In the late 20^th century, when most businesses derived their basic value from building and selling physical products, they used complex enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to control their supply chains and manufacturing operations and customer relationship management (CRM) to relate to their customers. Today’s new software and cloud-based services demand the equivalents of ERP and CRM to manage a business transition to cloud/software-based organizations.

Today’s digital equivalents, writes Wikibon Analyst Brian Gracely, (@bgracely)  are continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) and cloud-native application platforms. CI/CD manages input from multiple sources – programs, projects, groups – and output to multiple clouds, much as ERP managed the physical product from manufacturing through delivery. Cloud-native application platforms examine the digital interactions of cloud-based applications to yield new insights about customer behavior.

Fortunately, companies have several choices in both CI/CD and cloud-native platforms. One basic requirement is that the platforms be available in the geographies where the company does business. Gracely explored cloud-native platform choices in September.  Choosing the right platforms, both to facilitate the internal transition to cloud-native organizations and to create competitive advantage, is important. CIOs, Gracely writes, must actively investigate the choices in both platforms to find those that best fit their organizations’ cloud maturity level and corporate culture.

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