The business world is moving at a dizzying pace, where today’s innovation quickly becomes tomorrow’s norm. To gain a competitive advantage, organizations need to close the gap between business problem identification and deployment of a solution to address it. However, without enough developers on hand, organizations are looking for technology solutions to help transform themselves into a more agile and flexible entity. They are constantly on the lookout for technologies that can bridge the gap between two important employee groups: employees who write code and power users who can’t write code.

In a traditional setup, employees submit requests to an IT queue and then must wait for the results to come back. Often, this wait time is lengthy, with no feedback loop, and backlogs the engineers who perform the tasks. By the time your results are delivered, most requirements have changed and employees are already submitting new requests. A no-code process automation platform can shorten this loop, democratize innovation, and accelerate business growth.

No-code process automation platforms are software programs that require no coding knowledge and empower users with the ability to create enterprise-grade, high-fidelity bespoke applications that automate otherwise manual intensive processes. Such platforms enable organizations to stay proactive, rather than reactive, by bringing far more people with varied skillsets into application development. It speeds up business processes and reduces errors, while freeing employees from mundane and repetitive work. According to Forrester, low/no-code platforms are slated to become a $20 billion industry by 2021.

Enables organizations to tackle challenges with the technical talent shortage

The shortage of technical talent is an issue, and the situation is bound to get even more dire in the future. The demand for engineers from organizations across the industry spectrum has surpassed supply. This has resulted in spikes in compensation, prolonged talent searches, and higher costs to develop business applications and automate business processes. Without enough developers, organizations are looking to technology solutions to help overcome the talent shortage.

While several solutions have emerged, no-code platforms are the most disruptive ones. No-code has replaced the skill dependent, arduous, slow, and inflexible hand-coded application development and process automation methods. It has made it easier for employees without any coding skills to build both simple and complex applications to transform business processes. While these platforms were historically primitive and considered mostly as educational tools, the latest generation of no-code platforms has the potential to change the definition of who can be a software developer.

Allows developers to focus on the bigger picture

While no-code platforms are a viable option to overcome the ongoing talent shortage, they are not meant to replace developers, but rather complement and fast-track the efforts of developers. However, the emergence and rapid popularity of such platforms have caused immense panic, whereby many developers fear that their job will disappear with the adoption of a no-code platform.

The power to create tech solutions has been the role of software developers for years. However, no-code solutions are democratizing the development process, with some industry experts saying that the future of coding is no coding at all. Quite contrary to software developers’ fears, no-code solutions can free up their time to do more of the complex work, rather than the repetitive, mundane tasks.

Compliments well with Edge Computing

Edge computing, which pushes “computational” work as close as possible to the point of data collection, is being heralded as one of the top technology trends in 2021 and beyond. Recent reports suggest that more than 50% of new enterprise IT infrastructure will adopt edge computing as an alternative to massively centralized data centers, for proprietary data or in situations (such as transportation or defense) that need to make real-time decisions and can’t afford the delays caused by multiples trips to the cloud. Additionally, 34% of global manufacturers plan to incorporate IoT technology into their operations and products this year.

No-code platforms sync well with edge computing. No-code apps can easily extract actionable data and business intelligence from connected devices to empower better decision-making, optimize all manner of operations, and explore new opportunities for innovation.

Supplements Remote/Hybrid Working

After 2020’s annus horribilis, 2021 will be a year of returning to normal. However, the transition will be slow and steady. Organizations will need to stay prepared for a prolonged tryst with a remote or hybrid model of work. No-code platforms, which enabled business users across organizations to deliver quality apps quickly during the pandemic, will continue to dominate the business app development landscape. Such platforms will continue to enable business continuity and inspire innovation in the post-pandemic future.

Helps unlock Speed and unleash new levels of productivity

No-code platforms help boost the autonomy of non-development teams within large organizations. Business users can utilize such solutions to fulfill their business application requirements, without inundating IT with mundane and time-consuming tasks. With these capabilities, business users without development skills or expertise in coding can build functional enterprise apps with modern user interfaces that can integrate into core business systems and automate business-critical processes. This alleviates a major burden on the busy IT and development teams, while increasing the overall pace of innovation within an organization. It also enables cost reduction by eliminating the need to hire specialized talent or purchase new enterprise products every time the need arises.

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Arindam Ray Chaudhuri, COO at AgreeYa Solutions, has over 25 years of rich industry experience in the technology domain. He has greatly contributed to AgreeYa’s software, solutions and services portfolio, by integrating a global team, defining the technology and business vision of products and services, establishing large scale client engagement and leading time, cost and quality driven value via project governance and solution engineering.