Extend SAP With Clean Core and SAP Build

WRITTEN BY

Incture

13th May 2024

In the world of enterprise technology, agility and stability often pull in opposite directions. Organizations need to innovate rapidly to stay competitive, yet every custom change to their ERP system can introduce technical debt, inflate costs, and jeopardize upgrade paths. Nowhere is this tension more evident than in SAP environments, where businesses historically leaned on heavy custom code within the core to tailor processes.

That approach no longer holds up. Today, the concept of a SAP clean core is not just a best practice, it’s a strategic necessity. With SAP S/4HANA Cloud, the clean core philosophy ensures that your system remains stable, upgradable, and extensible, even as your business evolves. But the real challenge is this: how to extend SAP without modifying the core, while still meeting evolving business needs?

The answer lies in SAP Build SAP’s integrated low-code/no-code development platform and in choosing the right partner to help you apply it effectively. This blog explores why SAP’s clean core matters, how SAP Build helps protect it, and why working with a specialist like Incture can unlock real business value.

The Customization Dilemma: Flexibility vs. Upgradeability

For decades, custom code was the go-to method for modifying SAP systems to match unique business requirements. While this provided flexibility, it came at a cost. Every enhancement added to the SAP core introduced complexity, making upgrades longer, riskier, and more expensive. Teams spent countless hours regression testing, resolving dependency issues, and navigating breakages caused by new releases.

This is what the SAP clean core model aims to eliminate. In SAP S/4HANA Cloud, clean core means maintaining a pristine digital core by minimizing custom ABAP code and adopting standardized extensibility models. These include in-app configurations, key-user extensibility, and most importantly side-by-side extensions that run outside the core system using cloud-native tools.

When done right, this approach ensures that you can still meet business needs without getting locked into rigid, brittle customizations that delay innovation.

SAP Build: Low-Code Extensibility That Keeps Your Core Clean

SAP Build represents SAP’s strategic investment in helping customers extend and enhance their ERP environments without ever touching the core.

As of April 2025, all SAP S/4HANA Cloud customers now receive full access to SAP Build and SAP HANA Cloud, removing licensing barriers and simplifying adoption. Whether you’re using the public or private edition, you can now use SAP Build to design applications, automate workflows, and integrate systems all without requiring deep coding skills or disrupting standard SAP processes.

SAP Build combines three powerful capabilities:

• a) SAP Build Apps for low-code application development
• b) SAP Build Process Automation for designing and orchestrating business processes
• c) SAP Build Work Zone for creating modern, user-friendly digital experiences

And with tools like the SAP Build Extensibility Wizard and Joule, SAP’s AI copilot, developers can accelerate development cycles with AI-assisted suggestions, code generation, sample data, and automation blueprints all built to align with SAP clean core principles.

The result: SAP extension solutions are faster to build, easier to maintain, and fully decoupled from the core ERP system.

Use Cases: Innovation Without Disruption

1. 1. User-Centric Interfaces

Business users often need more intuitive interfaces than those provided out-of-the-box. SAP Build enables the rapid creation of responsive web or mobile applications, tailored to specific roles whether it’s a plant manager dashboard, a mobile approval tool, or a sales order entry app.

These apps pull data via APIs leveraging SAP BTP for clean core extension keeping the core untouched while improving user experience and productivity.

For one of our clients, we developed a comprehensive Onboarding & Offboarding Solution using SAP Build. The application streamlined task collaboration, delivered real-time visibility into onboarding progress, and boosted engagement through features like interactive training content and leaderboards. The result was a remarkable 82% increase in employee retention all achieved without making any changes to the SAP core. Read more here.

1. 2. Business Process Automation

Manual tasks, such as invoice approvals, employee onboarding, or supply chain notifications, are ripe for automation. SAP Build Process Automation lets teams design these workflows visually, adding AI-driven decision logic and integration points with both SAP and third-party systems.

This reduces manual effort, shortens cycle times, and introduces consistency across business units without altering core SAP logic.

1. 3. Secure Third-Party Integrations

Connecting external tools (e.g., customer portals, vendor systems, payment gateways) traditionally meant risky core modifications. With SAP Build, integrations are developed side-by-side using prebuilt connectors and services, ensuring they’re modular and easily maintainable.

For instance, we built a cloud-based Partner Onboarding Portal for a client’s global partner ecosystem, integrating third-party systems for risk scoring, tax validation, and compliance checks eliminating manual data transfers and enabling end-to-end onboarding with automated workflows, multilingual support, and secure vendor creation all without touching the SAP core. Learn more here.

In all these scenarios, the key benefit is the same: the SAP core remains clean, upgradeable, and future-ready.

Why Incture? Bringing SAP Build to Life with Confidence

While SAP Build provides the toolset, successful implementation requires more than just technical capability it demands strategic planning, governance, and design thinking. That’s where Incture comes in.

With over 18 years of experience in SAP application development, Incture helps organizations accelerate their SAP Build journey while adhering to clean core principles. Their teams bring together fusion capabilities blending design, engineering, and domain expertise to deliver SAP app development with clean core principles in mind.

Here’s how Incture makes a difference:

• a) Tailored App Development: Build solutions that match your business model not generic templates.
• b) Secure Extensibility: Choose the right extensibility model (on-stack vs. side-by-side) to fit your system landscape and risk profile.
• c) User-Centric Design: Apply design thinking to ensure adoption and usability across all levels of the organization.
• d) AI-Powered Automation: Identify process bottlenecks and deploy intelligent automation for efficiency and speed.

Incture’s approach ensures that every extension adds business value without introducing technical debt so your system stays clean and your teams stay agile.

The Long-Term Payoff: Stability, Speed, and Scalability

Organizations that embrace a clean core strategy powered by SAP Build aren’t just maintaining ERP hygiene they’re leading SAP system modernization efforts. By decoupling innovation from the core, businesses gain:

• a) Upgrade Readiness: SAP updates can be adopted faster and with fewer disruptions.
• b) Lower TCO: Reduced maintenance overhead, fewer regressions, and simpler testing.
• c) Greater Agility: Extensions are modular, scalable, and aligned with cloud-native principles.
• d) Faster Time-to-Value: With AI support and low-code tools, delivery cycles shrink from months to weeks.

In a world where responsiveness and resilience are essential, the clean core approach becomes a competitive advantage not a constraint

Final Thoughts: Innovate Fearlessly But Stay Clean

The message is clear: businesses no longer have to choose between agility and control. With SAP Build, you can innovate boldly building the applications, workflows, and integrations your business demands while protecting the integrity of your SAP S/4HANA Cloud environment.

And with a partner like Incture guiding the way, you can move forward with confidence, knowing that your digital core will remain clean, stable, and ready for what’s next.

Ready to start your clean core journey with SAP Build? Let Incture help you unlock the full potential of your SAP system without compromise.

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