An organization’s SAP upgrade strategy may be led by the CIO, but CFOs play an increasingly larger role. As conversations turn to SAP Cloud ERP and RISE, finance leaders are being pulled in earlier and more often. It makes sense, as the financial implications of following SAP’s prescribed roadmap are too significant to go undiscussed.
The collaboration between finance and IT isn’t just increasing; it’s becoming necessary. In a 2024 Censuswide study, 86% of CFOs and CIOs said their relationship has strengthened, driven largely by the need to manage risk, control costs and make faster decisions. For ERP upgrade decisions — SAP in particular — the partnership is critical, as these programs can materially affect margins and long-term flexibility.
Most enterprises don’t view their existing SAP systems as broken — far from it. They’ve invested heavily in them, customizing them to meet business needs and run core processes consistently. CFOs agree that these platforms aren’t technical debt but rather a source of differentiation. More than that, they’re fully depreciated assets. Every year, they continue to perform reliably, which extends the ROI.
The tension lies in how the next step is positioned. Despite completing major ERP programs and reaching the stable, low-risk state both CFOs and CIOs aim for, organizations are essentially being told by the software vendor and consulting firms that this phase is temporary and that accessing what’s next requires another replatforming. Unsurprisingly, a more recent 2025-26 Censuswide survey revealed that forced upgrades and migrations are among the most frustrating pressures from software vendors. It can feel like finishing a renovation, only to be told the zoning codes have changed.
While vendors push their way into boardroom discussions about what systems to abandon and what to buy next, what often goes unspoken is the financial impact of multiyear implementations, significant capital exposure and large OPEX commitments. Plus, once the decision to enter a subscription-based licensing contract is made, there’s often no easy way out.
From a CFO’s perspective, this isn’t about slowing modernization. It’s about ensuring that the enthusiasm for what’s next doesn’t overshadow the financial risk, timing and tradeoffs required to get there. That’s why they’re increasingly encouraging their CIO partners to look more closely at the financial ramifications and explore what others in the market are doing to avoid unwanted risk — aligning technology strategy with financial outcomes and ensuring major SAP decisions are made with all relevant business factors in mind.
5 tough questions CFOs are asking about SAP upgrade strategy decisions
Enterprise CFOs agree that progress shouldn’t come at the expense of financial discipline. By keeping the conversation grounded and asking the tough questions — like those below — finance leaders are working in tandem with their CIO counterparts to make smarter choices for their SAP strategy.
1. “Do we really need to reinvest in ERP before the last has fully paid off?”
Many organizations have only just capitalized and depreciated a major SAP investment. They’ve absorbed the implementation risk. Now, they finally have an ERP system that’s reached a financially desirable phase:
- Predictable costs
- Low volatility
- Declining marginal expense
Yet SAP upgrade strategy conversations often involve talk about restarting the capital cycle prematurely.
CFOs are questioning whether the urgency is real or just another tactic used by the vendor to push customers toward its preferred roadmap. They’re partnering with CIOs to determine if replatforming now is truly necessary to gain access to new capabilities, or if they can be simply layered onto the existing core. By raising this question, finance leaders can help separate what’s technically possible from what’s financially prudent.
2. “What kind of financial risk do multiyear SAP upgrade programs introduce?”
From a CFO’s perspective, one of the biggest issues they see with multiyear SAP upgrade programs is timing. SAP Cloud ERP spending starts now, while benefits realization stretches across multiple planning cycles — often years out. This mismatch alone introduces risk, as business priorities change and financial flexibility is necessary to pivot.
However, there’s also a fundamental economic tension at play — and recent, well-publicized implementation failures have made CFOs more sensitive to the downside. In Zimmer Biomet’s case, for example, the company disclosed that its SAP upgrade significantly exceeded the original budget, contributing to operational disruption and subsequent legal action.[1] What was initially positioned as a modernization effort led to material cost overruns and business risk, demonstrating how difficult these programs can be to control once they’re underway.
