The traditional process of building applications is always a lengthy one. Building a software solution from the ground up may take months, perhaps even years. The end product has to go through several stages that include planning, designing, development, testing, and deployment, with no space for error on each step. To remain successful, companies have to come up with continuous innovations, so, the never-ending development process can overwhelm not only the IT department but the entire company.

Low-code / no-code platforms are capable of addressing many aspects of this complex process, helping businesses to speed up their digital transformation. Thanks to such platforms, traditional and citizen developers can focus their expertise on problem-solving to help companies gain a competitive advantage, which will result in the development of more sophisticated apps that enhance operational performance and user experience.

However, low-code platforms are mainly used for building simple solutions that require no programming skills, so, we will focus more on low-code development that has much more potential for building complex apps.

There are 5 ways companies will use low-code in 2020.

1. Need for Innovation Will Stimulate Low-Code Platforms Usage

We are living in a digital era where companies face one exponential wave of technology after another. Businesses realize they won’t be able to stay ahead of the competition if they keep limiting innovation to a single department or, even worse, to a handful of people. Innovation should come from everywhere in a company so employers actively encourage fresh and big ideas, especially those that are related to technology.

Low-code development is an answer to the technological challenge. In fact, it can be an effective way to streamline many business processes and facilitate innovation. Companies have acknowledged the advantages of low-code platforms and use them to transform concepts into prototypes, minimum viable products, and even entire applications.

Low-code platforms aren’t just for seasoned developers – citizen developers can easily pick up the basics and build software solutions too. What is more, with a common low-code platform in place to make the app more sophisticated or fix some bugs the developer doesn’t have to rewrite the code – they can get started from where the citizen developer left off.

2. Low-Code Will Be Viewed as a Part and Parcel of Digital Transformation

Digitalization transforms analog things and manual tasks into digital assets. As companies are striving to automate processes and optimize efficiency, they will come up with new ideas that need to be advantageous.

Implementation speed is crucial here. Not only does digital transformation require months and even years to execute but the game rules are also constantly changing. It is expected that more businesses will use low-code to accelerate innovation and enable greater agility in companies.

3. Artificial Intelligence Will Empower All Kinds of Developers

For citizen developers, Artificial Intelligence (AI) serves as a mentor. It monitors what the user is attempting to do and offers guidance along the way. Thus, AI empowers citizen developers to create better produces and achieve mastery.

However not only citizen developers can benefit from it – AI capabilities are being incorporated into low-code platforms to enable traditional developers to quickly gain insight into bugs so they can avert issues affecting data and performance.

AI usage is a competitive differentiator. It may be used to speed up the development process, allow for making more informed decisions and help build seamless customer experience. Developers may confidently apply AI to their software solutions since no data science degree is required.

However, companies that use AI-empowered low-code platforms need to ensure against failing to meet their needs. For instance, a company needs to make sure that the low-code platform they use follows its governance policy. If an AI-enabled app is supposed to use data in a way prohibited by certain regulations, there must be good governance policies and some internal controls to prevent that from happening.

4. Low-Code Empowered by RPA Will Increase Company Efficiency

Robotic process automation (RPA) is a popular way to increase efficiency in a company. The thing is that repetitive tasks and operations conducted in companies do not really require manual effort. So, RPA can be used to streamline routine tasks and channel human resources toward innovation.

However, many companies that are implementing RPA to streamline repetitive processes across systems aren’t making substantial progress. The key challenges here are dysfunctional or fragmented processes, lack of skilled employees, inadequate change management, and inadequate IT systems.

Low-code platforms act as the glue for RPA implementations. They enable cross-functional development teams to easily cooperate and connect multiple applications for end-to-end solutions.

5. Companies Will Use Low-Code to Keep up With the Growing Competition

New languages and technologies are emerging, and the speed of innovation keeps expediting. In the constantly evolving tech world, while companies have to keep up with competition they can’t afford to rewrite their software solutions. In such a context, more businesses are realizing that low-code development will help them keep up with technological change.

While the popularity of low-code development will continue to grow, some companies resort to professional development teams to build mission-critical apps because they are worried about the potential risks.

Enterprise-level low-code strategies often appear to foster faster innovation while sustaining client expectations for efficiency, quality, security, etc. However, companies should be cautious of how to execute a low-code strategy, because not platforms can support it. The safest option, in this case, is a low-code enterprise-grade platform that can scale and adjust to the company’s changing needs.

Rather than questioning whether a low-code platform is hypothetically capable of supporting a mission-critical app, companies should make sure that the platform they are considering can really perform to the standards set.

Low-code development is often tactical. A business may want to use it to address certain challenges or problems, but once their needs become more complex, they will likely discover that the platform they have chosen restricts them from what they aim to achieve. Interestingly, as the software development teams procure low-code platforms, the deployment appears to be more strategic. With this in mind, we strongly recommend you weigh carefully the pros and cons of low-code development and how it meets your needs.