Why Low-Code Platforms could be the New Normal
It was in one of my 3 year old daughter’s virtual classes, where I heard the Principal talking about ‘Parenting in the New Normal’ !! And it struck to me, this is pretty much everyone is talking about with the ongoing pandemic.
Covid 19 has taught households on how to differentiate between Essentials and Non-Essentials! This is something the business strategists are and had been applying in their respective functions too; much more strictly now! It’s fair to say, the business functions driving Ops Excellence, Digital Transformation, Automation, Standardization, Lean Six Sigma etc. were all intended to cut down on non-essentials (wastes in their processes) in a way. Ironically some of the above-mentioned functions within the businesses are also significantly impacted with the Covid 19 outbreak! So, what has changed!!
It’s evident the businesses are fighting for survival and there is no appetite for large scale multi-million dollar transformation programs which would fetch results in a multi-year roadmap. With the impact being across the board, the bull-whip effect is analogous to the factor at which one is seeing the increase in the number of Covid cases every day.
Hence the lead time to identify an improvement opportunity to realizing the value has
shortened exponentially.
With this, one of the many digital enablers I foresee which can boost the organizations success could be adoption of Low Code Automation .
Low Code Platforms have evolved over the years from workflow solutions to advanced digital platforms which can orchestrate multiple underlying technologies (AI, RPA ,OCR etc.).
Low-Code/ No Code platforms as the name suggests,one doesn’t need any niche coding skills to deploy a solution for immediate business need. The ready-made APIs available for standard underlying platforms (SAP, Oracle etc.) means one can easily build platforms on top of the existing IT landscape with minimal disruptions.
Minimal coding effort allows for the organizations to drive Citizen Development with Low Code platforms in a true sense.
People familiar with this space, would vouch for the fact that Low Code can reduce the development to deployment time to 1/10th . Now, this is one of the key Low Code value propositions , which one needs to consider in these times
Some of the advanced Low Code platforms allow users to easily build customer facing User Interfaces, chatbot, mobility solutions which enable businesses to reach customers faster.
Low Code Platforms might not warrant end to end automation of any process flow but it orchestrates the underlying activities very well ( as you would imagine with any workflow applications). These platforms allow flexibility to the businesses to automate its underlying activities with advanced capabilities at a later point (if not right now) . Imagine, a Low Code platform orchestrating five activities in a process. Low Code would allow these activities to be either manual, script driven or bot driven(with RPA, APIs etc). And the businesses would have the opportunity to switch a manual activity to an automated script/bot (if required) . This, in the current time is a big boost for the businesses to take those necessary baby steps to drive operations excellence and customer satisfaction without going completely disruptive right away.
There are multiple Low Code Platforms to choose from in the market with the basic value enablers available in most of them; many which are offered as open source solutions. While we are going through challenging times, need to drive operational excellence and being relevant to the customer has only elevated further. The need to identify potential gaps and automation opportunities in the underlying processes has gone up and hence automation must go on!!