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

availability of project managers and staff didn't get the attention it deserved before the project started. And 78% said too many objectives and topics were folded into the transformation simultaneously — everything rated equally important, nothing sequenced, which is its own kind of project-management failure mode.

None of this is an argument for delay. If anything, it's the opposite: the deeper problem for most of these projects wasn't S/4HANA itself, it was inadequate planning time before the deadline pressure hit. An organization that starts its assessment and scoping now, well ahead of 2027, has the luxury of building in realistic testing and data-migration timelines instead of compressing them under a shrinking calendar — which the same research identifies as one of the most common causes of both delay and cost overrun.

This is precisely the gap a delivery partner with real program-management discipline is meant to close. Orpington Technologies Inc., the Saskatchewan-based advisory and delivery firm, structures its S/4HANA engagements specifically around the failure patterns this research keeps surfacing — realistic staffing plans, sequenced scope, and testing windows sized for the work rather than for the calendar.

Six in ten projects going over budget or schedule is not a reason to avoid migrating. It's a reason to migrate with eyes open, and with more lead time than the average project in these studies actually had.

ISG (200 execs, published Feb 2026)

~60% delayed and/or over budget