How enterprise software teams are unlocking the value of low code to adapt and scale

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Internal low-code development platforms empower collaboration at scale, accelerate software delivery, and establish an enterprise-wide culture of innovation.

Change is the only constant in the fast-paced world of enterprise technology. Businesses face growing pressure to innovate and adapt as customer expectations evolve and disruptive new solutions enter the market. Thus, agility has become a necessity in everything from software development to digital transformation.

Most IT and business stakeholders are well aware of this fact. 95% of business leaders believe that technological innovation in strategic business initiatives add value. They realize that IT is no longer a mere cost center, but a key driver of revenue and growth. They understand that being able to respond quickly to change is vital for staying relevant in today’s market.

Unfortunately, there remains a serious misalignment between perception and reality. Almost two-thirds of business stakeholders claim that their IT departments implement fewer than half of their proposed solutions. Solutions that are implemented tend to go over budget and over time which, in turn, has led to a significant rise in uncontrolled shadow IT.

This begs the question of how many potentially value-adding innovations never saw the light of day because software teams lacked the technical skills and budgets to develop them. After all, traditional software development is costly and time-consuming and requires technical expertise across a broad range of domains from coding to user experience design.

Business processes need to be regularly modified and customized to best respond to change, which means that software teams need to be flexible and agile. They must be able to work quickly to keep up. But rather than face the constant risk of burnout and rising technical debt, they must be empowered by agile leadership, the right tools, and a collaborative company culture.

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Low-code versus traditional development: A primer for independent software vendors

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Independent software vendors take pride in having talented developers, but that doesn’t mean they can’t benefit from the low-code revolution.

Independent software vendors (ISVs) face constantly increasing pressure to deliver innovative software solutions to their customers in as little time as possible while maintaining the level of quality they expect.

Unfortunately, this also means that even though their solutions may be functionally complete, the speed at which they need to be rolled out usually means making some sacrifices. Often, issues with the underlying code present themselves soon after delivery, necessitating rework. Thus, technical debt remains a serious and growing problem for ISVs faced with ever-growing demand.

Low-code development platforms (LCDPs) offer an increasingly viable alternative to traditional software development thanks to their ease of use and faster delivery times. That said, software vendors often still view low-code with a degree of skepticism, assuming it to be only suitable for small projects and citizen developers.

In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Low-code is already transforming the world of software development and delivery, with the low-code market size increasing by 22.6% in 2021 alone. Indeed, low-code is fast becoming the new standard in software development to the point it is outpacing traditional software development in many sectors. Already, 84% of enterprises are using low-code to reduce the strain on their IT departments and involve the wider business in the development of mission-critical digital assets.

ISVs need to keep up if they are to remain relevant in the years to come, and the adoption of low-code will undoubtedly prove essential in that endeavor. However, that is not to suggest that traditional software development will become obsolete – after all, low-code is not quite the same as no code. Rather, it presents a compromise between the two, whereby applications can be developed quickly and, in the rare cases where an LCDP cannot accommodate certain advanced use cases, skilled developers can still rely on coding.

In this blog, we will explore the differences, as well as the commonalities, of both low-code and traditional software development and how they concern ISVs wanting to increase their speed to market while continuing to uphold rigid quality control standards.

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The 8 best low-code development platforms for software vendors

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Here are some of the best low-code development platforms for software developers wanting to fuel rapid application modernization and economies of scale.

Independent software vendors (ISVs) face constantly growing technical debt as they struggle to meet the demands of clients seeking to accelerate their own digital transformations. Among the reasons for these challenges is the fact that many ISVs are heavily reliant on underlying technology that is outdated and lacks the agility for developing software applications quickly.

Low-code development platforms (LCDPs) were originally created primarily to meet the needs of citizen developers in enterprises that lacked the in-house expertise needed to build bespoke applications from scratch. However, LCDPs have now evolved to the point where they not only assist with software development, but also transform the entire software delivery process.

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How open-source solutions and low-code development empower digital sovereignty

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By making software development accessible to a broader range of users, low code and open-source solutions can enhance digital sovereignty and interoperability.

As businesses and society at large become more dependent on data, they are also becoming more dependent on foreign countries. This is perfectly demonstrated by the fact that 92% of the data generated in the western world is stored on servers in the US. Moreover, as the sheer volume of data continues to grow, it is becoming less feasible to move it to other platforms in other countries. Herein lies the growing emphasis on digital sovereignty – the idea that people and organizations should have control and ownership of their own data.

