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Why Low Code-No-code is the Future of Application Development

low code

Thinking of application design and development? The first thing that comes to mind is the collaboration and coding involved in the process. The traditional process of designing and development requires business stakeholders to collaborate and define the scope and the IT team to use code-based development tools (languages, IDE, and frameworks) to build the application using waterfall or agile methodologies. However, post-pandemic, the way applications are developed has changed.

According to Mckinsey, 85% of 200 organizations surveyed have agreed that the needs and wants of their customer will see a significant change. Hence, it is time for enterprises to act toward modernizing application development and improving their customer experiences.

Bringing IT and Business Together

With centralized IT, distributed systems, dynamically changing technology and regulations, businesses are aggressively adopting low code/no-code platforms. According to research, the low code market is expected to hit the $45 Billion mark by 2025.

A low code application development platform eases application development with definitions instead of complex code. It facilitates integration via bundles and adapters, offers ready-made templates and fragments to reuse existing work, and enables collaborative application development. Also, the platform bridges the gap between IT and business users, enhances revenue and end-user experience.

The low code platform helps organizations stay ahead of the curve by rapidly creating digital products with cutting-edge technologies. The platform also enables IT to optimize infrastructure costs, ensure data security, and meet various compliance and regulations.

Low Code Platforms – Benefits Galore

 Low code platforms stand to offer umpteen benefits, some of which are:

  • Application Modernization – As businesses focus on enhancing end customer experience, they need capabilities such as self-service, integration with verification APIs, intelligent document uploading and handling, flexible error handling, and multi-channel customer journey support. Hence, modernizing applications is the need of the hour, and low code platforms can help businesses upgrade applications quickly.
  • Support for Developing Various Applications – Low code empowers business users with a tool kit to create business applications for data collection, data analysis, two-three step processes, reports, and dashboards. Pro IT developers can leverage low code platforms to build complex business applications, including end-user portals, multiple complex business processes, a large number of business rules, and multiple integrations with third-party systems. Furthermore, the platform offers a common, modern master data module (MDM) that allows IT to govern and manage data. It also provides a deployment engine and dashboard that facilitates IT to control all applications from a single, easy-to-use console.
  • Analytics Capabilities – With the platform, business users can quickly analyze parts of the applications that are working well and taking more time (or are causing some problem) and identify areas of change. The low code application development tools allow business and IT users to collaborate and quickly implement changes and deploy the modified/updated application.
  • Robotic Assistants – The platform offers the capability to design and deploy robotic assistants (bots). These assistants can help perform routine tasks such as approvals, mailing some reports, checking e-mails, fetching data from disparate systems or APIs, etc. Additionally, with artificial intelligence and machine learning, bots can also make decisions resulting in high straight-through processing and better end-user experience.
  • Unified and Consistent Interface – Using a low-code platform, businesses can deploy and manage hundreds of applications on the same MDM and development studio. This ensures a unified, consistent look and feel across all applications and reduces training costs. And, all applications have similar multi-channel, multi-device experience, providing a consistent customer experience. Also, in the case of UI updates/upgrades, all applications are modified with minimal effort, resulting in substantial cost savings.

To Conclude

According to Forrester, low code development platforms have the potential to make software development as much as 10 times faster than traditional methods.

Low code or no-code application platforms act as enablers to rapidly create digital products through an ecosystem of documentation, collaboration, design, development, infrastructure, and support. The platforms enable business users not only to design applications but also to monitor the business impact.

In a nutshell, the power of a low code platform is defined by the complexity of the application that can be designed with respect to the time taken to develop it.

(The author is Senior Vice President, Software Development at Newgen Software and the views expressed in this article are his own)

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