Asda's delayed tech divorce from Walmart, which involved a complete SAP ERP upgrade, has caused "severe disruption" hitting the UK retailer's quarterly revenue.

The UK's third-largest supermarket said the tech problems "materially impacted" its third-quarter trading, contributing to a 2.8 percent year-on-year fall in revenue to £5.1 billion.

Asda's tech separation from Walmart nears £1B as delays mount [1]READ MORE

Chairman Allan Leighton told the media that delays and disruption caused by the technology separation from previous owner Walmart, which ran back-office SAP systems, set back his financial turnaround by six months.

Despite technically completing the program dubbed Project Future in August, the retailer said the effects would continue until the second calendar quarter next year.

"The downturn in sales and to a degree the market share issue is totally driven by Future, it's not driven by any competitive activity," [2]Leighton told The Times .

[3]

He said the IT issues were "totally self-inflicted" and put it down to "poor integration, insufficient testing, and a lack of capacity planning."

[4]

[5]

"We've spent a lot of money and a lot of time planning this and I would have expected that these things would not have been an issue."

The supermarket, which Walmart sold to Bellis Finco for £6.8 billion ($8.65 billion) in 2021, signed a deal with SAP to move the on-prem legacy ERP systems to the cloud and its latest S/4HANA software under the German company's flagship RISE with SAP program.

[6]

In February 2021, the group embarked on a program called Project Future, designed to separate its IT systems from Walmart's with an initial budget of £189 million ($240 million). At the same time, it created a "Transitional Services Agreement with Walmart for an initial period of three years," according to the report for the year ended December 31, 2022.

In January last year, [7]The Register reported that Asda had extended its back-office support arrangements with Walmart, which included support for SAP.

[8]Retail giant Kingfisher rejects SAP ERP upgrade plan

[9]England's local government shake-up promises to be a massive tech headache

[10]SAP users still wrestling with business case for S/4HANA

[11]Europe's largest city council delays fix to disastrous Oracle system once more

The project involved the separation of more than 2,500 legacy systems and moving every aspect of Asda's operations to its own IT platforms. In 2024, about 135 IT staff were transferred to outsourcer TCS, while digital transformation chief Mark Simpson left the business after 28 years of service.

According to Asda, it moved off Walmart's SAP ERP system to a new instance of S/4HANA hosted in Microsoft's Azure cloud in January 2024. In July, an annual report revealed that the total cost of Project Future had climbed to £430 million ($558 million) for the period ending December 31, 2023.

Despite the move off Walmart's SAP platform, Asda continued to be troubled by integrating the new system.

[12]

In December last year, [13]it decided not to go ahead with planned cutover dates to introduce new systems at some smaller stores as part of the technical divorce.

In January 2025, [14]Asda postponed the tech transition of 55 stores to its new systems as Walmart continued to support IT at outlets it sold to the UK retailer in 2021.

At the time, a spokesperson told The Register it continued "to make good progress delivering Project Future."

Asda said on Friday that the completion of the system cutover disrupted operations during Q3, particularly the flow of stock between depots and stores, causing inconsistent availability levels across stores and particularly online. The online business was also affected by functionality issues following the launch of a new app and website in August, it said.

In a statement, the retailer added that all systems had been stabilized. Availability in stores and online was at an eight-year high of over 95 percent, it said. ®

Get our [15]Tech Resources



[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/01/asda_walmart_tech_separation_cost/

[2] https://www.thetimes.com/business/companies-markets/article/asda-turnarond-plan-stalls-sales-fall-it-revamp-qjx2lshnf

[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aS3Jq-mBpJKeZBuGLs0TfgAAAMs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aS3Jq-mBpJKeZBuGLs0TfgAAAMs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aS3Jq-mBpJKeZBuGLs0TfgAAAMs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aS3Jq-mBpJKeZBuGLs0TfgAAAMs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/asda_sap_delay/

[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/12/retail_giant_kingfisher_says_no/

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/31/england_local_government_shakeup/

[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/17/sap_s4hana_business_case/

[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/24/uk_mega_council_delays_fix/

[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aS3Jq-mBpJKeZBuGLs0TfgAAAMs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/19/asda_tech_rollout/

[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/21/asda_walmart_cutover_delays/

[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/