This risk is compounded by the vendor’s desire to increase revenue. SAP is highly motivated to move customers to the cloud and have them give up their highly valuable perpetual licenses and stable systems, as those are no longer as profitable. Once the software is fully depreciated, ongoing revenue is limited to annual maintenance fees. New cloud versions, by contrast, create recurring revenue streams that never really end. That’s why a key lever in SAP’s strategy appears to be forgoing extended maintenance for specific products — to encourage a move toward cloud and convert (and multiply) more than half of the vendor’s €11bn maintenance base to subscription revenue.[2]
SAP customers see the math differently. Many CFOs view their current SAP system as a fully depreciated asset that’s still doing its job. Replacing it with a model that introduces higher, ongoing OPEX — often with unpredictable cloud licensing fees — can be difficult to justify, especially when those costs continue indefinitely and increases can’t be easily estimated.
CFOs are becoming more aware that what’s best for the vendor’s revenue model isn’t always aligned with what’s best for the organization’s financial structure. That’s why they’re working with CIOs to explore alternative approaches, rather than committing to multiyear programs that lock in cost, timing and risk before value is proven — if the project is successful, that is.
3. “How do we treat vendor timelines not as inevitabilities but as choices with price tags?”
Vendor upgrade timelines are often positioned as nonnegotiable, pushing conversations toward when organizations should move to the latest version rather than if they should. CFOs tend to challenge that framing. They point out that urgency isn’t evidence — it’s just another claim.
SAP’s end-of-support deadlines indicate when mainstream maintenance concludes, not when the system stops working. According to an IDC research study, 74% of organizations believe their ERP systems have a longer valuable life than vendors are willing to support. Yet once new cloud versions are released, existing investments and customizations are suddenly treated as technical liabilities instead of capital already spent and still delivering value.
With help from their CIO partners, CFOs are exploring what others in the industry are saying. And the consistent guidance is clear:
- Don’t confuse a vendor deadline with a financial imperative.
- Pause on upgrades before locking into another multiyear structure prematurely.
- Evaluate options, such as third-party support, and the accompanying price tags.
By encouraging those involved to step outside the vendor narrative, CFOs are helping to get a much clearer picture of how much time they have to make the right decision for their business.
4. “Why is innovation only unlocked after we upgrade or migrate?”
Along with fictitious end-of-support deadlines, the vendor uses innovation to justify the move to SAP Cloud ERP Public via RISE. AI, automation and analytics are positioned as features that organizations can access after a major replatforming project is completed — often years down the road.
For CFOs, this raises major red flags:
- Large foundational spend comes first, while value is deferred.
- Innovation budgets get absorbed by multiyear ERP programs.
- ROI timelines stretch, while competitive pressure continues.
Rather than accepting this claim as truth, CFOs are delving into other options with help from their CIO colleagues. And what they’ve found is a recurring theme: Innovation doesn’t have to be tied to upgrades or migrations.
A growing number of organizations are decoupling innovation from the stable, paid-for ERP core and applying new features and capabilities on top of existing systems, enabling innovation in just weeks or months.
From a CFO perspective, this is a much more appealing alternative. With the Agentic AI ERP model, working capital is freed and redeployed into AI initiatives with short payback periods and measurable returns within the same fiscal year.
Brazilian retailer Ypê, for example, worked with Rimini Street to create a persona-based workflow for EDI order resolution. The Rimini Agentic UX™ project — consisting of an intelligent, AI-driven user engagement layer designed to be deployed on top of existing ERP systems — outperformed all other AI initiatives in terms of speed and expectations. The proof-of-concept was completed in just one month, and the company expects a 60% reduction in approval cycle and accelerated time to value. Rather than undergoing an expensive, disruptive upgrade, Ypê can now harness the power of AI and automation with its current S/4HANA release.
5. “How will these long-term commitments reduce financial optionality?”
CFOs are keenly aware that long-term SAP commitments are as much about predictability and control as they are about cost.
In the software vendor–customer relationship, whoever holds the license holds the power. Giving away a perpetual license for a SaaS subscription shifts that balance in the vendor’s favor. With this move, spending moves materially from capital to long-term OPEX, commitment horizons extend and exit opportunity narrows due to vendor lock-in.
There’s real financial value in optionality. Once an organization commits to a vendor-driven roadmap, the ability to change course either becomes extremely expensive or disappears altogether.
That’s why CFOs, with their CIO partners, are focused on strategies that preserve choice. Before making any major commitments, they’re looking at how to retain valuable perpetual licenses, maintaining flexibility around when and how to migrate. And they’re treating cloud as an infrastructure decision — not a deadline‑driven mandate — to help mitigate risk and keep options open.
