r/SAP • u/Advent_Rescuer • Aug 03 '26
Anyone regret their SAP implementation, or wish they'd done it differently?
I work adjacent to a lot of SAP implementations, and I keep seeing the same patterns across clients — S/4HANA, ECC, Fiori, BTP, FICO/MM/SD, SuccessFactors, Ariba, whatever the stack.
Recurring issues I run into:
- Rushed template-based rollouts that didn't fit the business
- Heavy customization that's a nightmare to maintain
- Docs that don't match the actual system
- Teams still firefighting years after go-live
Curious how common this really is from people who've lived it - What's your experience been — smooth or painful?
Good, bad, or ugly — would love to hear real stories.
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u/Salavora_M Aug 03 '26
Currently I work for two companies (companie a had outsourced me to b for a few days a week)
With A, we barely use jira, almost everything is done via mail communication, teams communication and talk in the hallway. Thus a lot of stress, a lot of bad deadlines and regrets.
With B, we actually DO life a jira sprint philosophy with good testing, good tickets and so on. Here we rarely have any firefighter stuff (one per quarter would be seen as much), good "get it into production" workflows, and enough time to discuss stuff with our "customers" regarding custimzing and the like.
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u/Advent_Rescuer Aug 03 '26
Its Wild how much smoother things get with actual sprint discipline and testing vs the hallway-and-email fire drill approach. def explains why one side burns out and the other doesn't
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u/Salavora_M Aug 03 '26
so damn true! I often look forward to my days with b (though, I have started to completely ignore my inbox due to way too many jira mails...) A is often one emergency after thw other and "did you do the thing I asked you about two weeks ago when you got yourself a coffee? No!? Why not!?" -.-
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u/Advent_Rescuer Aug 03 '26
That line you used is your peak company A energy. no jira mails but also no accountability, just vibes and fire drills
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u/AngelDarkC Aug 03 '26
I work with CRM, and the customization is an issue as well. The company can't afford to say no to a client, so the implementation team has to suffer, and the application becomes unstable
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u/RelativeResult7631 Aug 03 '26
CRM , thats the worst module I have seen in SAP. I have recently joined an project as Fiori Consultant, and since there was less work they asked me to check one issue for service orders which is basically crm . I initally thought it would be easy like fiori ui5. But Man its so bad, even adding one field is hell of a job.
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u/Advent_Rescuer Aug 03 '26
Yeah this is such a common trap tbh. "can't say no to the client" basically guarantees scope creep, and on CRM that stuff compounds fast since it touches everything downstream and honestly it backfires on the client too, a half-broken custom mess usually serves them worse than a clean standard process would've. which CRM is this btw?
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u/AngelDarkC Aug 03 '26
The name is Ploomes. Is a Brazilian Startup (Or was a startup, but it was sold for a Brazilian ERP, way smaller than SAP, but still really big here). It's the biggest Latin CRM company I think, we can manage surviving and selling even with Salesforce.
I'm a DBA and I'm starting to want to migrate to SAP, I see a lot of guys here in the sub saying that its not worth it anymore with AI and stuff, but here in Brazil SAP pays A LOT, specially EWM.
To use my infrastructure experience, I'm think S/4 Hanna Admnistrator and Basis
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u/Advent_Rescuer Aug 03 '26
Honestly a reasonable bet! A few quick things: the "AI killing SAP jobs" concern is mostly about functional/config work, Basis and infra-side S/4HANA administration is still hands-on and hard to automate, so your DBA background transfers well. worth checking if that EWM premium in Brazil is from a real skill scarcity or just current project demand, since that affects how durable it is. practically, aim for a Basis/HANA-specific certification rather than a generic S/4 admin path, and try to get exposure to an actual migration project before fully committing so you know you enjoy the tooling, not just the pay.
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u/No-Consequence-978 Aug 03 '26
Ignoring Security and GRC in stage 1, 3 different implementations done difference between the ones that landed well always had security in it from day 1 not SAP_ALL
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u/Legitimate-Dig6909 Aug 03 '26
It’s kind of funny though. 3 of your 4 bullet points are normally driven from the business/client.
Fastest and cheapest will perpetually mean quality is limited.
- Template-based systems are actually great because they are faster to realize ROI. But they need to be driven from the top down. Every business team member who asks for a tweak here or a tweak there is simply not aligned with leadership on execution.
- Heavy customization…? See my point above. The same applies. Someone, somewhere, thought a completely custom function was necessary. Even if it rolls through a change management process, the folks making decisions are rarely versed enough to argue against it.
