What was once celebrated as a sign of technical sophistication is now one of the biggest barriers to SAP modernization. Custom code, long treated as a competitive asset, has quietly become one of the most persistent sources of technical debt in the SAP ecosystem.
ASUG CEO Geoff Scott recently issued a call to action: it’s time for radical decustomization. In his 2026 article, Scott challenges organizations to reduce custom code by 20%, 50%, or even 80%, framing it not as a technical exercise, but as a strategic imperative. At Crawford Consulting, we couldn’t agree more and we see this play out with clients every day.
For years, organizations measured SAP success by the number of custom objects they built whether that’s Z programs, custom tables, or bespoke enhancements. There are thousands of them. In many organizations, this was worn as a badge of honor.
But this mindset has come at a steep price. As Scott notes, that same pride in customization is now holding organizations back. Custom code doesn’t just accumulate — it compounds. Every object added to a system is another line of technical debt that must be managed, migrated, and maintained indefinitely.
Technical debt is the implied cost of future rework caused by choosing a quick, easy, or suboptimal solution instead of a more thorough, maintainable approach. In the SAP world, every shortcut taken through custom code becomes a liability that compounds over time and organizations are often still paying for years or even decades later. It’s worth noting that not all clean core development is debt-free either: even Clean Core custom development carries long-term maintenance cost. The true elimination of that burden comes from adopting industry-standard solutions built to evolve with SAP and adapt to regulatory change automatically.
In our consulting work with enterprise organizations running complex, mission-critical SAP environments, we consistently see the consequences of unchecked customization:
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If custom code creates so many problems, why does it keep getting proposed? The answer is often more about business incentives than business needs.
Custom development is a profitable service line for many consulting firms. It creates ongoing maintenance revenue and builds long-term dependency. Organizations that rely on custom code often need the same team to maintain it indefinitely as SAP standards evolve and regulations change. Some consultants sell customization not because it’s the right solution, but because it ensures a recurring engagement. At Crawford Consulting, our value is measured by the clarity and long-term health of your SAP environment, not by how dependent you are on us to maintain it. We’ve built our practice on honesty, consistency, and a hands-on commitment to every project we take on and that means recommending what’s right for your business, even when a simpler, standard solution is the answer.
“Customization for the sake of customization is essentially cementing SAP customers into technical debt, creating situations that ultimately increase the cost of doing business and make future change more expensive, not less.” — Crawford Consulting
The SAP landscape has changed dramatically. Custom code emerged as a practical response to genuine gaps in SAP’s standard functionality. Gaps that, in most cases, SAP has since closed.
Today, organizations have access to robust alternatives to custom code: structured Plus Packs, industry-standard add-in software modules, and native SAP extensibility frameworks. All built to work within SAP’s upgrade and compliance architecture. Our solutions:
For many organizations, the S/4HANA migration is the moment the true cost of custom code finally becomes impossible to ignore. With SAP ending mainstream support for ECC on December 31, 2027, that moment is no longer hypothetical, it’s a deadline. Every piece of custom development in the landscape must be individually assessed, retested, and in many cases rebuilt from the ground up before the actual migration can proceed.
This is why carrying custom code into S/4HANA largely defeats the purpose of modernizing in the first place. The entire value proposition of moving to a modern SAP platform: agility, lower total cost of ownership, and access to ongoing innovation, is eroded when organizations simply transplant years of accumulated complexity into a new environment. You end up with a modern platform running on an outdated foundation.
In his article, Scott points to ASUG research showing that nearly nine in ten members agree cleansing SAP master data is essential to a successful S/4HANA migration and that most organizations prioritize this before migration even begins. Data readiness and code simplification go hand in hand, and both need to be addressed before the migration clock runs out.
The organizations that get the most out of S/4HANA are those that treat the migration as a forcing function, a structured opportunity to ask hard questions about every customization in their landscape and arrive at the new platform leaner, cleaner, and better aligned to where the business is heading. The migration doesn’t have to be a technical lift-and-shift. Done right, it’s a strategic reset.
As trusted SAP consultants, we’ve seen both sides of this equation. We’ve worked with organizations still carrying thousands of custom objects from implementations decades old and we’ve helped others build clean, modern SAP environments that are ready for what’s next.
Our recommendation is straightforward: customization should be a deliberate strategic decision, not the default. When it is necessary, it should be scoped tightly, documented rigorously, and reviewed regularly. When it isn’t necessary (which is most of the time) it should be replaced with solutions designed to grow with your business.
The window to act is open. If your organization is planning an S/4HANA migration or simply looking to reduce the technical debt that’s slowing you down, we’re here to help you build a path forward that’s clean, strategic, and built to last.
Further Reading: We encourage you to read Geoff Scott’s full article, My View, My Voice: In 2026, Make the Case for Radical Decustomization, published on ASUG.com. Scott’s perspective on the future of SAP customization is one every SAP leader should hear directly.