Experts predict that it can take as much as 50 years to meet the demand for software using the currently available development workforce and resources.
Traditional coding remains a largely manual, lengthy and inflexible process.
Enterprises often have to deal with legacy systems and difficult integrations which make it hard to meet requirements, and which are not always reusable across multiple lines of work or projects.
In the past decade there has been a growth in no-code and low-code tools that allow streamlining workflows and automating sorting or repetitive tasks without writing code, or allowing you to insert snippets at your own decision.
According to Gartner, as much as 65% of application development will be low-code (which also includes no-code) by 2024, and 3/4 of large enterprises will use at least four low-code development tools.
Blurring the line between business experts and developers
This ‘democratization’ of software development means more power is being transferred to non-technical users.
For enterprises, this can be a major opportunity if they adopt it well.
Working with a no-code/ low-code solution can help to relieve pressure on IT departments, save on software implementation and maintenance, and reduce shadow IT, especially if that tool has mission-critical capabilities.
At the same time, no-code/ low-code development can play a big role for multidisciplinary digital business teams also known as 'fusion teams'.
While traditional teams are typically structured according to functions or roles, fusion teams center around the business outcome: delivering products rather than projects.
Technical employees from IT departments work together with experts from sales, development, marketing, or other departments to achieve specific business outcomes in the form of applications and software.
What low-code brings to the table for fusion teams is more versatility. Employees can build backend systems, templates, themes, UI or UX features, APIs, or other custom components their business needs, which they can also reuse for other scenarios.
This provides an opportunity to address the issue of growing backlogs, and to mitigate Shadow IT.
A robust no-code/ low code platform enables business experts to create their own apps, therefore they do not need to seek external software to get their jobs done.
When something changes, they can turn to the platform to develop the custom apps they need, reducing the security risks and other disadvantages that may come with using external software.
Another good example of a fusion team model is where code-first developers create backend APIs and connectors and make these available for low-code developers in other areas of a company.
Code first-developers can also act as architects that strategically plan the app building projects as compared to using one-off solutions.
Governance for new work dynamics
Adopting a low-code tool raises questions around governance. Empowering more employees to build their own apps can be a game changer, but it can easily get out of control without the right approach.
Corporate IT does not have to take the role of a gatekeeper here, but rather act as an enabler that keeps non-technical people non-dependent on IT.
Besides a thorough implementation plan, companies can use policies and internal controls to make sure that the creation of new apps falls within their requirements.
For example, non-technical experts should create apps that developers can adjust or scale without having to re-construct the architecture from scratch.
To make this happen, it is best to start with a situation and performance analysis which most probably also involves the opinion of the CIO. It is important to determine at this step who will be the prime users of the new platform.
The dynamics of bringing together developers with business experts (which are different by to their own backgrounds, e.g. sales, marketing, operations, customers service etc) is a challenge which requires an adaptation in culture and mindset.
Developers in general are a very different breed of people compared to, for instance, people working in sales (geeks vs suits debate).
In addition, the CIO gets a different position in this new context. If until now she was acting as a digital transformation evangelist, she might need more managerial and coordination skills to manage the new technical decision-making dynamics of the fusion team members.
No-code/ low-code PaaS like PROCESIO can help enterprises keep up with fast-changing market demands by enabling collaboration between non-technical experts and IT, in a secure and scalable environment.
Would you like to learn more about how you can empower business experts to build custom software and workflows regardless of their coding skills? Send us a quick mail with your case and we will be glad to get in touch with you.