What Is Technical Debt?

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Technical debt: Part 1

Software development is all the rage today. No wonder the demand for software developers is projected to increase by 20% to 25% in the years to come. The past few years have actually made technological innovation a survival issue more than an efficiency issue. Companies in every sector are transforming and becoming more technologically smart. Custom-build software and task-specific solutions are hence in demand across the globe.

The agility with which a business meets its technological needs has become the backbone of its success. The needs of businesses today, however, are in a constant state of evolution. And with every new need, comes the requirement for new, smart software that can cut costs and maximize efficiency.

Meeting this constantly evolving, the volatile need of the market hence becomes a challenge for those who develop these software. And a hasty approach to meet this challenge results in technical debt.

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Why low-code is the perfect learning tool for software developers

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While low-code development is known for its drag-and-drop simplicity, the ability to view and edit the underlying code also makes it the perfect learning tool.

Most professional software developers agree that it takes several months just to get familiar with the basics of coding, and that assumes having a high level of general technical knowledge to begin with. Given the rapid pace of advancement in the software development space, skills in problem-solving, attention to detail, coding concepts, and the ability to adapt to constantly evolving technologies are also vital. These factors partly explain why there is a growing skills gap in software development.

Fortunately, low-code software development presents something of a shortcut, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a valuable learning tool in its own right. What low-code does do is remove many of the more repetitive elements of software development by allowing professional and citizen developers alike to leverage the full potential of reusable components. Moreover, since low-code removes the need to code in such cases, it allows non-developers to quickly deploy standard business logic, regardless of their level of programming expertise.

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How low code helps software developers embrace rapid change

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Low-code software development has proven instrumental in facilitating innovation at scale in today’s constantly evolving and unpredictable business environment.

Until the widespread adoption of modern software systems, most routine business processes remained largely unchanged and, indeed, unchangeable over short timespans. In those times, innovations often took many years to enter the mainstream, and organizations could afford to rely largely on traditional processes and monolithic technology architectures.

Today, however, change is the only constant in the business world, which faces unprecedented disruption as it tries to tackle rising instability and unpredictability across global supply chains and constantly evolving customer demands.

In light of these growing uncertainties, business leaders face enormous pressure to adapt with the times in order to stay relevant. Continuous improvement is essential for keeping customers happy, employees motivated, and for satisfying the need for operational resilience. Thus, the ability to accommodate rapid change has become a universal business imperative.

More than ever, these factors rely on software. A few years ago, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella claimed that every company is a software company. Technology is increasingly embedded in everything we do, both at home and in the workplace. Back-office teams have become reliant on tailor-made customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions to handle increasingly vast amounts of digital information at scale. Customers expect a responsive service and a persistent presence from the companies they do business with. Furthermore, these demands change and evolve all the time, thus necessitating an agile approach to software development and maintenance.

It is for these reasons that low-code software development has been gaining more and more ground over the years. Read more

7 ways low-code solutions accelerate digital transformation

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By making software development less burdensome on resources, low-code contributes to the acceleration of digital transformation and business-wide innovation.

It is often said that every company is a software company. Computers play a key role in almost everything we do. They are becoming embedded in everything from the cars we drive to the homes and cities we live in.

For organizations, computers and software have become critical for handling everything from customer relationship management to supply chain management. At virtually every customer touchpoint, there are digital interactions that leave a trail of data, from which they can unlock valuable insights, provided they have the right software solutions.

Digital transformation is the driving force behind these innovations. It is the process we use to create new business processes and customer and employee experiences or improve existing ones. It is the reimagining of business in the digital age, and software naturally plays a central role in that process. This is why the pressure is constantly growing on organizations to ease the burden of software development and, in turn, accelerate digital transformation.

Organizations that fail to embrace digital transformation face a very real and growing risk of losing their competitive positions and becoming irrelevant in today’s fast-changing world. One of the main causes of such failure is the difficulty in overcoming the inherent complexities of software development and the lengthy project lifecycles that come with it.

To overcome the challenges, organizations must be able to develop and integrate new tools and capabilities quickly, scale their applications in the cloud, automate routine workflows, and continuously modernize customer experiences.

To accomplish these tasks, software teams need a way to quickly deliver applications and iteratively improve them based on user feedback. Traditional software development is wholly unable to keep up with the need for speed and scale, which is why organizations need low-code software development to accelerate digital transformation.

Here are some reasons why low-code matters in digital transformation:

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Is a Low-Code Application Scalable?

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Low-code is defined as a visual approach to application development that enables users to create complex, high-functioning enterprise applications using visual guidance and on-screen instructions. According to Gartner, low-code application development will be responsible for more than 65% of all application development activity by 2024.

Furthermore, every application that your organization develops and utilizes should be highly scalable. Scalability is defined as the ability of specific application software to adapt to changing organizational resources, growth, demands, and more without compromising efficiency. Scalability is an extremely important factor for any business as it enables organizations to meet organizational growth demand.

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How To Speed Up App Development Without Abandoning What Has Already Been Done?

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As the digital landscape continues to evolve and develop, many businesses may want to speed up the application development of existing projects without abandoning earlier progress.

The global enterprise application industry is expected to reach a market value of $527.40 billion by the year 2030, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.2%. Therefore, modern businesses must prioritize developing enterprise applications that are both efficient and relevant to their long-term goals and objectives.

However, application development can often take a significant amount of time and may even delay other organizational development initiatives. Therefore, businesses consider speeding up application development without abandoning pre-existing progress.

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Low code versus no code, and what it means to enterprise software developers

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Low code and no code are frequently lumped together, despite taking significantly different approaches. Here is what the debate means to enterprise developers.

The software industry is currently facing a massive wave of transformation driven by growing demand, evolving customer expectations, and fierce global competition. This has left enterprise software teams struggling to keep up with the constant pressure to innovate rapidly and keep widening skills gaps in check.

Every enterprise needs software, and off-the-shelf solutions can only go so far when it comes to meeting their unique requirements. However, while there is often a clear need to develop bespoke solutions, doing so often comes at a significant expense, especially when factoring in the ongoing costs of software maintenance.

Many of these challenges come down to the fact that traditional software development is costly and time-consuming and requires specialized skills that are in short supply and huge demand. This is why the case for no-code and low-code application development is growing all the time. According to Gartner, two-thirds of application development activity will be low code by 2024.

In this article, we will look at what that means for enterprise software teams.

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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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Why Software Vendors Should Use An Open-source Low-code Platform To Develop Their Apps

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Digital platforms have provided businesses with a whole new dimension of business expansion opportunities. All of a sudden, a small business startup from a small town can reach the world with a digital platform like a website or mobile application. These platforms have also enabled us to work faster, increasing efficiency and productivity through various automations and processes at the tap of a button.

Accordingly, we use apps all the time. There are millions of apps out there, and yet the growing use-cases of apps still continue to grow. So people now look to low-code development platforms as a way to gain access to services they need most. It’s no wonder why low-code development is now set to become a $39.79 billion industry by the time 2027 rolls in.

But what is low-code development and what are the advantages of using an open-source option? You’ll learn that and more in this article.

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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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