business transactions and analytics capabilities also accelerate insights, enabling decisions to be made easily and quickly and business processes to be carried out in a single application with a single source of facts, without having to switch between systems and applications .

In addition, the update provides a 20% reduction in inventory cost and 30% in total cost of ownership, in addition to a 50% reduction in billing process time.

Furthermore, this version significantly improves security, offering protection against intrusions and cyber threats. The migration process is simplified, with regular updates that improve security, fix bugs and introduce new features, leaving ECC behind by more than 3 thousand features compared to S/4HANA.

This underlines the critical need to update to maintain competitiveness and prepare for the future.

*By Guilherme Joventino, COO and co-founder of Mignow.

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