The need for a digital-first business strategy and, by corollary, the need for investments in technology is axiomatic in today?s times. In the post-pandemic era, digital tech initiatives remain an important strategic initiative for organizations as a critical differentiator for workforce management and business model disruption. As published by Gartner, global IT spending is expected to exceed USD 4 trillion in 2022. Gartner undertook another survey that shows that 82% of Enterprise CFOs intend to increase spending in digital initiatives and view technology as an essential competitive differentiator that can widen the performance gap between their business and their peers.
Developer shortage solutions
An interesting trend shows that organizations across industries are grappling with skilled software developer shortages. While the investment in technology post-pandemic has significantly increased for enterprises, the supply of technology just hasn?t kept pace. The gap in terms of skill and supply shortage is a serious pain point for organizations that need to quickly ?automate? and ?modernize? back-office processes, office and administration processes, and transaction processing systems. The demand for digital combined with the inadequacies of traditional software development to meet the demand has created a gap that can be very easily serviced through a no-code way of development.
While not all equal, no-code platforms work on the hypothesis that users are able to eliminate or at least reduce coding during the application development lifecycle. This empowers the end-user, reduces development and deployment time, reduces the cost of technology ownership, and most importantly, allows for the rapid roll-out of end-user applications and experiences. Of the many advantages that no-code development offers, one of them is that professionals (developers and non-developers) alike can start building applications through a drag and drop visual interface without being a software development expert. Instead of worrying about lengthy development, UAT cycles and change management procedures, applications and automation requirements can be fulfilled at a rapid pace. Another critical advantage is that removing the hassle of managing and maintaining the code base is a resource and cost overhead that can be easily eliminated by adopting the no-code way of development.
A transition from usual need org and cultural rejigs
Of course, the adoption of no-code will also require some organizational and cultural transition. Traditionally, approximately 30% of the workforce of some of the largest global institutions consists of software developers. This will invariably change as the adoption of no-code development will push the organization?s workforce to be more business and functional-oriented. As business and IT silos are down, application development will move from requirement gathering, agile development and business user testing to ?WYSIWYG? (?what you see is what you get?) models requiring the application developers to be more functionally aware of the business case.
Adopting the no-code way of development is as pertinent as it is inevitable for CIOs to deliver tech innovation rapidly. While the adoption of SaaS products in the prebuilt market has also increased, the spending on in-house custom software is still significant for organizations to ensure a real and competitive differentiation.
The best way to start the journey of no-code is to use it to deliver on the ?hyper-automation? requirements of organizations today. Hyper-automation requirements refer to a disciplined, business-driven approach to rapidly identifying, vetting, and automating as many business and IT processes as possible. These include business processes addressing tasks such as customer relationship management, inventory management, purchasing, sales and accounting management, workforce management, business MIS reporting, IT and physical asset management, and more. Automating these will help businesses streamline workflows, provide near real-time visibility into operations, reduce manual error and help companies take advantage of scalable and cloud-based infrastructures. This will create a seamless and modern technological environment for the organization in which applications development can be quickly democratized, and automation and digital requirements can be met promptly.
A resilient and modernized application development approach created through no-code platforms is the impetus of innovation for organizations today. No-code application development ensures rapid application development, allowing enterprises to customize and build processes while preserving the business knowledge and experience accumulated over time. By empowering the workforce to do customized innovations, enterprises are well-positioned to truly take advantage, grow and succeed in the new digital economy era.
The author is Leader- Business Solution, Acies