What Is Low Code Software Development?

Organizations are increasingly seeking higher quality of Next-Gen software, and they are demanding faster time to market from vendors & developers. Gartner established in their recent forecast that the increase in the number of business technologists, growing enterprise-wise hyper automation, and rise in composabale organizational digital investments are accelerating the use of low code software development.

Low code development is expected to make a massive impact on global business in 2023 with growth expected to touch 20% by the end of the year. IBM, Microsoft, Accenture, Google and many other tech giants have already made significant investment in low code development, enabling the concept to flourish rapidly when combined with agile project management principles.

Accenture discuss that low code will make a major impact like Shopify did a decade ago with ecommerce. SMEs are increasingly adopting low code development to compete against large scale enterprises, optimize business productivity, simplifying business processes, and empowering their teams, discuss Accenture analysts.

Today we take an in-depth look at low code development, it benefits, features, and what to look for when choosing a low code development partner for your business.

What is Low Code Software Development?

Low code is a graphical or visual approach towards software development that drives faster product development with minimum coding by developers.

Low code platforms are designed with user friendly graphical interfaces (similar to that of Shopify) with drag and drop features assisting developers through the entire front & backend development process, reducing dependency on complex coding infrastructures.

Professionals discuss that low code software development platforms are built to facilitate rapid application development, combined with agile project management. Low code development also gives rise to what we have come to know as citizen developers. These are simply enterprise users with minimal development experience & skills, and low code allows them to alleviate pressure on IT teams by taking on more challenging software development tasks.

Source: Gartner

How Does Low Code Software Development Benefit Organizations?

Low code software development offers fantastic benefits to organizations, especially small & medium size businesses, enabling them to enhance operational efficiency while empowering their citizen developers at the same time. Let’s look at the noticeable benefits of Custom software development identified by professionals and technology vendors.

Faster Time to Market

Low code development actively induces time savings and allows non-developer users to create software, instead of waiting on conventional development teams for weeks. Want to experience real time savings? Then get one of your professional developers use low code instead of traditional coding languages. The result software has faster time to market, and your development team saves months in advance.

Enhanced Productivity

Microsoft has already discussed that low code frees up the schedule for development teams, allowing them to focus on more complex tasks. Teams can work more efficiently, with less experienced devs and citizen developers sharing tasks.

Business teams don’t necessarily have to wait for developers to work on minimal tasks, as they can create their own applications, with less time taken from ideation to software deployment. Professional developers discuss that with low code since time is not a barrier, enterprises experience real time innovation.

Cost Reduction

A Microsoft funded survey by Edelman Assembly discovered that close to 87% CIOs & IT professionals say low cost is helping their organizations decrease costs. Another Microsoft commissioned study by Forrester identified that the use of Power Platform (Microsoft’s exclusive low code platform) & Azure assisted in reducing costs by 24%.

The rapid & simplified development environment set up by low code platforms also reduces the need to hire more developers, instantly influencing hiring costs. We already know that there is vast talent gap in developer supply and those available demand higher salaries. A low code tool can enable non-developer resources to accomplish basic development tasks without compromising budgets.

Flexibility

Operating a business in the modern economy requires delivering high quality cross-platform solutions faster. Low code platforms have the exclusive advantage of creating native cross platform apps without losing time on creating code and testing.

Elevated Customer Experiences

Several professionals discuss that the magnitude of low code goes beyond the IT and software development of organizations. As organizations develop products faster with higher quality it leads to delightful customer experiences.

In a comment for CMSWire Intercom’s VP of customer support, Declan Ivory discusses that low code transfers the ability to design customer experiences in the hands of teams who have real time knowledge of customer needs. He went on to say that as informed customer support teams can develop their own solutions, instead of waiting months for developers, as customer needs & preferences shift.

Effective Risk Management

Change can be costly and bring risks for organizations, such as a simple website migration to a new platform, which can become a reason for alterations within organizational teams. Therefore, change management involves a professional developer’s guidance, specifically in the matter of software development.

