ERP buyers hear plenty of cloud migration advice from systems integrators. EY’s SAP S/4HANA Cloud move gives the firm a different kind of proof point. It has lived through the operating, data, and change-management work it sells to clients.
SAP’s role as a presenting sponsor of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2026 program moved into sharper focus on June 17, when EY US announced the winners of the Entrepreneur of the Year 2026 New York Award. SAP joined PNC Bank, Cresa LLC, Marsh Risk, and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation as presenting sponsors of the program, which has recognized more than 11,000 entrepreneurs in the US since its founding in 1986. For SAP customers and system integrators watching the EY relationship, the real substance sits a layer deeper than a sponsorship banner.
EY operates on both sides of the SAP ecosystem as a transformation services partner helping enterprises implement SAP S/4HANA and SAP Cloud ERP Private (RISE with SAP), and as an SAP customer that has executed its own large-scale cloud migration. That dual standing gives EY’s SAP practice a credibility few pure-play integrators can match.
A Partner Becomes Its Own Proof Point
In March 2025, the EY organization announced a strategic initiative with SAP and Microsoft to transition to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition running on Microsoft Azure. The move made EY one of the larger professional services firms to publicly commit to and execute an SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition deployment, adding a practical dimension to its advisory practice. When EY advises a client on a RISE with SAP migration, it is drawing on an internal transformation that touched its own finance, operations, and enterprise data infrastructure.
The partnership with Microsoft adds another layer. Azure serves as the infrastructure backbone for EY’s S/4HANA environment, placing the deployment squarely within the growing pattern of hyperscaler-hosted ERP that SAP and Microsoft have co-invested in over the past several years. For enterprise architects evaluating cloud hosting alongside their S/4HANA roadmap, EY’s Azure-hosted deployment is a concrete reference point.
The Migration Gap Becomes the Risk
The timing of EY’s migration and its continued investment in SAP services aligns with a measurable acceleration in enterprise cloud ERP adoption. According to the SAPinsider RISE with SAP 2025 benchmark report, 30% of organizations are now fully live on RISE with SAP, up from 19% the prior year. That is a meaningful jump, but it still means the majority of organizations are mid-transition or yet to begin. For ERP program managers, the gap between deployment and full transition is where most operational risk lies.
The SAPinsider ERP Migration and Transformation 2026 report reinforces the complexity. Fifty-five percent of surveyed organizations have deployed SAP S/4HANA or a cloud ERP, but only 34% have fully completed the transition. Meanwhile, 43% of respondents now cite SAP AI announcements as the top external factor shaping their ERP strategy, edging past the 2027 end-of-maintenance deadline as the primary driver. The cloud picture is also tightening. SAP S/4HANA Cloud adoption stands at 26%, nearly level with traditional on-premises deployments at 29%, suggesting the center of gravity in the SAP landscape is shifting faster than many transformation roadmaps anticipated. Partners with live deployments on record, like EY, are well-positioned to help organizations navigate this compressed window.
What This Means for ERP Insiders
ERP buyers should test partners against their own transformation record. EY’s move to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition on Azure gives CIOs a concrete reference point when evaluating transformation advisors. Selection teams should ask prospective partners what their own ERP estate looks like, how recently it was modernized, and what lessons from that work now shape client delivery.
Migration programs need help closing the finish-line gap. The difference between deploying cloud ERP and completing the transition is where data migration, process harmonization, parallel operations, and adoption risks often accumulate. ERP program leaders should prioritize partners that can show how they have moved from technical go-live to operational completion, not just how they run implementation workstreams.
AI now belongs in ERP design from the start. As AI becomes a stronger driver of cloud ERP strategy, transformation teams cannot treat it as a later enhancement. CIOs and enterprise architects should evaluate how partners connect AI readiness to data architecture, process standardization, integration decisions, and cloud platform choices during the core migration plan.
Editor’s note: A version of this article was originally published on SAPinsider on 6/24.
