Mid-Market ERP 2026: Four Reports, One Uncomfortable Pattern

The CFO of a mechanical engineering firm from the Sauerland drops a stack of reports on the table. On top is the DSAG Investment Report, then the Trovarit user study, then a printed Bitkom chart. At the bottom lies an email from Microsoft about the new Dynamics 365 pricing. Across from him sits the IT lead with a green folder of proposals: SAP Private Edition, Dynamics 365 Business Central, plus a NetSuite pitch from last week. Four data sources, three ERP options, one question that only hangs quietly in the room: who reads these reports from the user’s perspective, rather than the vendor’s?

The scene is fictional. The reports are not. Between autumn 2024 and spring 2026, four studies have landed that belong next to each other before any 2026 decision on ERP and AI. They come from different camps and use different methods. Even so, they reveal the same pattern.

Four Reports, One Pattern

DSAG Investment Report 2026, published 26.02.2026, based on 198 SAP users in DACH. Only 37 percent plan to finish their S/4HANA migration by the end of 2027. 62 percent no longer align investment planning with SAP’s target picture of Business Suite, BTP, and BDC. And 97 percent of all productive AI implementations run on non-SAP stacks. Limitation: the sample reflects only SAP incumbents organized through the user group.

Trovarit “ERP in der Praxis 2024/25”, published 25.09.2024, the twelfth round of the study. Over 1,700 DACH user companies rate more than 40 ERP solutions across vendors. Overall satisfaction lands at 1.80 on the German school-grade scale, vendor service at 1.96 with a slight downward trend. Around 29 percent rate AI in the ERP environment as highly relevant, a doubling compared to the previous round. This report is the strongest counterweight to the DSAG view, because it rates Microsoft Dynamics, proALPHA, Infor, Oracle NetSuite, Sage, and Epicor on equal footing with SAP.

Bitkom “Digitalisation of the Economy 2025” together with the Digital Office Index 2024, a representative survey of 603 companies with 20 or more employees. 98 percent run an ERP system, up 3 percentage points year over year. 41 percent currently use AI, compared to 17 percent in 2024. 53 percent admit they struggle to steer their own digitalisation. This is the macro view of the full mid-market, not a single vendor base.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central pricing update, announced 06.05.2025, effective 01.11.2025. Essentials rises from 70 to 80 US dollars per user per month, a 14.3 percent jump. Premium moves from 100 to 110 dollars, up 10 percent. Device licensing climbs from 40 to 45 dollars, up 12.5 percent. This is the first price adjustment in over five years. It is not a study finding but a market signal. Non-SAP standard software is getting more expensive at the exact moment when budgets are tilting.

The pattern reads soberly. The Mittelstand modernises ERP and introduces AI, but it is doing both on an increasingly vendor-independent track. 98 percent run an ERP, 41 percent use AI productively, and across vendors 29 percent rate AI in the ERP environment as highly relevant. At the same time, IT budgets are falling for 24 percent of SAP users, and the largest non-SAP alternative is pushing double-digit price increases through. This is not an isolated finding from one user group. It is structural.

What the Reports Say Together

Reading these four data points as vendor-bashing misses the mark. The reports describe a pragmatic Mittelstand that invests selectively under budget pressure and can no longer afford the luxury of vendor-centric planning. The 24 percent declining IT budgets on the SAP side and the Microsoft price adjustment hit the same desk from two directions. An executive weighing an S/4HANA Private Edition against a Dynamics 365 upgrade calculates both options over ten years and picks what holds.

The second shared message is the maturity gap between vendor AI and independent AI. At DSAG, only 3 percent of users work productively with SAP Joule or SAP AI Core. Trovarit measures 29 percent AI relevance across vendors, and Bitkom counts 41 percent productive AI use in the wider Mittelstand. The gap between vendor-owned AI and open AI such as OpenAI, Claude, or Microsoft Copilot is not a laggard issue. It is a tool choice. Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Cloud ERP 2025 still forecasts that by 2027 about 62 percent of ERP spend will include AI features. The trend is clear, vendor lock-in is not.

Mechanical engineering leads the DSAG sample with 12 percent, while Bitkom places industry and trade on top. The pattern does not hinge on one sector, it runs through them. Look closer and the same logic shows up that I documented in ERP Migration: 5 Mistakes That Let Projects Fail. Risk-averse planning beats ambitious roadmaps.

Three Planning Decisions That Come Due Now

If you are a CEO or IT leader with the stack on your desk, you face concrete forks in the road. In my IT strategy and system selection work, every one of them is currently surfacing in almost every conversation, regardless of the current ERP.

1. Choose the Migration Path

On the SAP side the options are familiar: on-premises, Private Edition until 2033, public cloud via GROW with SAP. 42 percent of DSAG respondents stay on-prem, 22 percent pick private cloud, and only 6 percent go public cloud. On the non-SAP side the decision looks different, but no easier. For Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, the on-premises option versus SaaS licensing has to be recalculated after the price adjustment, especially at larger user counts. A company moving from proALPHA or an ageing Infor installation into a greenfield must weigh NetSuite against Dynamics and IFS Cloud, and Gartner has just elevated NetSuite and IFS into the Leader quadrant in the latest Magic Quadrant. That means more serious alternatives, not fewer. In every case the ten-year TCO beats the list price, and the time buffer determines project stress levels. Anyone who decides nothing today decides to drift.

