The SAP Skills Gap
Every transformation plan quietly assumes the people to run it. The market data says that assumption is the weakest line in the plan.
The contradiction in the data
Fact: In the Oxford Economics/SAP midsize survey, executives name finding and retaining talent among their top challenges — while ranking talent attraction and retention (21%) and employee productivity (25%) near the bottom of their strategic objectives. Change-management research on S/4HANA programmes points the same way: a majority of project challenges are attributed to people, not technology.
Inference: The gap between "talent is our problem" and "talent is not our priority" is where transformations quietly lose their schedule. SAP skills are a seller's market; organisations that treat staffing as a procurement task discover mid-programme that the market does not deliver on procurement timelines. The realistic postures are: grow your own (slow, durable), buy access to networks where the specialists already are (fast, competitive), or design the system so it needs fewer scarce specialists — the standardisation argument in RISE vs GROW.
Point of view: Put the skills plan in the business case with the same rigour as the licence cost: named roles, sourcing path, retention risk, and a budget line for development. And be honest about the third posture — every customisation you decline to build is specialist capacity you no longer need to find.
Monday-morning questions
- Which named roles does our transformation plan assume — and how many are unfilled today?
- What is our time-to-fill for a senior SAP role, measured, not guessed?
- Which planned customisations exist only because we assume we'll find the people to maintain them?
Where this connects
The growth context is SAP for midsize companies. If you are hiring SAP specialists or looking for your next SAP role, the platform's marketplace is the sapperment Talent Network — including finding SAP talent and SAP career paths. All tracks: Executive Clarity topic tracks.
Sources
- Oxford Economics / SAP, "Four Ways to Compete in a Fast-Changing World" (vendor-commissioned survey, read as market signal).
- Industry surveys attributing the majority of S/4HANA project challenges to people factors (figures as reported).
Editorial standard: facts, inference and point of view are kept separate above. Published 2026-08-03 · By Andreas BORN.