According to the results of the 2025 ASUG Pulse of the SAP Customer Research, ASUG members are prioritizing business transformation—especially implementing SAP S/4HANA—and setting a foundation to embrace innovative new technologies, including cloud environments, automation solutions, and artificial intelligence. However, as they undertake these transformation projects, organizations are also reporting common challenges associated with these lengthy, complex undertakings.
“Our findings are clear: ASUG members are investing more in SAP,” said Marissa Gilbert, ASUG Research Director. “They are now laying the groundwork for embracing SAP S/4HANA or focused on situating their data landscapes to fully leverage new technologies—including AI.”
The annual research project, conducted in November 2024, was informed by insights from 787 ASUG members representing a variety of job functions and industries, to bring into focus the outlook, attitudes, and challenges the ASUG community is experiencing. With SAP emphasizing SAP S/4HANA and cloud adoption along with increased AI investments, ASUG members reported they are broadly focused on undertaking prerequisite processes to embrace these technologies, including completing system integration processes and standardizing business processes.
Here are some takeaways from this year’s research.
Areas of Focus in the ASUG Community
Evaluating which SAP focus areas are most important to ASUG members, the findings indicate that moving to SAP S/4HANA is a top priority, with 47% of ASUG members indicating it is a vital undertaking for their organization.
Processes critical to facilitating SAP S/4HANA migrations are also top of mind for members. Nearly half (44%) of respondents said integration between SAP and non-SAP systems is a focus (up from 36% from the 2024 research), and 37% said integration within SAP systems is a priority. Meanwhile, over one-third (36%) of respondents said that standardizing business processes is a priority, and 35% cited implementing automation into their IT stacks as a focus.
The research also reflected which SAP priorities have grown in importance among ASUG members, compared to last year’s survey. Specifically, 33% of members indicated that cybersecurity and data protections are a priority—an increase from 28%. Additionally, 27% of ASUG members said enhancing customer experience is an organizational focus—up from 22% in 2024.
Top SAP Challenges
As ASUG members undertake business transformations, they inevitably encounter hurdles along the way. The Pulse of the SAP Customer Research survey examined the common challenges plaguing enterprises as they implement and manage SAP solutions. Broadly speaking, ASUG members experienced technical, organizational, and external challenges to about equal degrees this past year. The most widespread challenge, as cited by over half (52%) of respondents, revolves around budget issues, a dramatic increase from 35% reporting this issue last year.
“As more ASUG members kick off complex business transformations, it is no surprise that budget challenges are a common hurdle in the ecosystem,” said Gilbert. “The significant jump in reported budget hurdles aligns with the acceleration of SAP S/4HANA and cloud migrations we’re also seeing in the research.”
The next most common challenges reported by ASUG members are:
- Master data maintenance and governance – 48%
- Moving to SAP S/4HANA – 47%
- Integration – 45%
- Internal skills to manage new technology – 35%
- Gaining actionable insights from data and analytics – 35%
The State of Cloud Migrations
As SAP continues to guide customers along a path to the cloud, via offerings like RISE and GROW with SAP, ASUG evaluated through this research how the SAP-user community is responding to such a significant shift.
The percentage of ASUG members employing on-premises landscapes is steadily dwindling, with 34% of respondents indicating they are leveraging this type of environment, down from 37% last year and 53% in 2021.
However, on-premises environments still remain the most popular instance running in the ASUG community. ASUG members still in on-premises environments indicated the specific reasons they have not migrated to the cloud were:
- Cost concerns – 35%
- Data security and privacy concerns – 29%
- Limited staff and skillset for migration – 15%
Nearly one-third (31%) of ASUG members are in a hybrid environment, up from 26% in 2024. Private cloud environments are the next most popular type of environment being leveraged in the ASUG community (23%), while 19% of members reported running their infrastructure on a public cloud. Finally, 6% of respondents reported leveraging a partner-managed cloud.
Critical SAP Skills
As ASUG members focus on SAP S/4HANA migrations, they also indicated that expertise with the ERP platform is becoming the most important skill to their organizations, with over half (56%) of respondents saying this specific skill is one of the most important on an overarching level to their enterprise.
As enterprises seek to improve, upskill, and reskill their employees to embrace SAP S/4HANA, stay tuned to ASUG, where we have a variety of events and content to help our members with this undertaking.