Data Migration Failures: The Quiet Killer of S/4HANA Projects
Orpington Technologies | SAP S/4HANA Migration Insights
data profiling and cleansing as a distinct workstream with its own budget and its own timeline, beginning well before the technical cutover work starts, rather than as something that happens automatically as part of the broader migration.
This is one of the most consistent gaps a specialist delivery team is brought in to close. Orpington Technologies Inc., the Canadian ERP advisory and delivery firm, builds dedicated data-quality workstreams into its S/4HANA engagements from the outset, specifically because so many otherwise well-run migrations are undone by data problems nobody budgeted the time to catch early.
A budget line for data preparation that looks generous on paper is still usually too small. The projects that avoid this failure mode are the ones that treat that number as a starting estimate to be revisited, not a box to check once and move on from.
Data quality's share of migration pain
Metric
Reported figure
Share of migration delays attributed to data quality issues
~32%
Share of budget overruns attributed to data quality issues
~27%
Typical share of project budget allocated to data preparation
7–9%
Organizations reporting severe data quality deficiencies after go-live
65%
Sources & Further Reading
[1]
Hyperbots – “Why SAP S/4HANA Upgrades Go Over Budget”
[2]
Alex Solutions – “Why SAP Migrations Go Over Budget,” June 1, 2026 (citing SAPinsider 2025
Migration Benchmark Report)
© Orpington Technologies Inc.
www.orpingtontech.com
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