How low code is shaping the future of software development

A promising practice to development, known as low code application development, is transforming the way we develop web, mobile, and software applications. With the new approach of low code, we’re bringing the ideas to life at a much faster rate. What’s more? The development is done by teams where maximum people don’t have prior experience in coding.

Low code development is a much-needed transition from the conventional development approach in today’s competitive world where software needs are growing massively. Not only this approach makes a difference in creating quality applications but also provides an efficient maintenance & deployment model to enterprises.

In this blog, we’ll understand the rise of low code development and how it is shaping the future of software development.

Low Code Development and Its Market Size

Low code development, or no code development, is one of the tools which is used for application services and solutions. The approach is an intuitive way of creating applications by means of a drag and drop interface and logic-driven graphics.

Forrester explains low code app development as a platform that enables fast delivery of business software with limited coding knowledge and minimal upfront investment in infrastructure setup, training, and deployment.

In today’s competitive world, it is a key component of the enterprise technology stack, which is gaining huge traction in business software development. With the core capability to build apps faster, it allows businesses to simplify processes, meets the growing needs of markets, and fulfills organizational objectives.

Shopify Plus, for example, is an enterprise platform to build scalable eCommerce solutions. It provides full customization capabilities to manage storefront, staff accounts, user permissions & CMS platforms in one place. With out-of-the-box solutions, one can set up an online storefront easily & quickly. Many businesses are implementing Shopify Plus with Sitecore (a digital experience platform) to create an immersive personalized experience for their customers.

The Current Market Statistics

The increasing demand for low code development technologies is being driven by the surge in remote development that we have seen in the last year during COVID, digital transformation, hyper automation, and the upsurge of composable businesses.

• With an average increase of 23% every year, the investment on digital initiatives across industries will reach $2.4 trillion in 2022. (P&S Intelligence)
• The global market size of low code platforms is expected to reach USD $187 billion by 2030. (Research Markets)
• 65% of all app development functions will be done using low code development by 2024. (Gartner)

Infographic: Low Code vs Traditional Development

Features at a Glance

So, low code technology is designed to make the lifecycle of software development more agile, intuitive, scalable & composable. But how does the technology automate the workflows and simply the process to such a great extent?

Low code development platforms have integrated tools & features for the complete application lifecycle management.

Let’s learn about the exciting features of low code platforms

Out-of-the-box Functionality – It aims at skipping the need to develop the core modules for applications from scratch. For example, some platforms provide modules for data management, AI based solutions and customer engagement apps.

Drag and Drop Interface – Low code platforms allow both professional & citizen developers to take the benefit from drag and drop features for the creation of applications.

Visual Modeling Tools - Powered with visual modeling strengths, low code platforms have prebuilt functions to represent any information, which is understandable by everyone, from business users to professional coders.

Connectivity - These platforms are well connected with backend systems like ERPs and CRMs. It allows business users to pull data into live dashboards and reports.

Business Process Automation - It allows developers to integrate software apps with current business processes through APIs so that the application can access data from current systems and communicate with them.

Application Lifecycle Management - Low code simplify various stages involved in software development lifecycle like testing, deployment & maintenance. Business users can access the information about apps created and revert to the previous versions if needed for better management.

Read Further: How Businesses Are Harnessing the Power of Low code platforms like Shopify Plus To Elevate Customer Experience

How can Low Code Apps Help Today’s Business?

A low code development approach is faster, cost-effective, and agile. With low code, developers no longer need to do programming. Instead, they can build applications using point and click based visual modeling tools

Faster Time-to-Market & Accelerated App Delivery

Low code platforms allow developers to kickstart the development instantly and develop functional prototypes without writing any code. The visually rich templates, off-the-shelf code snippets, intuitive form, report components & built-in connectors can be used to develop new applications in a matter of a few days. This development approach can drastically reduce the time needed for development, test & launch.

Reduced Costs

As less or no coding expertise is required, low code helps close the IT gap many companies face without requiring them to hire technical resources on to their IT team. The approach enables citizen developers to create apps without much IT involvement, which eliminates the IT backlog while minimizing the IT resources. It enables enterprises to build business processes and workflows in an easier way while customizing them to their specific requirement.

Increased Enterprise Efficiency

Developers can focus on bringing about new features and unique functionalities into their software by using low code platforms. That means they don’t need to spend their useful time on the underlying services & functionalities. With an easy development approach, they can align the right user interface with business goals, build data models, business rules and definitions with no or limited experience in the development area. The dependency on hiring programming resources can be reduced to a great extent. The platform also cut down the dependency factor from the development teams to update the frameworks, infrastructure & other underlying technology.

Increased Scalability

The low approach can help businesses setup maintainable solutions. Using Cloud-native architecture, the applications can adapt to the changing business needs, catering to the growing workloads seamlessly. These platforms not only support automation in streamlining the processes but also help in enhancing customer engagement by providing great conversational & immersive experiences.

Support for Innovation

Low code platforms are equipped with the latest design thinking that allows developers to test an idea and launch an MVP in the market. This way, businesses can gather customer feedback and get ideas about the market performance without spending much time & effort. Enterprises can thus bring ideas to life much faster and innovate to a great extent.

Is Low Code the Future?

The promise of the low code development approach is to make the software development process simplified by enabling business technologists to iterate and prototype with ease. Today, these platforms are on the investment radar of top tech giants in the market including Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. Low code is more than just a development practice to accelerate deployment of apps faster. Even traditional developers in the IT teams are leveraging the power of low code to develop apps faster and collaborate with business users. Having said this, while low code entails lots of benefits, it cannot entirely replace the traditional software development methods because custom app development provides full control over the technology stack to benefit the organization in several areas.

To begin and run the digital transformation efforts better and faster, low code is the prime option. It replaces monolithic applications by bringing a modularity approach in place that can be reused or recycled for faster development.

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