Application Lifecycle
Application lifecycle management (ALM) is the governance framework that covers an application from initial specification through development, testing, deployment, operation, and eventual retirement. In an ERP context, ALM principally concerns the disciplines of change management, release management, and decommissioning.
How it works
A typical enterprise ALM cycle runs: requirements capture → change impact assessment → development/configuration → quality assurance → UAT → release to production → post-release monitoring → repeat. The cycle is gated — a change cannot progress without passing the previous gate. The ALM toolchain (Jira, Azure DevOps, SAP Solution Manager) enforces the gates and maintains audit evidence.
Selection criteria
| Criterion | What to evaluate |
|---|---|
| Change governance | Who can approve a change to production? A documented RACI and an enforced approval gate are required for SOX-in-scope systems. |
| Environment strategy | You need at minimum development, test/QA, and production. Large ERP programmes typically run dev → QA → staging → production with environment refresh schedules. |
| Rollback capability | Can a bad release be reverted quickly? For SaaS ERP with shared infrastructure, rollback may not be possible — regression coverage in QA is the mitigation. |
| Dependency mapping | An ERP change may affect integrations, reports, and downstream applications. The ALM process needs a dependency register that is updated at each release. |
| Retirement process | Application retirement is consistently under-resourced. Budget for data archival, integration decommissioning, and licence termination — these take longer than assumed. |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between ALM and SDLC?+
How does ALM apply to SaaS ERP?+
What tools support ERP application lifecycle management?+
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