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How to Use Low-code Development to Advance Business Process Management

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How low-code development platforms advance business process management and eliminate the costs associated with custom coding.

Adaptability and continuous improvement are two of the defining characteristics of any modern business. More than ever, success is determined by the ability to scale and adapt a business’s workflow potential in line with constantly changing demands. Business process management, or BPM, is a proven discipline intended to tackle these challenges.

BPM is the technical evolution of concepts that long predate it, such as task management, the division of labor, and production. Over the past decade, organizations have started using BPM to analyze processes, measure performance, and discover opportunities for improvement – all with the goal of improving efficiency.

Today, intelligence and automation are integral to BPM, hence the rise of the term intelligent business process management, or iBPM. Intelligence and automation come in various forms, such as the digitization of business rules and intelligent process mining. Repeatable tasks are automated, with little or no human intervention required.

The main value proposition of iBPM is the intelligent collaboration and orchestration of people, connected devices, and applications in pursuit of business goals. However, to make informed decisions and better serve customers, businesses need the right tools for accessing mission-critical information in the right context.

In many organizations, that information is scattered across a disparate array of off-the-shelf and custom-built applications. Applying iBPM to such a fragmented environment ranges from difficult to outright impossible. As a result, workers are less efficient, and customer experience suffers.

Low-code development platforms (LCDPs) offer a better solution by bridging the gap between the inherent limitations of off-the-shelf software and the high costs of developing custom apps from scratch. LCDPs enable the rapid delivery of custom business applications and empower those on the operations side to become citizen developers.

In this article, we will explore how low-code is a valuable asset to BPM.

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Salesforce vs. Corteza
Which Is Better?

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Salesforce Sales CRM and the Salesforce Lightning Platform that underpins it are powerful tools for any business. But are they truly the best tools for what businesses and organizations need – or are they simply coasting on their market share and gargantuan marketing budget? And more importantly, is the high cost of Salesforce justified?

Salesforce vs. Corteza

Today we’re going to take an in-depth look at Salesforce CRM and compare it to Corteza CRM by Planet Crust.

Planet crust is the creator and driving force behind Corteza – a 100% fully open-source, UX-driven, standards-based low-code platform that comes with pre-built CRM and Case Management solutions. Other solutions are also possible, such as Integration Hub, Smart Cities, Supply Chain Management, Patient Management, Disaster Relief Management. Basically, any data-based solution you can think of, you can build on Corteza, which is one of its strongest selling points.

By contrast, Salesforce comes with a large library of existing solutions, including Analytics, Commerce, CRM, Marketing, Healthcare, Service and more. If anything, it’s this suite of products that is one of Salesforce’s selling points, though you do have to pay separately for each solution.

But in this article, we’re going to focus on Salesforce’s and Corteza’s respective CRMs and the low-code platforms they’re built on so you can decide which platform is better for you and your organization. Read more

Four Challenges Low-Code Platforms Face

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How to counter the challenges of customizability, data standardization, vendor lock-in and shadow IT.

By now, most technology leaders have come to recognize the value of low-code development in the rapid deployment of business-critical applications and the alleviation of technical debt. In fact, Gartner predicts that two-thirds of software development will be low-code by 2024. The market is also expected to grow by 23% by the end of the year.

Yet despite this rapid growth, several significant challenges remain. These difficulties continue to discourage some businesses from fully realizing the benefits of using low code development platforms (LCDP). Some of the most oft-cited challenges include a lack of customizability, the risk of vendor lock-in, and the rise of shadow IT.

While it is easy to think of these challenges as inherent limitations of the low-code approach, it is important to remember that, just like any platform, not all LCDPs are made equal. Hybrid low-code development environments and fully open-source platforms are just a couple of the alternatives to the relatively inflexible closed-source industry standards.

In this article, we will look at how these alternatives can help businesses overcome the common limitations of low-code. Read more

Crust Technology Rebrands as Planet Crust

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When my partners and I at Crust Technology finally launched our Corteza platform in 2019, we already had a larger vision in mind and a product strategy to achieve that vision.

Crust

The idea for Crust first took shape in my mind when I was working as a commercial consultant to open source businesses. In that work, I experienced firsthand how the open-source industry regularly fails to create high-quality, user-friendly products with truly open standards, applications and business models. So our first objective was to create a truly open-source product with as few limitations as technologically, operationally, fiscally and legally possible that also delivered a stellar user experience along with a powerful set of features.

