The Hidden Cost of Waiting: Why Six in Ten S/4HANA Projects Blow Their Budget

The Hidden Cost of Waiting: Why Six in Ten S/4HANA Projects Blow Their Budget

Two independent studies, run a year apart, land on almost the same number. That kind of agreement is rare in ERP research, and it should worry anyone assuming their migration will be the exception.

Ask any group of SAP program managers whether their S/4HANA transformation finished on time and on budget, and you will get a lot of uncomfortable laughter before anyone actually answers. The data backs up the laughter. A study by the management consultancy Horváth, surveying 200 executives across the DACH region, Northern and Eastern Europe and the United States in the first quarter of 2025, found that transformations took, on average, 30% longer than originally planned. Fewer than one in ten companies that had completed their transformation finished without exceeding the schedule at all.

The budget picture in that same study is just as stark. A quarter of the organizations surveyed reported heavily exceeding their planned budget, and another 40% reported strongly exceeding it — meaning a clear majority ran over on cost, not just on time. And even among companies that absorbed both the time and cost overruns, the outcome quality often still disappointed: 65% reported strong to very strong deficits in the final result relative to what they'd expected going in.