We read about the rise of the Low-Code platforms in the earlier post in this series. The race to add richness to low-code applications, aggressive vendor investments targeted at some of the most pressing needs, and ability to quickly respond to the challenges of modern enterprise applications are making the low-code platforms attractive. Low-code is often used in the niches of a company. On a high abstraction level, the use cases can be boiled down to four best fitted categories (Figure 5) where low-code gets the job done.
- Innovation. Innovative apps are making solutions/processes extremely exciting with impressive productivity, generating business value, using emerging technologies and driving innovation. These could be smart and connected apps merging the physical and digital world using the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). Applications under this category generally start with an idea and evolve with a high rate of change while relying on multiple integration points with external data feeds, web services, IoT data, geodata etc.
- Customer engagement. This group of applications focus on business and customer experience. The general goal is to improve customer experience, keep them engaged and improve the satisfaction score. The customer could be another business entity or end users. Think about B2B (Business-to-Business) portals, B2B apps, B2C (Business-to-Consumer) portals, B2C apps; these are one of the largest pools of applications where low-code presence can be seen. These applications often connect to core digital systems and have multi-channel connectivity.
- Operational efficiency. Not all of the applications need to be bulletproof or come with a slew of features; oftentimes basic applications aim to improve the organization-specific business processes, or operations are sufficient to enable the team to become more productive and deliver more value. These are principally B2E (Business-to-Employee) apps, workflow or case management applications, compliance and quality management applications and departmental apps. Such applications are often combined with B2B apps. This is also a large group of applications where low-code is widely used. Being organization specific in nature, they are generally integrated with Systems of record, ERP solutions, CRM solutions, Salesforce, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle, NetSuite etc.
- Legacy modernization. In many organizations, legacy applications serve critical roles in driving business operations. There is a clear need to modernize outdated systems. Often, when retiring the legacy is a not an immediate solution, a low-code solution could be positioned to co-exist to get the most out of the legacy before pulling the plug. The primary focus could be on replacing the legacy or building new skins on top of it while maintaining the system itself. This category could be one of the biggest markets for low-code to penetrate. At enterprises, these applications mostly interact with (but not limited to) Lotus notes, 3GL/4GL apps, Access, SharePoint, Excel, Core record keeping systems and core system extensions.
The key advantages of the low-code platforms
Never before, in the history of software development, has the complexity of technology been this huge. Developers are expected to cover a vast array of areas: (multi-)cloud, hybrid infrastructure, security, performance, scalability, cross-platform, multi-device responsiveness, offline availability, distributed caching, databases, extensions, APIs, AI, ML, DevOps. The complexity has increased exponentially and, so has the application development time. In this complex environment, the low-code platforms are developing themselves into a solid foundation for digitization, with many advantages:
- Rapid development enables faster time-to-market. With low-code platforms, businesses can translate ideas into working prototypes in days rather than weeks or months. It gives the true agility to quickly respond to change, fail fast, iteratively improve faster and reach the market better. Rapid development enables shorter time-to-market with faster application development. As a result of the rapid development tool, it significantly shortens the development time compared to traditional development, which can be better utilized for innovations.
- Ease of use. The development of the applications is simplified, using the model and visual-based development. It is primarily a drag-and-drop interface; a little technical knowledge is required to develop a business application. This makes room for business users to understand, engage and be accessible in the development journey of the applications.
- Easy integration with external systems. Low-code solutions can reduce the complexity of integration with other systems, making it interoperable. Integrations have always been the most cumbersome and tiring process in any software development. With the help of low-code platforms, developers significantly reduce time and effort using its out-of-the-box REST APIs, SOAP web services, webhooks, SAP, OData and external databases connectivity.
- In control. Since the infrastructure and codes were generated by the low-code platform, the underlying platform takes care of many important security aspects. It integrates with a wide array of identity providers and implements RBAC (role-based access controls). Once a low-code platform is connected and audited in the organization’s software perimeter, new uses cases can be built fast in a controlled environment.
- Scalability. The low-code platforms provide the ability to scale on demand. The applications can benefit from auto-scaling, auto-provisioning, auto-healing out of the box to meet the enterprise needs for users, volumes of data, app functionality. However, the suitability in larger projects and for crucial enterprise applications are yet to be witnessed at large scale.
- Privacy. Low-code platforms apply necessary procedures to safeguard the confidentiality of the data stored by the applications.
- In-built monitoring and logging. Applications developed using low-code benefit from the platforms’ easy-to-use in-built monitoring solution. There is a wide range of monitoring available e.g. performance, network, server, usages activity, technical debt monitoring. Applications also leverage from the out-of-box logging analytics which helps in troubleshooting errors, web service and API invocations, access logs.
- Maintainability. Few platforms provide the service which measures key aspects of app maintainability against a set of ISO/IEC 25010 parameters i.e. modularity, reusability, analyzability, modifiability, testability, and highlights any potential issues that should be addressed. As mentioned, it also provides the technical debt monitor, which helps perform code and runtime performance analysis before recommending solutions to help improve the system’s maintainability.
- Mobile-first, offline-first. Low-code supports mobile app development with offline and native capabilities. The platform provides control over (offline) data storage, data synchronization and offline architecture.
- Cost-effective. Due to the fact that the basic applications can be built with relatively less skilled staff and that the development cycle of these applications is shortened, more applications can be realized in the same amount of time with less cost. The applications are maintainable and significantly reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO). Hence gives great business value.
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