Your legacy data strategy is costing you more than you think

You know that one cupboard in your house? The one packed with ‘just in case’ old stuff you haven’t touched in years, but can’t quite bring yourself to get rid of?

A legacy SAP system is the technical version of that cupboard. It’s expensive. It’s fragile. And even if you only open it twice a year, you keep it running, just in case. For audits. For HR. For compliance. For peace of mind.

But what if there were a better way? One that frees you from technical debt, without losing access to the data your business still relies on?

Let’s talk about decommissioning done right, and how smarter archiving is helping companies cut costs, stay compliant, and simplify life for both IT and business teams.

The compliance trap: Why you can’t just hit delete

Even after you have moved to S/4HANA, sunset a legacy platform, or migrated to the cloud, the data in those old systems sticks around. And for good reason.

Regulations demand it. Auditors ask for it. Business users depend on it. Whether it’s a decade-old payslip, a vendor invoice, or proof of a customer agreement, you need it accessible, readable, and trustworthy.

But keeping a full-blown SAP system alive just to pull up old records? That’s like keeping a jet running to power the seatbelt light. The smarter move is to extract the value, not keep the entire thing live as is.

The hidden costs of doing nothing

Let’s be honest: many companies put off SAP decommissioning because it feels complex, risky, or simply not urgent. But every month you wait, you are paying for:

• software licences you no longer use
• infrastructure you shouldn’t need
• maintenance for systems no one wants to touch, and
• security vulnerabilities in platforms that no longer receive updates.

The idea of ‘archiving’ sounds simple: move the data, shut down the system, done. But the reality is much more complicated. Too many archiving solutions treat your data like something to be locked away; they are hard to navigate, and the data is stripped of its context. Users end up frustrated, and IT ends up reactivating old systems. And the costs you tried to cut? They creep right back in.

That’s why successful organisations are flipping the script. Instead of burying data, they are giving it new life, in a platform that makes legacy information accessible, intuitive, and secure: Archive Central.

A new way to handle the past

Imagine this: all your legacy SAP data, structured and unstructured, from invoices to payslips, pulled into a sleek, modern interface. Dashboards designed for business users, not developers. Role-based access that satisfies auditors. Backups and business continuity built in. No more guesswork. That’s the experience with Archive Central.

It’s not just about storing old data. It’s about making sure your people can use it, without needing a degree in SAP navigation. Even the stuff you forgot was there – like compressed text in clustered tables, or change logs hidden deep in HR – can be extracted, decoded, and preserved with full traceability.

Test less, trust more

One of the biggest fears during decommissioning? ‘What if something breaks?’ You could test everything, but that’s time-consuming, expensive, and often unnecessary. Archive Central includes smart analysis tools that show you where to focus: the heavily customised areas, the high-volume modules, the known trouble-spots from similar projects. It’s targeted testing, not testing for testing’s sake.

From SAP to everything else

Of course, SAP isn’t your only legacy system. There’s probably a patchwork of tools, like SAP Concur, Microsoft AX, homegrown apps, each with its own history.

Archive Central doesn’t just stop at SAP. It’s designed to grow with you, handling multiple systems, multiple formats, and multiple use cases, all under one roof.

And when the next system needs retiring? You're already ready.

Auditors at the table, not at the finish line

One of the smartest shifts we have seen is getting auditors involved early, not just when it’s time to sign off. We bring experience of working with both your internal and external auditors, involving them from day one to align on requirements, validate approaches, and prevent the costly rework that comes when audit requests arrive too late. It’s not just smoother; it’s smarter business.

Don’t let ‘what if’ hold you back

Worried about missing data after the fact? It happens. That’s why Archive Central is designed to add records later, if required, without needing to reactivate the original system or compromise your compliance rules. Because decommissioning shouldn’t feel like a leap of faith. It should feel like a well-planned migration.