Covering Disruptive Technology Powering Business in The Digital Age

Written By: Dinesh Varadharajan, CPO, Kissflow

Dinesh Varadharajan, CPO at Kissflow

Innovation and the need to adapt to market changes have become the underlying catalysts for increased demand for app development.

Gartner, for example, finds that market demand for enterprise apps will exceed IT teams’ abilities to deliver them fivefold. This increased demand will hit organisations with undermanned IT teams especially hard. Further compounding matters, the Economist Impact reported that 33 and 39 percent of organisations struggle to equip their workers with digital skills due to time and cost constraints, respectively. These factors point to a heavier burden being placed on existing IT talent, who must grapple with massive app development backlogs.

However, organisations can alleviate these challenges by democratising innovation, which would rope in non-technical business personnel into the app-building process. This is where the power of low-code and no-code development comes in, as it simplifies application building and boosts service speed.

Low-Code vs. No-Code vs. Pro-Code

Traditionally, organisations relied on pro-code platforms to for app development. These technologies do not have pre-built components, and users need to have knowledge of programming languages like JavaScript, Python, and C# to build apps from scratch. However, as demands for innovative services grow, organisations need to boost their app development speed while reducing their reliance on IT teams.

The crux of the issue is the lack of technical skills combined with time and cost constraints can prevent organisations from training new talents, which, in turn, hampers their abilities to meet demands for prolific app development. Low-code/no-code platforms can bridge the skills gap by empowering users who have little to no coding knowledge to harness pre-built tools and visual drag-and-drop interfaces. With these features, users can construct their own apps in a matter of days or hours.

Keeping Low-Code and No-Code Hype in Check

Considering low-code and no-code platforms’ abilities to shorten development time and scale operations, organisations may be excited to put these technologies to use immediately. However, organisations need to take a step back and consider their adoption strategies and platforms.

Below, we outline some of the underlying factors behind the low-code/no-code hype and uncover the reality behind them.

Faster Time-to-Market for App Development

Because low-code/no-code platforms are equipped with between 60 and 90 percent of the pre-built framework as well as visual drag-and-drop editors, users will have an easier time building and scaling apps. This, in turn, can enable organisations to achieve faster time-to-market (TTM) and time-to-value (TTV).
Reality: Not all low-code/no-code platforms can provide organisations with the necessary scalability to meet customers’ demands. For this reason, businesses need to acquire solutions that prioritise rapid application development so that employees will have an easier time delivering relevant services that are in line with customers’ needs.

Banishing Shadow IT

Low-code/no-code platforms give customers the means to build their own applications without having to resort to unapproved third-party tools.

Reality: Adapting to IT changes can be difficult for employees who are used to relying on previous tools and methods to build services.

Simultaneously, democratising app development capabilities for other employees can have the unintended effect of boosting shadow IT usage if mishandled. To resolve this issue effectively, it is imperative that organisations create a low-code/no-code governance structure that enables app development to be conducted in a safe and compliant manner.

“Traditionally, organisations relied on pro-code platforms to for app development. These technologies do not have pre-built components, and users need to have knowledge of programming languages like JavaScript, Python, and C# to build apps from scratch. However, as demands for innovative services grow, organisations need to boost their app development speed while reducing their reliance on IT teams.”

Encouraging Citizen Development

Low-code/no-code platforms can encourage the rise of citizen developers, which can ease pressure on short-handed development teams from having to handle massive backlogs.

Reality: Even with low-code/no-code platforms, employees may struggle to build hundreds of apps independently. Moreover, certain functions in app development are best conducted by IT teams, including managing permissions, performance, and integrations. Therefore, it is recommended that both employees and IT personnel adopt a co-development approach in app development, in which the former group focuses on the app’s functionalities while the latter works on the technical aspects.

Integrating AI in Development

In Malaysia, generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology has the potential to contribute USD $113.4 billion to the economy, as disclosed in a report by MyDIGITAL Corporation. Furthermore, 65 percent of Malaysian workers will be encouraged to use generative AI for between 5 and 20 percent of their workloads.

Generative AI can be used to augment various use cases. Among them is low-code app development, in which generative AI can guide users in leveraging the platform’s full capabilities while staying compliant with company-established best practices.

Reality: While generative AI can simplify the app development process, not all tools have security features built into their programming. If not handled well, generative AI can worsen the shadow IT problem and expose organisations to an increased risk of cyber threats. Organisations should therefore sit down and analyse which platforms can meet their unique needs while also keeping data and assets secure.

Embracing the Multiplatform Future

Today’s low-code/no-code market is filled with numerous tools offering different sets of capabilities. For organisations, integrating multiplatform software that unifies these tools can enable businesses to leverage the best features to deliver high-quality applications at breakneck speed.

Choosing the right software for app development requires organisations to assess their native capabilities. These include asking questions such as whether the platform is purely low-code/no-code or on the verge of becoming one, how quickly teams can grow, and how much time they need to spend learning the features. By taking these factors into account, organisations will have the means to scale app development operations and fulfil customers’ demands.

However, not all platforms are equipped with the necessary functions that can ensure more secure and convenient app development processes. For this reason, organisations need to spend time identifying their goals and objectives and creating frameworks that can act as guides in acquiring the right solutions.

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