Stay in-step with change with low-code.
Back in the day, computer programmers were characterised as glasses-wearing youths, hunched over a keyboard, coffee cups gathering on their desks.
These iconic developers coded programmes, line-by-laborious-line, debugging and rewriting code until the application worked. It took hours. It took days. It took months to build the final masterpiece. It was then launched with much fanfare and let loose on users.
And then these users worked with it quite happily, apart from the odd bug or two, until one day, the programme was no longer doing what was needed. The company had grown and changed.
What would it take to match the software with the new processes?
Answer: a lot of work coding line-by-line. Or in real terms, lots of dollars!
There is a better way: low-code development.
“Hand-coded solutions exist in ‘Concrete Land’ whereas low-coded solutions live in ‘Playdough Land’ where the answer to ‘Can we do it?’ is ‘Yes!’. With low-code, you can adapt the software to fit a company’s processes and needs, and not force the company to change to fit the software.”
Bert Myburgh, Managing Director
The problems with IT investment
IT investment is traditionally expensive and time-consuming and thus it poses a financial risk to the company. This is even before maintenance and licensing costs are factored in.
Other potential headaches are:
– Does the software do exactly what it is supposed to?
– Is usability a high priority?
– How quickly will it become outdated? (Gone are the days when software lasted a decade or more.)
– Budget pressures reduce innovation and force requirement cut-backs.
With just about everything being online now, users are accustomed to instant and efficient web-based/cloud-based applications that live up to a high level of usability, access, speed and multi-device functionality.
But with low-code…
What is low-code development?
With low-code, you do not have to reinvent the wheel each time, nor do you have to use an expensive specialist programmer, instead, you simply use drag-and-drop configuration to build what you need.
All the backend components have already been built and can be used in a visual development environment to quickly create or modify the desired application. Low-code makes customisation and solution creation fast, simple and less error-prone than manual coding.
Furthermore, low-code development allows for smarter, more imaginative solution builds and promotes innovation due to its easy construction. And it allows for more people to be involved in the design, making the end-result perfectly adapted to needs.
To find out more about the benefits of low-code, read this more in-depth look at the comparison between no-code, low-code and manual coding.
So how can low-code development future-proof your solutions?
The very nature of low-code application building makes it adaptable and flexible to changes, thus keeping your solution in-step with any changes in the company that the future holds.
These changes are quick and budget-friendly to make, with the more complex changes being done by experienced configurators, and the smaller tweaks being sorted by in-house users that have had further training in configuration.
Being modular, the speed of application development and change is increased significantly, which makes it easy to change the solution as business rules and workflow changes. Especially for government-related processes, any change in compliance rules can easily be implemented.
With low-code, you can start with a basic product, and then grow as your budget and needs grow. It is possible to develop any solution from a straightforward workflow to a fully integrated suite of solutions that work together.
The pressure to stay in-step with digital development – which changes at a heady rate – is fundamental to staying competitive. With low-code, you need never fall behind or become stuck with a solution that no longer fits your needs.
Conclusion
With this technological freedom at hand to build, change and maintain systems, going down the low-code route is the obvious choice in terms of flexibility, time and cost when developing solutions for business management and automation.
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Low-code vs No-code vs Hand-code | Why you need digital transformation
By: Jeannie De Vynck
