Noesis’ José Carlos Pereira argues that low code will allow businesses to keep pace with digital transformation and stay competitive.
In today’s highly competitive market, businesses are under immense pressure to deliver high-performance results and achieve their goals in shorter timeframes. However, companies often face significant barriers to digitising and modernising their processes to maintain competitiveness.
Most of these barriers are related to the technologies they use to support their digital transformation programs. Decades of legacy systems, decentralised databases, scarce and costly resources, and the lack of access to cost-effective solutions have led to many postponing their digitalisation efforts.
The abundance of sometimes conflicting information available makes it even more difficult for business leaders to get the right advice and understand what approach would work best for their business and integrate smoothly with their operations.
While companies tend to focus on the work at hand, without setting sufficient time and resources aside for innovation, there is an efficient solution that can help businesses accelerate their innovation and digitalisation projects: low-code development.
What is low-code development?
Data from Gartner shows that 70pc of all software development will include low-code or no-code technologies by 2025.
Low-code platforms offer a simple user interface to develop complex applications easily.
The benefits of low code include: speed – you can deliver a new application in weeks, not months, accelerating time-to-market; cost-efficiency – businesses can save on hiring expenses and shorten project timelines, leading to significant cost savings; and scalability and flexibility –applications built on low-code platforms are highly scalable and can be easily adapted to changing business needs. Changes can be made in hours, not days.
Making code accessible
Low-code platforms, as well as providing a visual development interface and a set of pre-built widgets, connectors and patterns that can be used just by dragging and dropping, also offer a more robust environment that enables developers to write code whenever necessary to extend, customise and adapt what comes out of the box. This allows them to address any use case, therefore ensuring that more complex, mission-critical and scalable solutions can be developed and delivered rapidly without sacrificing quality or functionality.
The core principle of low-code development is making it more accessible and reducing the technical barriers that traditionally hinder rapid development. Low-code platforms accelerate the development lifecycle, allowing businesses to innovate and adapt swiftly to changing market demands. This type of platform can address not only internal/departmental use cases, but also more complex scenarios like B2C applications or complex integrations with external/legacy systems.
Practical applications
Low-code development has many practical applications across different industries.
In the banking and financial sector, low-code development can help develop secure and compliant applications swiftly, such as customer banking mobile app.
For healthcare, it can enable the development of patient management systems, telemedicine applications and administrative tools. A hospital might use low-code solutions to build a patient portal that facilitates appointment scheduling, medical record access and communications with healthcare providers.
In the manufacturing sector, low-code tech can streamline operations and enhance productivity. Applications such as inventory management systems, supply chain management tools and quality control applications can be quickly developed and deployed.
For retail, it can enhance customer experience and drive sales. Retailers can develop mobile apps for loyalty programs, integrate e-commerce platforms and create personalised marketing tools.
And in the public sector, government agencies can use low-code solutions to develop citizen services portals, internal workflow systems and compliance tracking tools.
Low-code development platforms are revolutionising the software development landscape. By offering accelerated time-to-market, cost efficiency, enhanced collaboration, scalability and improved quality, these platforms empower businesses to innovate and adapt swiftly to market changes. As industries increasingly recognise the benefits of low-code development, the adoption of such solutions is set to continue growing, driving a new era of digital transformation.
José Carlos Pereira is low-code solutions director for Noesis, an international tech consulting company. Noesis’ service portfolio includes IT Ops and infrastructure, cloud and security enterprise solutions, data analytics and AI, DevOps and automation, and low-code solutions. It has more than 1,100 staff operating across seven countries including Portugal, Brazil, the US and Ireland.
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