UK electrical utility seeks partner for £81M SAP overhaul as support deadline closes in

Integrations with third-party software await chosen provider

A UK electrical infrastructure biz is seeking a systems integrator to help it migrate from a 25-year-old SAP ERP system to the latest S/4HANA platform in a contract set to be worth almost a quarter of its annual turnover.

In a project expected to accommodate integration with non-SAP applications and some custom development, Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE) Networks has published an invitation to tender for the replacement of its aging ECC system, first rolled out in 1999.

The £339.6 million ($427 million) revenue company, which was privatized in 1993, plans to replace the software with the latest ERP platform from SAP, but the tender documents suggest it is not migrating to the cloud or using the RISE with SAP program, the lift-shift-and-transform arrangement where the German vendor fronts deals with SIs and cloud providers.

However, a pre-qualification questionnaire states NIE is moving to the cloud but does not specify its favored route. The "commercial model is still to be agreed, including if this will be via SAP RISE or non-RISE on hyperscaler."

An indicative sum of £81 million ($102 million) is on the table for the system integrator contract, which could last four years plus two one-year extension periods.

Whoever considers bidding for the job should be prepared for a complex project. A market engagement notice published in October last year said the 25-year-old SAP ERP applications "form a fundamental platform in supporting the core NIE Networks business and market processes."

"Multiple internal non-SAP applications and external partner systems are integrated with the SAP system estate, working together to provide end-to-end business capabilities and overall compliance with regulatory, market, and statutory obligations," it said. Work is set to start in January 2026.

In the contract notice published this month, NIE Networks said that as well as the 1999 ECC implementation, SAP Business Objects (reporting and BI) and supplier relationship management was added in 2008.

In 2012, it made a "strategic investment" to implement a separate instance of utility application SAP IS-U and SAP Business Warehouse (data warehouse), "further adding to the utilization of SAP products and establishing a core technology platform on NIE Networks Ltd IT estate."

As well as grappling with the complexity of the project, any winning bidder will have to deal with the timeline.

Mainstream vendor support for ECC ends at the end of 2027, after which extended vendor support is available for a 2 percent premium, which does not provide product updates, although the vendor does provide patches and bug fixes.

"NIE Networks Ltd plans to upgrade to SAP S/4 HANA to ensure interoperability with current systems be maintained and to fully leverage new technologies and functionalities on an established platform, thus maintaining a stable and secure system within the company's IT estate," the company said.

The Register has asked NIE Networks why it has decided not to move to the cloud and use RISE with SAP, the vendor's preferred method for getting there. ®