Table of Contents
The decision most leadership teams are sitting with
Many enterprises still running SAP Commerce on-premise, the same question keeps surfacing in leadership conversations:
“Are we going to regret not moving sooner?”
It’s the right instinct. But it’s not quite the right question. What’s needed first is a clear picture of the current position — the technical reality, the commercial implications, and the real options on the table. That’s what this article covers.
What july 2026 actually means
There’s been a fair amount of noise around this date. Here’s what it actually means in practice — stripped of speculation.
- SAP Commerce on-premise doesn’t stop working. Platforms continue to run and serve customers.
- Mainstream maintenance ends. After July 2026, SAP will no longer release new bug fixes or patches for on-prem versions.
- Extended support takes over instead — but at higher cost and slower resolution times.
- Everything new — features, tooling, partner solutions — continues arriving on CCv2 first. That gap compounds each quarter.
Can on-prem still run after 2026?
Yes. But the risk and cost profile shifts meaningfully. Regulated industries in particular may face compliance or audit pressure. Leadership will need to make a conscious decision about whether to absorb that risk — and manage it accordingly.
Why SAP’s roadmap is a commercial issue, not just a technical one
It’s easy to treat this as an IT infrastructure question. The commercial implications run deeper than that.
- Innovation velocity: composable commerce, AI personalisation, advanced B2B — all of it lands on CCv2 first. On-premise implementations follow later, if at all.
- Upgrade tooling and automation are built around CCv2. They function on-premise, but performance is optimised for cloud.
- The partner ecosystem is shifting. Certifications, accelerators, ISV solutions — all tested and developed primarily against CCv2.
- Long-term TCO becomes predictable only when migration is planned deliberately. Reactive moves consistently cost more.
What CCv2 changes and what it doesn’t
This is the most important distinction in the whole conversation. CCv2 changes where the platform runs. It doesn’t change how it was built over the years — and that difference has significant cost and risk implications.
| SAP-managed infra — patching, DR, scaling | Accumulated custom code and modified accelerators |
|---|---|
| Kubernetes deployment with CI/CD built in | Tight ERP integrations and the delays they create |
| Consistent dev / staging / production | Manual testing gaps and slow approval processes |
| Autoscaling that responds to real traffic | Legacy operating models that limit agility |
| Monitoring and observability out of the box | Technical debt — it doesn’t disappear in the cloud |
Cloud doesn’t hide complexity. It attaches a price tag to every inefficiency that’s been sitting unnoticed. That’s not an argument against migration — it’s the reason a clear-eyed assessment matters so much.
Where does the organisation actually sit?
Vendor timelines aren’t the right benchmark. The more useful question is where the organisation stands today. The table below maps common situations to realistic planning windows:
| Situation | Likely planning window |
|---|---|
| Two or more SAP Commerce versions behind | 0–12 months |
| Compliance or audit pressure around support status. | 0–12 months |
| ERP coupling is driving most release delays. | 12–18 months |
| No clear internal owner for the CCv2 decision. | 12–18 months |
| Cloud cost predictability is a concern for finance. | 12–18 months |
| Recently upgraded. Platform stable and well-managed. | 18-24+ months |
The risk that trips most teams up
This pattern comes up regularly in enterprise migrations. A team picks a timeline, plans around it, and moves. A few months after go-live, the uncomfortable questions start:
- Why are cloud costs 40% above what was projected?
- Why are upgrades still painful? Wasn’t cloud supposed to solve that?
- Why did performance drop on functionality that worked perfectly before?
What actually happened:
Years of technical debt, tightly coupled integrations, and legacy processes were carried into cloud — without a clear understanding of how much was there. Cloud didn’t create those problems. It made them visible and expensive.
A pre-migration assessment isn’t optional if the goal is a migration that actually delivers value. It’s the single step that separates well-planned migrations from expensive ones.
Three questions leadership should be able to answer
Before any direction is chosen, these questions need honest answers at the executive level:
- Can the organisation defend staying on-premise without a roadmap?
If the answer is “not really,” that’s the signal. Operating without a plan is the most expensive option available. - Can a move to CCv2 be justified without proper cost clarity?
Migrating without a credible cost model is how organisations end up with cloud bills that catch finance teams off guard. - Are there agreed triggers for when to act?
Without a clear definition of “ready,” the decision will keep drifting — and the cost of waiting will keep climbing.
Part 2 of this series covers the three strategic options in detail — how to evaluate them, how GoWide supports each scenario, and what an obligation-free assessment involves in practice.
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