DM Sep-Oct 2022

Dm STRATEGY: LOW-CODE
How low can you code?
Low-code automation is set to transform businesses - but what exactly is it, and
what will it mean for how your organisation works? Tim Hood, Vice President EMEA
and APAC, Hyland, has the answers
For most companies, technology is the
fundamental driving force - second
perhaps only to people - behind their
performance. It defines their productivity
and agility: essential elements for success
and survival in fast-changing markets.
Yet many organisations are faced with a
real challenge: They want to use technology
in the best way possible, but find it difficult
to deploy what's required. There are various
reasons for this, including cost, poor
understanding of the options available and
a lack of resources to develop them.
Is there a way around these issues? Yes.
It's low- or no-code development tools
that let you create new applications
without having to write expensive,
time-consuming and extremely
detailed code.
This can prove transformational for
businesses that would otherwise be
forced into a technology go-slow.
Not surprisingly, a growing number
of organisations are seeing it as the
way forward. Research firm Gartner
predicts that by 2025, seven out of
ten new applications that are
developed by enterprises will be
created this way - a considerable rise
from just 20% five years earlier.
WHAT IS LOW-CODE AUTOMATION?
It is a way to bypass the long-held
approach to software development which
relies on having access to developers with
the knowledge to build an application
from scratch.
However, go to any large
company and such demands
are being placed on the IT
department that you will
almost certainly find a
bottleneck, with an evergrowing
backlog of
projects waiting to be
progressed.
Because most legacy
systems are so codeheavy
- without the
input of pro-coders - automation initiatives
inevitably stall because there aren't
specialty-based resources available to
implement them.
Understandably, mission-critical jobs are
prioritised at the expense of less urgent
tasks that might make life better or easier
for a particular team or offer gradual
improvements to workflows and processes.
The alternative, of course, is to hire
external developers. A sensible move in
principle but difficult in practice, given the
scarcity of suitably qualified individuals
worldwide. Against a backdrop of a
predicted global shortage of 85.2 million
software engineers and other tech talent by
2030, it's set to become more difficult.
SOFTWARE WHERE IT'S NEEDED
Under normal circumstances, new software
systems are developed 'invisibly' elsewhere
and then implemented from elsewhere in
the organisation. Often this means they will
be received, at best, with a lack of
enthusiasm if they are considered
unnecessary, fail to deliver significant
improvements or are difficult to work with.
On the other hand, no-code automation
'democratises' software development by
enabling non-technical staff to become
actively involved in the development
process. No-code accomplishes this by
using drag-and-drop interfaces,
checkboxes, drop-down menus and other
user-friendly visual tools, rather than having
to know and apply code.
The benefit of this? It becomes much
easier and faster to create the application
that users want and need, and thereafter
they can continue enhancing the original
version in order for it to become an ever
more bespoke piece of software.
In other words, low- or no-code
22
@DMMagAndAwards
September/October 2022
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