How CFOs are taking action with their CIO partners
Once CFOs surface the financial realities behind a “mandated” SAP upgrade, migration or replatforming, the conversation with their CIO partners looks very different. Instead of reacting to vendor pressure, leaders can move toward a more deliberate, business-driven plan — together. In fact, many finance leaders are already aligning with their IT counterparts on a practical action framework that preserves control today while keeping future options open. And the results of this partnership are significant, with a KPMG survey showing that respondents link strong CIO–CFO collaboration to improved project ROI, financial performance and risk management[3] — the exact criteria organizations use to decide whether to modernize or extend the life of their SAP environments.
Here’s how they’re taking action:
Stabilize the core
For thousands of organizations, the most disciplined first move is to protect the SAP system that’s already working.
The concept of stabilizing the core involves:
- Continuing to run current SAP releases without being coerced into upgrades driven by vendor timelines
- Leveraging interoperability solutions to enable compatibility between the existing ERP system and newer technologies
- Ensuring security, tax and regulatory coverage remains intact, reducing risk exposure
- Preserving customizations that reflect years of investment and process refinement
The payoff is immediate. Stability reduces volatility, protects prior capital investment and avoids reopening the capital cycle prematurely — while giving CIOs room to plan intentionally rather than reactively.
Reclaim the economics
Once the ERP core is stabilized, organizations can turn their attention to the financial structure surrounding it.
CFOs are focused on reducing the ongoing cost of ERP maintenance so that those funds can be put to better use. This is by no means cost-cutting for its own sake. It’s a means of restoring financial flexibility and improving governance.
In practice, this entails:
- Reducing ERP support and maintenance run‑rate costs to improve near‑term financial performance
- Shifting spend away from reactive, vendor-driven upgrades toward intentional, value‑driven investment
- Creating more predictable, multiyear cost profiles that simplify forecasting and planning
When the economics are back under control, finance and IT leaders can make decisions about where incremental investment actually delivers returns — rather than having budgets consumed by upgrade cycles.
Decouple AI from ERP migration
With stability and economics addressed, innovation doesn’t have to wait.
Instead of allowing AI, automation and analytics to be tied to a future ERP migration, CFOs and CIOs are delivering value now without destabilizing the core by:
- Deploying AI and automation above the ERP layer, accelerating time to value
- Funding innovation initiatives using savings, not new capital requests
- Proving business value quickly while preserving future platform choice
As a result, innovation becomes a business decision, not a downstream byproduct of migration. CIOs can retain architectural flexibility, while CFOs see measurable returns sooner.
Not walking away — regaining control of the SAP strategy
Importantly, this approach isn’t a rejection of SAP.
By leveraging third-party support and services from a trusted provider like Rimini Street, organizations can maintain their SAP environments while decoupling critical business decisions from vendor timelines. With a strategy that prioritizes business needs first and technology second, CFOs and CIOs gain the flexibility and freedom to own when, how and what to invest in next.
Key takeaways
An organization’s SAP upgrade strategy is no longer just a technology decision but a financial one that increasingly requires CFO involvement. Multiyear SAP programs like RISE introduce capital, forecast and optionality risks that CFOs are helping to assess and address. By rethinking how innovation and financial discipline can coexist, leaders can advance the business without sacrificing budget control. Learn how SAP customers are stabilizing ERP, funding AI and preserving optionality with third-party support and innovation solutions from Rimini Street.
[1] John Belden, “Zimmer Biomet’s $172M ERP Lawsuit Against Deloitte: Disaster, Disclosure, and Investor Risk,” UpperEdge, retrieved 31 March 2026 from https://upperedge.com/risk-management/zimmer-biomets-172m-erp-lawsuit-against-deloitte-disaster-disclosure-and-investor-risk/
[2] Cliff Saran, “SAP earnings rise, but no support extension,” TechTarget, retrieved 31 March 2026 from https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366582034/SAP-earnings-rise-but-no-support-extension
[3] “KPMG 2025 CFO & CIO Collaboration Survey,” KPMG, retrieved 31 March 2026 from https://kpmg.com/kpmg-us/content/dam/kpmg/corporate-communications/pdf/2025/KPMG%202025%20CFO_CIO%20Collaboration%20Survey.pdf
