ARCHITECTURE Signal 167
Zeiss abandons greenfield SAP S/4HANA migration for brownfield approach after years of struggle
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Zeiss Group has switched from a greenfield to a brownfield SAP S/4HANA migration strategy, opting to move its existing ERP landscape to the new platform rather than rebuilding from scratch.
The reversal illustrates how costly and difficult clean-core SAP migrations remain for large enterprises with decades of accumulated customization. With mainstream support for ECC ending in 2027, organizations still on R/3 or ECC face mounting pressure to move but may find brownfield approaches more realistic than full reimplementation.
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Zeiss had pursued a greenfield approach since around 2020, with CIO Carsten Trapp calling it a lifetime opportunity to clean up an R/3 system described as messed up over 30 years.
The company will now migrate its existing ERP landscape to S/4HANA first, then let individual business segments build segment-specific applications on top of a group-wide core.
Reports attribute €200 billion in spending to the project, though Zeiss declined to comment on the figure and SAP also declined to comment.
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