Low-code and no-code development are more than just buzzwords. They’re the key to accelerating the delivery of customized employee experiences and they have the power to transform your digital workplace in the coming years. How? By driving faster innovation and putting the power of application development in the hands of non-technical business leaders.

By 2030, the global low-code development platform market is expected to produce $187 billion in revenue, accounting for more than 65% of application development activity by 2024.

To take advantage of the opportunities no-code and low-code development offer, it helps to first understand the intricacies.

You likely already know that no-code and low-code development are visual approaches to creating enterprise applications – think drag-and-drop interfaces and WYSIWYG editors - that enable people from across the organization, whether in HR, marketing, or operations, to build apps without having to use large scripts of code (low-code is different from no-code in that it does require some coding experience.)

This approach makes it possible for teams to build custom applications quickly and easily, without the involvement of IT, in just a matter of hours rather than weeks, months, or years.

Low-code and no-code development are critical stepping stones in facilitating smarter ways of working. But there are other business drivers behind their emerging popularity…

The gap between business needs and the strain on IT resources

This year alone there has been a shortage of 1.4 million software developers. The growing business needs for modern, personalized digital experiences have simply outpaced the ability of short-staffed, underbudgeted IT development teams to deliver. This has created a considerable supply and demand gap that’s damaging to business success.

Growing acceptance of IT federated app development

As business needs have changed, particularly with the growth of the hybrid work model, there is an increasing acceptance of business-specific, standalone applications being owned by the business. This increased flexibility has enabled business leaders to pursue creating the purpose-driven apps their teams need.

Rise of secure no-code technology

Not only is no-code technology now readily available, the technology has become sophisticated enough to enable non-technical users to quickly deliver value by creating powerful, purposeful applications. Security, governance, and access controls have also reached a point within some vendors where IT still has the ability to maintain oversight into proper usage and risk mitigation, which is a reassurance for some organizations.

Low-code and no-code are valuable options in the development toolbox. (Source: Tech Target)

When getting started with low-code and no-code development, it’s recommended to start by creating apps that address a specific problem or opportunity. A good way to do this is by identifying areas of friction and pain for the app audience - such as redundant processes - and creating experiences that solve those problems. Addressing low hanging fruit like this is the fastest, best way to demonstrate the efficacy of low-code and no-code development, because it leads to significant time savings, which is beneficial to the business and the employee experience.

But once you have a problem identified and an app concept developed, what next?

The next step is to work into a more rapid application development cycle, focusing on the main drivers of utility. Consider what is most important and useful to the end user, focus on delivering that functionality first. Low-code and no-code development can help organizations modernize their digital workplace and improve the employee experiences in many areas...

Enhanced guided attention and employee experience

With hundreds of systems vying for users’ attention throughout the day, it’s challenging for employees to know what needs their immediate attention. No-code apps can be developed to reduce digital friction and help workers manage their attention and deliver a greater employee experience. These can be simple integrations to systems and applications that can abstract just the right amount of information employees need to know or act on – at the right moment.

Better business processes management

No-code development can deliver tremendous value in improving business processes, reducing friction, and making it less painful for users to execute routine tasks. This is accomplished by delivering targeted portions of complex enterprise applications to users for experiences such as onboarding, expense management, procurement requests, travel approvals, tasks/workflows, time management etc.

Reporting and dashboards

Providing users with easy access to the data they need to work effectively is an area where no-code development can add tremendous value. Apps can be built that bring data points and KPIs together from various systems to create centralized dashboards for groups like sales, marketing, and IT to use, eliminating the need for them to log into disparate systems and spend valuable time compiling that information for themselves.

Optimized operations EX + CX

There are many use cases where no-code development can help aid, guide, and take actions on behalf of employees. This is particularly helpful in the realm of HR and IT and may include inputting help and support tickets, requesting ticket status, requesting a list of solutions or actions and directions to resolve issues, updated list of inventories, FAQs, etc.

Any kind of application development will have its pros and cons, and low-code and no-code are no exception. Being aware of these limitations and understanding when to use low-code or no-code instead of traditional development will make it easier to deploy the right staffing resources for a given application need.

For example, no-code development isn’t always suitable for highly nuanced or complex apps and integrations. Traditional IT groups may also be resistant to business areas developing their own applications, and some software providers don’t even allow APIs and hooks into their software, so traditional development may be the only option.

When used in the appropriate context, however, low-code and no-code development are integral to successful digital transformation. They’ll help organizations work around current constraints with development resources, accelerate innovation, and enable the creation of the customized experiences employees need to be effective in this new world of work.