The Australian Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts has signed a three-year, $38.8 million deal with Accenture to replace its SAP ECC6 environment entirely.

The engagement runs to mid-2029, with an option to extend to mid-2032. A department spokesperson confirmed the agency is moving off SAP altogether. The current ECC6 environment supports finance, human resources and payroll, plus procurement, reporting and other administrative functions across the department.

In place of that single system, the department plans to run Workday for finance, HR, and payroll alongside ServiceNow for service management and workflow, splitting responsibilities that had previously sat inside one ERP platform.

How Accenture Plans the Workday-ServiceNow Transition

Accenture holds two roles in the engagement, acting as systems integrator and as reseller of the Workday and ServiceNow software the department is adopting. That puts Accenture in both the implementation and software procurement sides of the program.

The department plans to deliver the program in two phases, allowing it to introduce new capabilities gradually while giving staff time to prepare for the change. The first phase appears aimed chiefly at replicating what SAP ECC6 already does today, carrying existing finance, HR, and payroll processes into the new platforms before introducing anything beyond that baseline.

“Workday and ServiceNow include a range of modern capabilities, including workflow automation, analytics and AI-enabled functionality,” the department spokesperson said. “The department will assess these capabilities over time in line with business requirements, security considerations, governance arrangements and value-for-money objectives,” the spokesperson added, signaling that automation and AI features will be considered only once the core migration is complete.

“Accenture Australia will be supported by an internal team to deliver the solution and ensure the end product is consistent with departmental requirements and policies,” the spokesperson said, underscoring that the department intends to retain oversight of the build rather than hand the program fully to its partner.

The approach illustrates a broader pattern in enterprise IT, where functions once bundled inside a single ERP suite, including finance, HR, and service management, are increasingly split across specialized cloud platforms chosen separately for each domain rather than carried forward inside one successor system.

Home Affairs Weighs Its Own ECC6 Replacement

The Department of Infrastructure is not the only Australian federal agency confronting the end of SAP ECC6. The Department of Home Affairs has started its own ERP replacement readiness project, engaging consultancy Next Apex under a $6 million contract to help scope the transition. “The department is seeking to replace the current system by December 2030,” a Home Affairs spokesperson said, adding that the exact timeline is still to be finalized.

Under the current Australian Public Service approach to ERP procurement, individual departments and agencies choose the system that fits their needs rather than following a single mandated platform. That model followed the abandonment of GovERP, an earlier attempt to build a common government ERP system largely based on SAP. Home Affairs is now working with other departments and agencies to share lessons learned from ECC6 upgrades, which lets agencies compare notes even as each makes its own vendor decision.

Agency ERP decisions are unfolding against a new whole-of-government cloud policy from the Digital Transformation Agency, which took effect on July 1, 2026. The policy establishes cloud as the default option when modernizing IT infrastructure and requires agencies to justify any alternative, alongside broader goals covering innovation, secure adoption and cost management across the public service.

For agencies still running SAP ECC6, the approaching end of mainstream maintenance is forcing a decision about what comes next. S/4HANA remains one route, but the Department of Infrastructure demonstrates that customers can also use the transition point to reconsider the incumbent ERP altogether.

What This Means for ERP Insiders

SAP renewal is no longer automatic. Agencies facing ECC6 end-of-life are now openly weighing S/4HANA against best-of-breed cloud platforms rather than assuming a like-for-like SAP upgrade. Procurement teams should expect vendor evaluations to widen well beyond the incumbent supplier.

Government cloud policy compresses ERP timelines. With cloud adoption set as the default for public sector IT from July 2026, agencies must justify any delay or non-cloud approach they propose. SAP customers weighing ECC6 replacement now face policy pressure layered on top of existing technical end-of-life deadlines.

Splitting ERP functions raises governance demands. Running Workday and ServiceNow in place of one SAP environment requires internal teams capable of overseeing phased delivery, vendor coordination, and cross-platform integration. SAP teams considering a similar split should plan for expanded governance structures, not just new software licenses.