No-Code is No Longer An Option for the Enterprise, But A Necessity
Today, organizations are looking for software that can improve operations and ensure faster time to market. In that regard, no-code platforms are bringing a significant change in the way they interact with computers to build software and applications. The interface between humans and computers has typically been through code. But no-code platforms have an interpretation layer that allows humans to provide inputs through visual symbols and actions and the interpreter converts these inputs into code that is understood by computers. In other words, these platforms have effectively taken away the need to code applications and utilities that would otherwise have taken months and required the knowledge of coding and architecting systems.
In an exclusive interaction with CXOToday, Muzammil Patel, Global Head Strategy and Corporate Finance at Acies, a Mumbai based technology provider, specializing in no-code platforms, explains how CXOs can realize significant improvements in productivity and business agility using no-code platform, the company’s plans for the India market, future of no-code, and more.
What is driving the CXO interest in the No-Code platforms and what kind of business challenges arise in no-code platforms?
The CXO interest in no-code platforms is driven primarily by the need to undertake rapid automation within limited budgets. No-code platforms remove two entire layers in the traditional software development lifecycle i.e., the coder and the solution architect. This enables CXOs to stay focused on business objectives and not invest significant time or money on the machine interaction and interpretation aspects.
No-code platforms require a serious change in mindset and a complete disruption of the traditional software development lifecycle. The biggest business challenge is cultural adaptation of organizations to the new ways of software development.
No-code platforms, in their current form, also put an increase in emphasis on the role of business analysts who are under pressure to both skill-up and turn around applications in record time. The lack of business analysts who are ready to go beyond documentation and engage in application configuration is a serious capacity challenge in the no-code adoption process.
Finally, no-code platforms are painted as a very broad category and many platforms that eliminate or reduce coding in one small area are positioned as no-code. This demonstration effect to further the marketing goals of regular development platforms or environments impacts the confidence of users in true no-code platforms.
When do you think that the no-code platform would become mainstream?
The interest and adoption of no-code platforms is steadily gaining momentum and mainstream adoption is expected by 2023 – as organizations complete their first cycle of learning with no-code platforms and move towards making preferential budgetary allocations for applications built on no-code platforms. As more legacy internal applications start sun-setting between 2023 and 25, the replacement cycle should see all these replaced by applications built on no-code platforms. Vendor applications that require specific and specialized expertise are expected to co-exist with no-code platforms. However, more generic, legacy, rigid, bespoke, and poorly supported applications will be replaced in the no-code wave.
No-code as a concept and technology is just the beginning of replacing the human-computer engagement interface. As the technology develops, it is expected to eliminate the need for business analysts and interpretation through visual symbols. As this transition happens and no-code moves into a self-service mode where end-users build applications directly without the need or support of business analysts and IT teams, no-code will no longer be an option, but a necessity. It will most likely be the only way to build software.
What will be the top three trends in no-code that we can see in the next one year?
We expect no-code platforms to make the transition from a visual symbol-based development to a more natural language-based interaction with individuals. We expect that this will accelerate the transition to self-service.
We expect to see a larger developer and creator economy get built around no-code platforms. This will include not just applications that can be directly monetized but also tools, templates, models, and other artefacts that can be monetized for use across applications.
We also expect to see AI getting meaningfully embedded within no-code platforms to enable the self-service objective and also to enable rapid creation of use-cases for end-business.
What are your business plans in 2022 and in the next one year?
Acies’ focus in 2022 is mainly on three aspects (i) making our no-code platform Revolutio self-service to enable elimination of the business analyst layer in application development (ii) building a marketplace to enable developers to create, share and monetize applications and components built on Revolutio, and (iii) transition traditional legacy B2B software to a SaaS model as they are built on the no-code platform.
