What is low-code and how can it help in a volatile market?

In the era in which we live, society, and also companies, are undergoing change at an ever-increasing speed, which requires an enormous capacity to adapt, in many cases in order to continue to survive in a buoyant market.

In a context of digital transformation such as the current one, as well as being volatile, it is essential to have technological tools that help companies to boost and optimise their business, something that has been increasingly accelerated with the outbreak of the pandemic.

One of the main characteristics of low-code is the great responsiveness they provide, as they provide environments that allow software development in an agile way

It is in a framework like this that low-code platforms come into play. One of the main characteristics of this type of tool is undoubtedly the great responsiveness they provide, as they provide environments that allow software development in an agile way, reducing manual code writing to a minimum, allowing prototyping, building or scaling applications without the need to develop complex infrastructures, quickly implementing software that can adapt to the current needs of the business.

This has a very important impact on the innovation side, since, thanks to a higher speed of construction and adaptation, low-code helps us to move forward in this area with much less risk, being able to build and validate business concepts very quickly and with little effort.

Among the benefits for organisations of using this type of solution, we could highlight the following:

• Faster time to market. One of the objectives is to be able to deliver a solution that provides value as quickly as possible. By reducing the amount of programming required, as well as the use of pre-built components, it is possible to accelerate the delivery of applications.
• Faster ROI. The shorter the time to market, the faster the return on investment (ROI) can be achieved, so it is a very attractive point from an economic point of view.
• Reduction of maintenance times. Low-code platforms are designed to manage updates in an automated way, which reduces maintenance costs while minimizing technical debt. As a result, development cycles are faster, more optimised and with less waste.
• Cost reduction. The reduction in development and maintenance times means that the cost of the solution is also lower than that of a customised development.
• Increased productivity. By eliminating the need to write parts of code, teams no longer need to spend unnecessary time on small tasks, but can focus their attention and efforts on creating more complex, business-relevant projects.
• Improved quality. Because low-code platforms work with pre-built and pre-tested modules, all built to work seamlessly together, application changes can be made easily and efficiently with little risk of incompatibility.
• Alignment of objectives. Being able to develop a solution to a need very quickly, as well as greater involvement of the governance layer in the development, enables companies to align and validate organisational objectives with the more technical aspects.
• Validation of business objectives. One aspect directly related to the previous one is that, due to being able to prototype in a very short period of time, it is possible to put new business ideas into practice in order to validate them, something that will allow a great capacity for reaction and adaptation.

The use of these platforms is growing more and more globally. For example, according to Gartner, it is predicted that by 2024, low-code tools will be responsible for more than 65% of application development activity worldwide.

At Izertis we are specialists in accompanying our clients along this path, but we don't like to stop there, we can help organisations to analyse their needs and find the best solution to suit their needs.