The New Mandate for SAP S/4HANA Value Realization in 2026
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Key Takeaways
Organizations migrating to SAP S/4HANA must shift their focus from technical implementation to extracting continuous value by 2026, emphasizing aggressive process innovation over merely maintaining systems.
A significant barrier to maximizing value from SAP S/4HANA is user experience fragmentation; a unified interface that integrates Fiori apps with legacy transactions is crucial for enhancing productivity.
Bridging the talent gap between ABAP and Fiori developers is essential for successful migration, as leveraging low-code solutions can help existing teams create modern applications efficiently while ensuring offline capabilities for mobile users.
The SAP ecosystem has been defined by one word—migration—over the past two years. According to the SAPinsider research, SAP S/4HANA adoption continues to increase, with the most important factor driving adoption being the upcoming end of maintenance.
The focus of organizations migrating to the cloud has been technical so far, consisting of code remediation, data harmonization, and just getting the new system “live” without breaking the business. However, as we approach 2026, a new, more demanding reality is setting in.
According to the insights in Neptune Software’s latest whitepaper, Beyond Go-Live: Continuous Value in SAP S/4HANA, 2026 will not be about moving data; it will be about extracting value from it. Therefore, the organizations that win next year will be the ones that pivot quickly from keeping the lights on to aggressive process innovation.
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The Greenfield Myth
The whitepaper indicates that one of the biggest hurdles to value realization is the fragmentation of the User Experience (UX). It notes that many organizations migrated with the promise of a sleek, Fiori-based future, only to find that 40% of their critical workflows still rely on classic SAP GUI transactions or disjointed third-party apps. This creates a swivel-chair effect where users toggle between modern dashboards and legacy screens.
This fragmentation kills productivity. The SAP S/4HANA core is powerful, but if the interface is disjointed, the organization has not upgraded its business; it has only upgraded its database. The mandate for 2026 is to bridge this gap by unifying Fiori apps and classic transactions into a single, seamless launchpad that reflects how people work.
The KPIs That Matter
Post-go-live, the metrics for success must shift, the Neptune whitepaper emphasizes. During migration, success was measured by uptime and data integrity. However, organizations must also now look at consumption KPIs by asking these key questions:
- Are teams using the new Fiori apps, or are they reverting to old T-codes out of habit?
- How long does it take to execute a procure-to-pay cycle now versus on SAP ECC?
- Is the ERP tethered to a desktop, or is it accessible in the warehouse and the field?
Mobility and AI
Although a clean core strategy is essential for upgrades, it shouldn’t come at the expense of agility.  Therefore, the real ROI of an SAP S/4HANA migration sits in the AI and automation capabilities that were often de-scoped during the initial migration to save time.
Using a side-by-side development approach allows organizations to build custom mobile apps with offline capabilities and automate workflows without dirtying the core.
Finally, as we head into 2026, the question is no longer “Is an organization on SAP S/4HANA?” It is “What is SAP S/4HANA doing for the organization?”
What This Means for SAPinsiders
Don’t sacrifice customization for a clean core. One of the most significant friction points in the 2024–2025 migration wave was the clean core mandate, which often forced IT teams to strip away valuable custom functionalities to meet standardization requirements. The Neptune whitepaper highlights that this is a false choice. By leveraging a side-by-side extensibility model, solutions like Neptune DXP enable organizations to build complex, bespoke applications that run on top of SAP S/4HANA without altering the core code. This means IT teams can reintroduce those lost custom features that are essential for a business’s specific competitive advantage without jeopardizing a future upgrade path or voiding the RISE with SAP warranty.
Bridge the ABAP vs. Fiori talent gap. A significant delay in value realization comes from the skills gap. SAP S/4HANA requires expertise in Fiori (UI5/JavaScript), yet most internal SAP teams are heavily staffed with ABAP developers. The whitepaper details how Neptune’s low-code platform effectively translates ABAP logic into Fiori-style apps. This allows organizations’ existing veteran ABAP team to build modern, mobile-ready applications immediately, rather than waiting 12–18 months to hire or retrain new specialists.
Proper offline mobility drives digital transformation ROI. Standard SAP S/4HANA Fiori apps are excellent for desktop-based finance and HR roles, but often struggle in disconnected environments such as warehouses, oil rigs, or retail basements. However, the true ROI of this migration comes from out-of-the-box offline capabilities that standard Fiori often lacks without complex middleware. By giving field workers apps like those provided by Neptune that work seamlessly without a signal, organizations capture data at the source and ensure the ERP is actually used by the frontline workforce, not just back-office admins.