2. Design a Dual-Vendor AI Strategy on Purpose

The question is not whether you will use open AI. Trovarit measures 29 percent relevance across vendors, and at DSAG 97 percent of AI projects already run outside the SAP stack. The question is how clean the integration looks. Coupling OpenAI or Microsoft Copilot to an SAP data set raises the same core questions as bolting a custom model onto Dynamics, Infor, or NetSuite. First the master-data question: where the data lives and which interface carries the load. Then the architecture question: how replaceable the AI layer stays when a better model arrives in two years. A dual-vendor architecture does not mean building everything twice. It means keeping data sovereignty inside the ERP and connecting the AI layer through standardised APIs such as SAP Integration Suite or Dataverse. That way you stay free to move in 2028 when a better model arrives. I have laid out the principles in my AI and automation consulting practice, and in AI without ERP integration is expensive playtime I walked through why integration costs more than the model itself.

3. Formulate Your Own Target Picture

The most painful finding from the DSAG report is the number 62. 62 percent of SAP users no longer align their planning with SAP’s target picture. This is not a SAP problem, it is a structural signal. No one plans in a purely vendor-centric way any more, not Microsoft, Oracle, or Infor customers either. Writing your own target picture starts with what your next five to seven years should look like. Which processes stay core and which disappear. Only then does the question of standard software, custom development, and integration follow. Which parts of the SAP, Microsoft, or NetSuite portfolio fit your shape gets answered at the end, not the beginning.

What the Reports Do Not Say

For all the clarity of the numbers, the limits deserve naming. The DSAG report reflects only the SAP incumbent base, not a cross-section of the Mittelstand. Trovarit provides the cross-vendor depth, but the detailed cloud versus on-prem split sits inside the paid full report. In public, the statement stays qualitative. Bitkom is representative of companies with 20 or more employees, which means very small businesses fall out of the frame even though they are an important ERP entry-point group. The Microsoft price adjustment is documented and citable, but it is not a study finding, it is one market move. Price movements at Infor, Sage, IFS, or proALPHA are not publicly quantified as of this article. Basing a migration and AI decision on an average works about as well as buying a car on the ADAC average price. The reports provide direction. They do not replace an inventory inside your own company.

Frequently Asked Questions About the 2026 ERP Reports

Which deadline applies to me if I am not running SAP?

Outside the SAP world, there is no single hard deadline. Instead, several quiet clocks are ticking. Microsoft raised Dynamics 365 Business Central prices on 01.11.2025 and will justify the move with new capabilities. Gartner reports that SAP Business ByDesign is being retired for new customers in 2026, and many Infor and proALPHA installations come from customising eras that cannot be carried forward economically. If you do not run SAP, you plan along your vendor’s release cycle and roadmap communications, not along an external deadline.

Is Dynamics 365 BC still competitive after the price increase?

Yes, but the math shifts. Essentials at 80 US dollars per user per month remains competitive against an SAP S/4HANA Public Edition, but loses ground against on-premises setups with existing license bases. User count is the pivot. Above roughly 50 full users, the comparison between SaaS and a hybrid architecture becomes real. Below 20 users, Dynamics 365 BC often stays the simplest path, especially because the Microsoft stack around Teams, Power BI, and Copilot integrates reliably.

When must I make the AI vendor decision?

Now, but not finally. Decide in 2026 which interfaces you standardise for AI, and decouple that layer from the concrete model. Anyone using OpenAI via Azure today should be able to redirect the same prompts to Claude or a local model in 2027. Model choice is reversible. Integration architecture choice is almost not.

Which report matters most for my case?

As a DACH-based SAP customer, the DSAG report is required reading. As a non-SAP user, the Trovarit main report serves you better because it rates your specific vendor in detail. For a board paper on the company-wide digitalisation strategy, Bitkom provides the most robust macro numbers. The Microsoft price adjustment becomes relevant as soon as Dynamics 365 BC sits on the shortlist. In an ideal setup, all three studies are on the table when the decision falls.

Next Step

Do you want to know which ERP and AI combination actually holds in your company? I read the four reports against your specific situation and build a target picture that comes from your business, not from any single vendor roadmap.

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Sources and links: DSAG Investment Report 2026 · Trovarit “ERP in der Praxis 2024/25” · Bitkom “Digitalisation of the Economy 2025” · Microsoft Dynamics 365 BC Pricing Nov 2025 · Gartner MQ Cloud ERP 2025 at CX Today

Further reading on pfisterer.xyz: The Burrito That Wrote Python · ERP Migration: 5 Mistakes That Let Projects Fail · Cloud Exit in the Mittelstand · AI without ERP integration is expensive playtime