Why 2027 Could Make Big Companies Rethink How They Ship

 SAP is ending mainstream support for a system many large companies use to plan and move freight. For companies still running it, the decision cannot be postponed forever.

Every day, large companies use software to decide how thousands of shipments are planned, assigned to carriers and moved to customers.

Most people never think about that software. It runs quietly in the background, far away from the loading dock and even further from the customer.

But one of the systems behind those decisions now has a deadline.

SAP TM 9.6, used by companies to manage transportation and freight, reaches the end of mainstream maintenance on 31 December 2027. That is just over a year away.

Here is what that actually means, who it affects, and why some companies should act now while others can reasonably wait.

A software deadline most people have never heard of

SAP TM is short for SAP Transportation Management. It is the system that helps a company plan loads, choose carriers, send out freight tenders, track shipments and settle freight bills.

Version 9.6 is the final version of this system in its current form. There will be no 9.7. There will be no 10.0.

SAP has confirmed that mainstream maintenance for it ends on 31 December 2027, and that all future development work is going into its newer platform, SAP S/4HANA. You can check the date yourself in SAP's Product Availability Matrix, and SAP's own learning documentation states plainly that 9.6 is no longer a mainstream product and that future enhancements will be on the S/4HANA offerings.

So this is not a small update being retired. It is the last chapter of a product that many large companies still run every single day.

What happens when the deadline arrives?

This is where most people expect bad news. The reality is quieter, and in some ways more awkward.

On 1 January 2028, nothing switches off. Trucks still get planned. Freight bills still get settled. The software moves automatically into a support mode called customer-specific maintenance. No contract needs to be signed. No order needs to be placed.

And here is the part that surprises people: under SAP's standard maintenance terms, the maintenance fee stays the same. Individual agreements can differ, so it is worth checking your own.

What changes is not the price. It is the protection.

The system doesn't stop working. So what's the problem?

In customer-specific maintenance, the support a company receives becomes much thinner. SAP sets this out in SAP Note 52505, which describes what happens after mainstream maintenance ends.

Legal and regulatory changes are no longer delivered. New support packages stop. Technical updates are not guaranteed. And if something breaks, SAP will help only if it already knows the answer. Anything genuinely new becomes a paid consulting job.

Same price. Less cover.

That is the honest summary.

The risk builds slowly rather than suddenly. A system that no longer receives updates drifts a little further from the rest of the business every year. Skilled people who know the older version become harder to find. And moving enterprise transportation software takes planning, testing and budget — which is why waiting until 2027 can leave very little room to choose.

There is also a paid option called extended maintenance, which keeps mainstream-level support for longer. But it is offered only for selected products and must be arranged before the deadline. Any company counting on it should confirm with SAP rather than assume it is available.

Why this matters beyond IT

It is easy to read all of this and file it under "an IT problem." It usually is not.

For a finance leader, this system sits directly on top of freight spend. It decides which carrier gets the load and what the freight bill should be. Software that no longer receives updates is software that quietly stops keeping pace with how costs are calculated and checked.

For an operations leader, this is not a background tool. It sits inside daily shipment execution. When planning and settlement run on a system nobody is investing in anymore, small workarounds start piling up, and workarounds become the process.

For a technology leader, the issue is timing. Enterprise software of this size is not swapped out in a quarter. It needs assessment, budget approval, testing and a business that is willing to change its habits. None of that appears at short notice.

Does every company need to move?

No. Not every company needs to move now, whatever anyone selling migration services tells you.

There are perfectly sensible reasons to stay where you are for now.

Some companies run several different ERP systems, and transportation has to serve all of them. Some already have an S/4HANA move planned, just in a later phase. Some have years of custom development that genuinely needs studying before anyone touches it. And some simply do not have the budget or the people this year.

All of those are real. None of them is an excuse.

The difference that matters is this:

Waiting is fine, as long as it is a decision and not an accident.

A company that has looked at its situation, understood the deadline and consciously chosen to wait is in a strong position. A company that reaches 2027 and realises nobody ever looked at it is in a much weaker one.

One recurring issue in SAP TM assessments is undocumented custom development. The technology is rarely the hard part. Explaining why a piece of custom logic exists, and whether it still needs to, usually is.

The three choices companies have

Almost every company running SAP TM 9.5 or 9.6 falls into one of three groups.

Stay for now. The system is stable, the business is not complaining, and the S/4HANA move is years away. This is a valid choice. Just write the decision down, note why it was made, and set a date to review it.

Assess and prepare. This is where most companies actually sit. They know they will move eventually, but nothing has been scoped. The smart work here is understanding the customisations, the interfaces and the processes now, so that when budget arrives the hard thinking is already done.

Move with the ERP programme. Some companies are already heading to S/4HANA. For them, the sensible answer is usually to bring transportation into that same programme rather than running a separate project a year or two later and paying for the disruption twice.

The real question is when you decide

The deadline isn't the problem. Waiting until the deadline to make the decision is.

Companies that assess their options now have more room to choose what comes next. That is the whole difference.

Still running SAP TM 9.5 or 9.6? Get a clear picture of your customisations, interfaces and roadmap before the deadline decides for you.

→ Book a TM Architecture Assessment

By John Smith, SAP Transportation Management Consultant at SCM Champs. John Smith specialises in SAP TM implementations, transportation process optimisation and S/4HANA migration programmes, with 12 years of SAP experience.

Published: 29 August 2026 · Updated: 29 August 2026