The goal of digital transformation is to replace manual, analog business processes, that are being pursued by many businesses, with efficient, digital workflows. This frequently necessitates tailored or specialized solutions to address the company’s specific needs, capabilities, and limitations. However, building custom code manually for each workflow or operation that is digitized is time-consuming and diverts development resources from other critical or profitable initiatives.
Low-code application development is a recent solution that has entered the market at the right time. Low code, at its most basic, is a method of developing applications that rely on platform-based visual design components like checkboxes and drop-down menus to rapidly and easily create, modify, and deliver business applications with little to no hand-coding.
Low-code helps in the development of digital solutions by making coding less time-consuming for both developers and non-developers. With the help of a low-code platform, businesses can monitor, direct, and take action to maximize the effectiveness of their digital transformation and enhance the return on their software application investments.
Here are a few ways in which low-code helps in accelerating digital transformation:
- Simplifies software development: With its visual, drag-and-drop feature, low-code platforms make coding easy for people with limited technical knowledge or programming experience. Using a low-code platform, citizen developers or non-technical employees can create and modify simple processes independently without having to contact IT teams. By allowing non-technical employees to establish and manage data flows, low-code makes it easier for an organization to accomplish more in less time through the distributed workload. It gives core IT professionals the liberty to focus on more critical tasks rather than spending months on developing apps. A user-friendly interface also allows users to execute improvements more quickly and effectively, saving both time and money on resources.
- Offers flexible data integrations: Low-code helps in breaking down information siloes created by a lack of interoperability between modern platforms and legacy systems by simplifying data integration through the rapid creation of customized applications and workflows. Hence, organizations can easily connect their databases and apps with legacy systems via application programming interface (API) connectors which enables them to build comprehensive end-to-end software solutions.
- Accelerates visual development: With its drag-and-drop process modeling, low-code can assist in automating complicated processes while allowing users to build from pre-existing apps and data within minutes. The visual development process is substantially accelerated by the drag-and-drop workflow, enabling the rapid creation of apps needed for the current wave of digital transformation. Furthermore, using low-code platforms, users can benefit from pre-built UI components like menu bars, form sections, buttons, etc., and combine them to build a complete application.
- Streamlines business processes: Businesses can streamline governance at scale by utilizing low-code to consolidate and integrate all data. Low-code technologies can be used to automate critical tasks and enhance internal business processes that could have a direct impact on a company’s growth and development. Additionally, a low-code platform’s built-in security features make it a secure solution for improving internal processes in sectors that manage sensitive data assets like financial services and healthcare.
- Reduces cost and time: Some software solutions take so long to build that it is already too late by the time they are released. When that happens, organizations might find it challenging to compete with more adaptable and futuristic businesses. In such situations, low-code allows businesses to react more quickly by drastically cutting down on development times. Low-code platforms can reduce turnaround time for app development from months to minutes. Low-code platforms enable users to develop software within very less time by allowing simple, quick, and intuitive handling, thanks to the availability of pre-built modules and the elimination of lengthy and complicated coding. Additionally, it eliminates the cost of hiring many developers because anyone can develop software in an organization using low-code.
- Eases management of software lifecycles: Low code platforms strive to provide adaptable and affordable applications with simpler, easy-to-maintain iterative feedback cycles. They enable organizations to make quick changes within the software without needing a whole team of specialists dedicated to upgrading them because low-code platforms can be accessible by anybody with basic technical knowledge. The stages of an application lifecycle, including development, deployment, monitoring, maintenance, and update, can all be carried out in real-time from one location using low-code. It makes it simple to add new functionalities and implement change requests within hours, unlike traditional systems that take months to update.
- Improves scalability: A low-code approach reduces the time and effort required to deploy and maintain apps across an organization. Low-code technology allows for highly configurable and scalable solutions. This enables teams to interact with any pre-existing enterprise software, such as ERP, CRM, custom apps, and databases, and extract the content from their key legacy investments.
- Enhanced productivity, efficiency, and customer experience: Low-code platforms have predefined user interfaces, WYSIWYG interfaces, and quicker deployment timetables, making it relatively simpler to write code on them. By utilizing a strong enterprise-wide platform with the right safeguards, organizations can substantially enhance development process efficiency and improve productivity while creating apps that match the most pressing needs of customers.
As a result of digital transformation, all types of businesses in all industries are looking for fresh approaches to overcome obstacles and improve corporate performance. By implementing low code, organizations can be more experimental while implementing their ideas. Considering all this, it can be anticipated that moving forward low-code platforms will play a critical role in accelerating digital transformation by simplifying software development. With its ability to speed up time-to-market, reduce development and maintenance cost, and improve business performance, it will help organizations across all industries to incorporate technological advancements and enhance efficiency.
