Embracing a cloud native continuum: Revolutionizing app development and collaboration

The outlook for Applications and cloud technologies in 2024 anticipates the ongoing acceleration of cloud adoption, bringing forth opportunities in areas such as Gen AI, the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), and the democratization of app development, among others.

Outlook #1 – AI Apps platform accelerates your Gen AI use cases

Similar to the evolution of other platforms such as data platforms and IoT platforms, we will see the emergence of an AI Apps platform to deliver your Gen AI use cases. The advantage is that, by having an integrated and coherent platform, we can quickly scale our use case efficiently and immediately.

For example, on a platform, if we consider the use of Large Language Models (LLMs), we could use a number of these products simultaneously, and as they are based in one location, their results can be more easily assessed. In effect, we are stacking a lot of use cases in a governed environment implementing guardrails, accompanying policies and processes.

Start designing an AI Apps platform to accelerate the most efficient use of Gen AI.

Outlook #2 – Expand agility across the Software Development Lifecycle

The Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) will evolve into a continuous, ongoing model. The traditional, non-iterative V-model had a specific start and end date, however, as products are being continuously updated to meet user demands for additional features, the SDLC has to reflect this reality.

Since Gen AI, the SDLC has fundamentally changed. In this context, Gen AI is not so much a technology in itself which creates finished products, but a way of augmenting existing roles such as product owners, developers, and architects, among others.

Once embraced, Gen AI has the potential to enhance value through the addition of features, gathering positive feedback, and optimizing returns and monetization. This technology can also decrease time to market, expanding customer engagement and securing a competitive edge. Ultimately, it elevates the customer experience, establishing a perpetual cycle that drives business success.

Sogeti is at the forefront of infusing AI across all its offers, assets, and accelerators. Our mission is to help our customers adopt Gen AI for their people and practices.

Start using your Gen AI superpowers to build and modernize existing apps.

Outlook #3 – Meet the value-driven organization

A value-driven organization thrives when there is a shared ambition among key departments, such as IT and the Business side. Once a common purpose is established, the focus shifts from independent financial operations (FinOps) to delivering value for the entire organization.

Traditionally, IT’s perception of value might revolve around standardization, simplification, and maintainability, whereas the Business prioritizes aspects like time-to-market (TTM), quality, and reliability. Despite being distinct departments within an organization, they must collaborate and establish a unified approach grounded in common Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).

When independent departments lack a common purpose, their divergent concepts of value may lead to counterproductive outcomes. However, by incorporating value—despite its seemingly “non-functional” nature—it ultimately contributes to the success of both internal operations and external relationships within the organization.

But what is value? Value is best understood as moving beyond individual departmental FinOps and their definition of value which tends to be cost, and having a broader, shared ambition.

Consider sustainability: it may not yield immediate financial returns, yet its long-term benefits are undeniable.

A company which considers values other than traditional FinOps, adds a human element which may not add to the bottom line immediately but it will enrich the culture of the organization, both inside and out, over time.

Start adding a value realization approach within FinOps and sustainability which takes in the entire organization as a whole.

Outlook #4 – Embark on the intelligent cloud native continuum journey

Our next phase in cloud utilization moves beyond a single destination to embrace a cloud-native continuum journey. This involves operating across multiple cloud environments and on-premises infrastructure in a fluid and evolving manner.

Embracing a cloud-native approach enables organizations to harness a variety of technologies, ranging from containers to stateless and serverless applications. By leveraging the optimal offerings from different providers, an organization’s cloud experience evolves into a seamless ‘continuum’ as it navigates through a spectrum of cloud-native technologies and products.

Once adopted, organizations can quickly respond to their changing requirements by employing cloud native services that can quickly switch from one solution to another. A continuum journey is beneficial as it seeks to use, not the smallest combination of technologies, but to take advantage of the right product at the right time for your specific use case.

Start thinking about your multi-layered cloud continuum, from customer experience to cloud services, defining the right abstraction of services to engage your teams and operate your products.

Outlook #5 – Democratize App Development

The significant shortage of developers should come as no surprise to anyone in the tech industry. However, this scarcity has coincided with and fostered the notion that app development should be democratized, with the rise of low code/no code platforms and real-time “now” prompting.

The emphasis is on the word start. Business analysts who are familiar with the requirements of an app would be able to use Gen AI and low code to contribute to the creation of, mixing pro developers for custom features, advanced APIs, and end-user interfaces.

Organizations should promote the formation of fusion teams that bring together professional developers, business analysts, and key users of apps. Gen AI will enable individuals in roles previously lacking developer experience to participate in app creation.

The democratization of app development will not only increase the perceived productivity of business analysts and other end users, but it will also bring prototyping, innovation and apps to become more business and end-user driven.

Start creating fusion teams to democratize app building with a combination of low code and Gen AI.