Low code platforms support changes, providing business teams with improved authority over the development process and enabling better risk management. It allows organizations to manage hiring risks by entrusting development to other skilled business resources and letting new processes quickly be ratified with higher implementation and lower costs.

Simplify Maintenance & Updates

Low code platforms are examined to function soundly across diverse platforms with no bugs & errors. Features can be added without congeniality or performance concerns, proving it is a better quality software. Maintenance thus becomes effortless with the utilization of less specious software with highly compatible features.

Source: Accenture

Innovative Features of Quality Low Code Development

Low code software development platforms own an incredible range of innovative features ensuring practicability, flexibility, user-friendly interface, and security. For instance, the available pre-built templates within low code platforms permit constituents to be recycled, covering diverse projects and saving days of development hours. The following are certain of the most popular features of low-code software builders.

Graphic Development Interface

Probably one of the most significant features of low code platforms are their graphical development interface. The visual approach to software development with integrated templates allows faster development, and are very user friendly for citizen developers to work on.

Low code platforms have a very similar interface to that of Shopify for building websites. Users can easily go around the dashboard with ease, irrespective of the skill level with development.

Innovative Development Functionality

Low code platforms remove the need to create software modules & components from scratch. Vendors identify that their innovative low code solutions can also provide data storage and customer centric functionality already built into templates.

Drag-and-Drop Interface

The drag and drop features of low code solutions are considered an invaluable functionality, since they simplify the development process to days instead of spending hours coding basic components. This convenience of picking up and dropping elements like a Canva project completely revolutionizes the development process for both citizen & professional developers.

Security

Security is usually built-into low code platforms to enhance the safety of project data and the final product. However, professionals suggest analyzing the available security of a low code platform and taking additional measures to secure it.

IBM Security Intelligence establishes that since low code platforms present complex security concerns, most organizations take a zero trust approach towards these tools. The IBM blog discusses that zero trust security models isolate data & resources by default. Access to the project is provided through strict authorization rules & privileges. Every connection, device, and user is authenticated and then assigned access to data & resources.

Scalability

Low code systems develop products that are automatically scalable and can accommodate more users over time. Microsoft discuss in its blog that businesses can assume a low code platform is scalable, but to be a scalable platform its needs to accommodate increase in users, applications, data, and different functionalities.

Supposing the purchased platform’s capability involves low-code scalability is quite easy, but platform scalability truly requires the inability to handle increases in the number of users, data, applications, and processes. Furthermore, for professional developers backing up with low-code development, their aim is to write code that does not often require to be updated as things modify.

Cross Platform Compatibility

Low code platforms have vast cross platform compatibility to allow business teams to work from anywhere over any OS platform enhancing development speed.

Five Key Considerations to Choose the Right Low-Code Platform

Low code platforms can have a massive effect on the speed, quality, and efficiency of software development. Professional developers identify five important factors that help in selecting the ideal platform for low code initiatives.

Functionality & Ease of Use

Low code platform primarily analyzes the easiness of use and functionality because such platforms are specifically built to streamline development and accelerate time to market. Therefore, it is a great way to appraise free trials and realize how contented business teams are with the diverse solutions and try out crucial features, including reusable components, data modeling, drag & drop, and AI integration competencies.

Integration Features

Low code platforms must be able to sync with existing technology stacks like databases, ERP systems, etc. A great way to evaluate said platforms is by assessing their integration features for example REST APIs. High quality low code platforms usually come with pre-developed connectors for business systems.

Performance

Your low code platform must have the capability to scale performance as your organization grows over time. More internal users, growing customers, and more data requires a powerful solution that can easily scale resources to accommodate these changes.

Security

As we discussed above security is one of the top concerns for low code platforms. A low code solution should have robust security apparatuses in place that include user authorization & access, data encryption, and security audit capabilities. For those operating in markets with regulatory compliance it is essential for the platform to meet popular legislation like GDPR.

Platform Vendor Experience

Lastly, a vendors experience and reputation are of utmost importance for a business to associate with them. A great way is to analyze online reviews and for more direct evaluation schedule a meeting & demo with vetted low code vendors.

When Should a Business Consider Low Code Software Development?

