B&Q owner resists the S/4HANA push, betting it can innovate around legacy ERP, but questions remain

In 2020, SAP's CFO told investors that its plans for customer upgrades, cloud migration, and a move to SaaS would give the German software vendor a greater "share of wallet."

Last week, European retail giant Kingfisher explained how it stepped outside that narrative, eschewing the vendor-recommended upgrade path. But its decision to ignore SAP support deadlines and remain on legacy software might raise as many questions as it answers for other SAP users who find themselves in the same position.

Kingfisher, which owns UK brands B&Q and Screwfix, is not alone in facing a decision on whether to upgrade its ERP system and move it to the cloud the way SAP wants to, or stick with legacy system ECC and manage the end of vendor support. According to Gartner figures from Q4 2024, only 39 percent of worldwide ECC customers – from a total of 35,000 – had bought or ...