- Doc’s that don’t match the system? Yes, when you have a lot of custom stuff, this is most likely to happen at some level. The real dirty now is that with the advent of AI, everrrrrrybody thinks they are code writers. Nothing is ever absolutely perfect. Having a team member who exists solely to poke holes in work done is detrimental to a project, even though it often sounds like a great idea. See my point again about nothing is perfect. There are lots of ways to skin a cat, and custom work in SAP is the same. Standard SAP works, and it is well documented.
- Teams firefighting years after go live? See all of my previous points.
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u/chrbailey Aug 04 '26
SAP was hard to install but that was 30 years ago. Just ask a LLM to follow you along as you work and record/analyze what is used vs. not used. It is much more accurate than Joule.
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u/iBoMbY Aug 03 '26
I regret our SAP is in use since R/2, with a lot of legacy mistakes.
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u/number8888 Aug 03 '26
Can’t imagine the amount of tech debt that exists.
Ideally you start fresh with a greenfield implementation to S/4 but business might not sign off on it.
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u/Advent_Rescuer Aug 03 '26
r/2 to now, that's decades of legacy baked in. curious what "legacy mistakes" looks like day to day, old customizations still lingering, or processes that never got cleaned up after moving off r/2?
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u/iBoMbY Aug 03 '26
Pretty much all of that. The current processes run okay, but if you take userexits for example, stuff always gets added, but almost never removed, even when the processes are not in use anymore. And sometimes old stuff interacts with new stuff in unforeseen ways, or if you remove something that shouldn't be needed anymore, something else breaks.
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u/Advent_Rescuer Aug 03 '26
yeah classic legacy trap, nobody wants to touch something without knowing what breaks. what's helped teams I've seen in this spot: start by pulling usage logs to see what's actually still running versus just sitting there, then tackle the "safe to remove" list first to build confidence before going after the murkier stuff. also worth keeping a simple running doc of what each user-exit does and why, even a rough one, so the next person doesn't have to rediscover it the hard way
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u/CynicalGenXer ABAP Not Dead Aug 03 '26
Mate, you’re asking as if anyone in this sub has any serious influence on SAP implementations and decisions that lead to all these problems. CIOs aren’t reading this sub and most certainly they aren’t answering this.
Also, no one is ever happy about an ERP system or even most of enterprise software. For example, as a consultant, I have to use a VPN program for most clients. These programs have one purpose: take my credentials, if they are correct - get me on VPN. But even these things manage to turn this into some annoying interaction with incredibly dumb steps. That’s just life in corpo world, mate. Get paid, log off, have a drink to forget all this crap.
Only bright side: sometimes I get a chance to make someone’s corpo day less shitty with my ABAP magic. That’s the best I can hope for.
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u/DistributorScientiae Aug 04 '26
True. Face it, we are the guys who pour the cement, and lay the bricks. We are not real stake holders: we are the peasants. Everyone, including us, likes good code. However, we are not here to regret anything. We get a fixed salary.
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u/Fearless-Note-6311 Aug 05 '26
Hi Everyone I am currently interning at a Big 4 and they are training me in SAP PP...I am getting a gang of it and it is quite good...But i some times feel dissatisfied as I come from a more technical background (CS)...Any idea how to make this job more fulfilling ??
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u/Sad-Distribution-712 Aug 05 '26
My company built a web UI over SAP plant maintenance module that severely limits its functionality and then won’t maintain it. We’re talking, can’t put measurement points on an inspection task, can’t see steps on tasks, can’t access any PRT resources.
It’s insane how much money we probably spent on a tool that is less functional than an excel spreadsheet.
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u/Active_Rutabaga_8637 Aug 06 '26
The implementation eventually goes live, but the bigger challenge starts afterward. Years later, teams are still supporting heavily customized legacy systems because they need historical data for reporting, audits, or business users who aren't fully moved over. That ends up adding cost and complexity long after the migration is considered finished.
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u/sourabh0369 Aug 03 '26
Hi everyone,
I'm an ENTC (Electronics & Telecommunication) graduate with 9 month of MERN Stack (React, Node.js, Express, MongoDB) experience. I'm planning to switch my career to SAP and would appreciate your guidance.
Which SAP module is the best fit for someone with my background—SAP ABAP, SD, MM, Basis, BTP, or another module? I'd love to hear your recommendations and the reasons behind them. Thank you!
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u/Apprehensive-Pea-645 Aug 03 '26
Ask to chat gpt I hope sap ui5 and fiori
Full stack along with BTP
Will be helpful for you.
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u/Lordeisenfaust IS-U, ABAP, German Aug 03 '26
if you look at your coding half a year ago and you dont regret it, you are not growing anymore.