Low code platforms are bringing a paradigm shift in how organizations leverage new technology to develop and roll out custom applications at remarkably fast speeds.
And as organizations race against their competitors to deliver new applications and optimize business processes, tech analyst Gartner projects sales for low code development technologies to grow by 19% over the next four years to reach $44.5 billion by 2026.
“Organizations are increasingly turning to low code development technologies to fulfill growing demands for [faster] application delivery and highly customized automation workflows,” said Varsha Mehta, a senior market research specialist at Gartner.
Doing the Legwork for Developers
Low code platforms give a modular approach to building applications, integrations, automation, and websites. A low code platform enables hard-to-find professional developers to build products in a visually declarative manner, by abstracting commonly used functionalities as components.
These components can be dragged and dropped onto an application canvas and then configured and customized per application. Such a methodology allows developers to tackle complexity with ease and build products, almost 3X times faster than traditional approaches.
With much of the boilerplate taken care of and seamless integration/compatibility with most databases and apps, developers are able to focus on only the most important aspects of development.
They are able to create proof of concepts and iterate much faster and eventually save 100s of hours.
What would take developers about four months to build with code, low code is helping get ready in under two weeks. This kind of speed is enriching teams and their capabilities to meet the demand for new, custom tools.
Why CTOs Are Driving the Adoption of Low Code
The low code market has caught the CTOs’ attention today due to the wide range of internal use cases and innovation capabilities these tools render.
From integrating into the company's existing tech stack to configuring applications that would otherwise take significant time and money to build.
Sendinblue, a cloud-based marketing solution, uses low code workflow automation, data integration, and management tools to quickly experiment with features such as new pricing plans, says CTO Yvan Saule.
He shared that his developers “can drag-and-drop the integration functions, and build new capabilities atop that integration.”
There is a long learning curve for new developers in the software development industry. Low code allows one to tap into the company’s existing potential and enables even beginner developers to create sophisticated solutions without having to learn complex development methods.
Fivetran CTO shares that an analytics group prepares its marketing effectiveness dashboards that are used by the rest of the organization.
“This allows our employees to focus on what they’re good at,” he says, rather than wasting time or money tying up IT infrastructure downloading the same data.
Why Low Code?
There are just not enough IT resources in the workplace to meet the demands - be it internal facing or customer-facing issues like security and maintenance take up most of the IT department's time leaving less legroom for new system requirements or updation of outdated technologies to take place.
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Existing systems, devices, and cloud platforms are not integrated.
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End users are unable to locate the information they need, and if they do, it is inaccurate.
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Legacy systems not keeping up with progressing business needs.
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On-premise hosting is at odds with remote work policies.
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A whole lot of insights and opportunities are hidden in unmanaged or inaccessible datasets.
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If the business teams need new systems, they often have to wait months or in most cases, years, to see their needs met.
Top Category of Apps Built With Low Code
The popularity of low code development has been evenly spread through industries - retail, finance, governments, telecommunications, construction, real estate, pharmaceuticals, ITes, manufacturing - you name it!
When zooming in on what most companies are building with low code platforms, we have narrowed it down to a few broad categories - Internal tools, Data collection forms, Automation, Operational apps, and Customer Portals.
- Internal tools are the lifeblood of the organization. These could range from comprehensive CRUD apps to feature-rich custom support tools.
- Data collection forms to capture customer, employee, and stakeholder information, and then automate the next steps - is the second most popular application of low code platforms.
Unicorn stage beauty startup Purplle is using a low code platform to streamline some of its website visitor interactions that are used to personalize the product recommendations shared with customers. New custom feature securely embedded into the current web application.
Mondelez, the company behind Cadbury and a host of other chocolate brands, shares that low code enables them to go from an idea to a working app within weeks; helping them keep the tools of their trade (for sales training and onboarding) as current as possible.
- Low-code platforms also provide ways to integrate apps and automate the processes that flow between them. Integrating disparate systems and automating the data flow process is another popular application.
Many companies that are stuck with legacy infrastructure (think SAP, Oracle, Citrix) that they can’t afford to rip out and replace rely on low code to extend their tools functionality.
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Operational app development is seeing a generous amount of low code adoption; especially useful for product managers and LoB managers who may have to build integrated automation and dashboards but do not have the bandwidth or the expertise to design the solutions. Tools for customer support, invoice management, and new account setup.
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Customer portals that give clients a unified view of their ongoing projects, orders, and contracts with your service are critical business tools that can now be easily built using low code tools, integrating the right data points, building the user interface, and putting it behind a secure login so each custom sees only their data.
Low code platforms are giving users a way to easily add new features or capabilities to existing websites or online portals or applications with the option to embed their low code apps.
- These apps can be made public; think a website form or a ticket raising system, or secured behind a login.
A Solution That Is Pertinent to Progress
Although analyst firm Forrester first coined the term ‘low code’ back in 2014, in many ways, the low code way of building software through reusability, shortcuts, and templates has been used by developers for at least half a century as engineers worked out ways to encode repeatable functions and automation recipes into their development practices.
Today, Google has its low code platform AppSheet, Amazon has Honeycomb, Microsoft has Power Platform, Oracle has Apex, and Salesforce has Lightning.
With the likes of these tech giants entering the low code space, in addition to the DronaHQ, Builder ai, and Zoho Creator in the market, it is not surprising to see low code platforms being rapidly adopted by technology leaders at brands like Wipro, LTI, Colgate, Mondelez, IDFC First Bank, Kotak Bank, Purplle, Urban Ladder!
Low code platforms promise not only to accelerate the development of software, but also to improve the capture of user needs, and, ultimately, boost buy-in for new applications, helping them achieve their business objectives.
From where we stand, this sure looks like the promising tech beacon here to solve the developer woes for the long haul!