Organizations need to make the ‘going low code’ decision with much consideration, using the factors we identified above. Identifying when to use low code development is also a complex exercise and requires assessing the circumstances & requirements of their projects.

Yes, low code development offers amazing benefits & features, but, they may not be ideal for every software project. Dynamic & complex solutions like ERP systems may require the conventional development approach.

Digital business consultants and professional developers alike advise evaluating the needs of a project including its technical requirements, short term & long term goals, resource requirements, time to market, etc. before choosing a low code platform.

The Progatix development team identified seven unique circumstances when organizations should choose to go with low code software development platforms

Rapid App Development

Low code platforms are designed to facilitate rapid of software such as , mobile apps development , and web apps development . In the case that you need to deliver an MVP quickly to address changing customer needs & preferences, low code is the way to go for faster time to market and low cost development.

Resource Constrained Development

With developer number already dwindling and unable to meet market demand, a low code solution can significantly reduce stress on organizations. Low code enable citizen developers with minimal coding knowledge to build fully functional software, quickly. Low code eases the burden off development teams and empowers business teams to participate in product development.

Agile Project Management

Low code development platforms were made to combine with agile project management methodologies. For businesses that require regular updates, new features, agility to adapt to market changes low code can allow quick prototyping, multiple software iterations, and continuous deployment based on agile methodologies.

Process Automation

Business that have multiple repetitive tasks to perform manually, low code can be a fantastic automation solution to stream operations in real time. Organizations can readily optimize efficiency, reduce human errors, and assign teams to more critical processes.

Interoperability

One of the most ideal settings for low code development is when a business is dependent on several interoperable systems, databases, and APIs. Low code platforms are designed with connectors and integration tools to simplify 3^rd part integrations while synchronizing data sharing within systems.

Prototyping

Low code is a high preference when organizations require a prototype for their required software. This profligate prototyping can be conclusive in introducing new features, authorizing ideation phases, assembling decisive feedback, and representing the software expertise prior to investing profoundly into the idea.

Citizen Developer Empowerment

Low code development is an excellent way of endowing citizen developers, promoting non-developer teams’ novelty, and improving junior developer knowledge. The user-friendly interface of low-code platforms permits citizen developers to build on their ideas and produce user-friendly applications speedily without much sustenance from professional devs.

Five Popular Examples of Low Code Software

Low code has become really popular among some of the top tech brands across the world. Here are five real life examples of software & apps built with low code platforms.

TrackVia

TrackVia refers to a workflow automation and data management low-code platform due to the ability of the platform to contribute towards the development of popular enterprise-grade inventory management, project management systems, and quality control.

Nintex

Built with low code, Nintex is a process automation and workflow management solution. The primary goals of the platform is build software to streamline business operations and enhance process automation. From document management, HR management tools to more complex contract management and project management tools Nintex provides business the agility to create need based software quickly.

App Sheet

App Sheet, now a Google product, is a notorious low code development platform facilitating mobile & web applications development incorporating inventory management, audit, prominent field service management, and data management tools.

Zoho Creator

Zoho’s signature low code development tool is designed to build a plethora of custom enterprise software without the need for complex coding. Zoho Creator has already contributed to the development of premier enterprise software including project management, CRM, sales management, inventory management, and HR management systems.

Quick Base

QuickBase, like the others on this list, enables businesses to develop custom enterprise tools for multiple needs. From project management & task management to more complex asset management & data analytics tools, Quick Base is known for its remarkable feature set and built-in goodies for citizen developers.

Conclusion

Considering Gartner’s research prediction that almost 70% of applications will be accumulated by means of low code tech has made these tools’ potential evident. Mendix research revealed that 70% of fathomed users learned to use low-code platforms within 1 month. Additionally, McKinsey research notifies that organizations empowering citizen developers score 33% greater on improvement score.

With their ability to cut development times between 50% & 90%, a popular Mendix survey identified that 33% of the organization plans to migrate development to low-code platforms. We hope you enjoyed this edition of our blog. For more interesting reads, remember to bookmark us. Join our social feeds and stay tuned for more.

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