We also wanted to create a product that was not only a viable but in fact a better alternative, to the low-code and structured data management platforms of some of the world’s leading business software clouds, such as Microsoft, SAP and Salesforce. And so Corteza was born – a 100% open-source, 100% API-centric low-code platform.

But why open-source?

The answer to that speaks to our long-term vision. A vision based on the belief that, in order for the world to deliver the sustainable economies it requires, we need to break down the barriers that prevent people and organizations from getting the information they need to, ultimately, create greater value with less strain.

Corteza

The first of those barriers is the one to creating critical business and operational applications. Low-code platforms eliminate the need for costly software developers and put the power directly into the hands of the organizations and business functions that use them. But this is simply the first step.

The next step is breaking down the barrier to the technology itself. Proprietary platforms such as Salesforce and SAP are not affordable for many organizations. And not all platforms are fully internationalized and completely accessible. To be a truly global software platform, it needs to be free and accessible in all respects and needs to belong to the world and every organization in it.

Then there is the deployment barrier, i.e. whether the platform can be deployed either locally or internationally, on the cloud or on an organization’s own servers, and where the data is held.

Finally, there is the ownership barrier. That is, who has ownership rights to the apps an organization builds on the platform and how easy is it to migrate those apps to another platform?

It was to break down these barriers that we released Corteza as an open-source platform. And this is why we issue it with a friendly Apache v2.0 license and put governing Corteza in the hands of an independent foundation project. It’s also why we implemented standards in every corner of Corteza – from i18n internationalization and WCAG 2.1 Accessibility to BPMN 2.0 compliant Workflows and OpenAPI. So every organization in the world has access to Corteza and is never isolated. Making Corteza free forever is the best way to ensure its qualities are adopted. 

All this – delivering Corteza as a standardized global software platform – was the foundational step and was encompassed in our founding name and brand: Crust Technologies.

Breaking the Data Barrier

But now we’re embarking on the next step of our journey towards achieving our vision. Which brings us the next barrier – the data barrier.

Every data gathering tool, every data application uses its own data standard and getting those standards to talk to each other and work with each other is a technological mess. The result is that businesses and other organizations can’t consolidate data from different parts of their operations, let alone from outside sources. Business processes slow down or malfunction. Cities are slow to respond to situations ranging from live parking and traffic situations to utility needs and supplies to accidents and emergencies because they don’t have the centralized, real-time reporting apps they need. National disaster relief agencies not being able to share data with their counterpart agencies across borders due to incompatible data and security concerns.

Corteza can connect with and accept data from any third-party software platform or cloud. It then transforms it to a common, reusable format for the purposes of building applications or to process further. This makes standardized collaboration possible across any organization or even between organizations, be they business enterprises, local governments, NGOs, emergency response units or disaster relief organizations.

Beyond this, Corteza can also federate on a many-to-many basis, allowing organizations to share selected data at scale in near real-time to stay ahead of problems or to accelerate innovation. Corteza ensures that no organization’s activity is locked in a silo, but can instead extend to a global scale as desired. Businesses can operate and cooperate more efficiently. Cities can respond to situations and emergencies faster and with the right resources. Disaster relief agencies can share data and innovate solutions without bumping into security protocols.

This breaking of the data barrier and extending the potential and reach of Corteza is represented by our new name and brand – Planet Crust.

Planet Crust

But this is just the beginning. Very soon, Corteza will enable search within data federations and even between them. This will help us to find the information we need to collaborate, solve problems or grow together, whether we are research institutes, industrial affiliates, smart cities or public health authorities.

All data stored in Corteza will be Linked Data. It will have its own portal building capabilities, but will also serve as a data backend to popular, mass-adopted CMS technology such as WordPress and Drupal.

Additionally, we will address the key question of data ownership with a state-of-the-art privacy management infrastructure that will allow end-users or organizations to visualize where their data is stored anywhere in Corteza federations across the world and manage that data from a single point of entry.

These steps will serve to harmonize all the data of the organizations that use Corteza. And as more and more organizations adopt Corteza, so too will the world in general move towards global data harmony.

This will allow us as a global people to catalog and measure our finite resources and build this data into our supply chains. It will also allow us to overlay what we know about how to exploit those resources and the social implications of doing so. And it will make it possible for our leaders, whether in the public or private sector, to make ethical decisions that lead to circular, sustainable economies.

This is our vision at Planet Crust.

Planet Crust is the creator and driving force behind Corteza, a 100% open-source low-code software development platform that lets you import data from any source and use intuitive drag-and-drop tools to create custom applications for your unique business needs. Get started for free today.