How To Combine Low-Code With Agile To Improve Your Business

Low-code is a visual approach to software development that requires minimal or even no coding to build powerful enterprise applications and process automations. Instead of complex coding languages, a low-code development platform employs the use of visual interfaces with simple logic and drag-and-drop editors.

Agile was introduced several years before low-code. It was such a game-changing approach to application development that it’s no surprise that the core principles of Agile are currently mirrored in low-code platforms.

Businesses that utilize both Agile and low-code have the advantage of implementing new applications and processes quickly, giving them an edge over their competitors by anticipating market trends and demands. A recent study conducted by Gartner reveals that approximately 65% of all application development activity will be a result of low-code applications by the year 2024.

Low-code platforms enable citizen development teams within large enterprises to meet their enterprise application needs without needing to turn to the software developement department, allowing those software departments to complete complex business processes much more quickly and efficiently, thus increasing overall organizational productivity.

How Low-Code Can Help Agile Teams Improve Business

1) Increase Cross-Departmental Collaboration

Cross-departmental collaboration reflects a healthy internal organizational culture. The customer notices a difference when employees feel at ease working together, communicate effectively, and understand each other’s roles and functions within the system.

Low-code can help facilitate easeless cross-departmental collaboration without employing the use of extensive organizational resources. Low-code platforms can go a long way to overcoming these challenges and supports the Agile emphasis on cross-departmental collaboration.

This means that developers and organizational employees can easily collaborate, innovate, and deliver enterprise-grade applications, hence allowing organizations to build applications more quickly and productively. Furthermore, it enables businesses and IT to collaborate in real-time through the use of visual interfaces to capture business requirements, quickly iterate and scale-up applications, and maintain the project’s ultimate goals and objectives.

2) Faster Application Development

Most low-code platforms are extensible, allowing citizen developers to turn APIs, web services, and command lines into reusable building blocks through direct integrations with major vendors. This reduces the time required to integrate and deploy new solutions and technologies, thus allowing businesses to stay ahead of market trends and evolving consumer expectations.

Traditional coding can be an extremely difficult process, with a single line of code or a misplaced element delaying the deployment of an application for weeks or months at a time. However, a low-code application development platform eliminates many of the potential pitfalls. Drag-and-drop builders and workflow automation tools can result in a much faster development turnaround. Recent studies indicate that using low-code platforms has the potential to reduce development time by a staggering 90%.

Organizations can also respond to customer or market demands much more quickly because they don’t have to wait for a skilled software developer or outsource the update to a third-party developer.

3) Automating Business Processes

Low-code platforms equipped with the appropriate development tools can significantly speed up the development process for automating day-to-day tasks and end-to-end processes.

Workflows can be started based on IT and business events, templates can be used to quickly develop new business processes, and variables and flow control can make data management across platforms easier. Meanwhile, prebuilt integrations, configurations and API access enable the automation of virtually any time-consuming, repetitive business process.

Low-code automation enables the automation of numerous business processes that require little coding, allowing non-technical business users to get hands-on with automation projects while reducing reliance on developers and software engineers. With extensive studies showing that utilizing proper business management and low code can increase customer satisfaction by almost 30%, proper implementation of low code and agile can be a make or break for every business.

4) Establishing Citizen Development and Reducing Technical Debt

Low-code platforms equipped with the appropriate development tools can substantially speed up the development process for automating tasks and end-to-end processes.

By abstracting multiple tedious tasks from day-to-day development, low-code development reduces the burden of software maintenance. When compared to the traditional method, there are far fewer integration issues to deal with when using standardized, pretested, and ready-made components. It enables developers to spend less time on maintenance and more time on tasks that add larger organizational value.

Workflows can be automated using historical data, templates can be used to quickly develop new business processes, and variables and flow control can make data management across platforms easier. The low-code application development tools are intended for internal teams. Hiring an external application development team does not need to increase a company’s costs. Furthermore, the updates can be carried out by the internal citizen developers.

5) Establishing Automated Customer Service Portals

Low-code platforms can automate a variety of operations critical to customer experiences and engagement. The agility of application development and the robust business process features aid in the creation of much better enterprise applications, thereby improving the overall customer experience.

Customers today expect organizations they do business with to provide faster, more flexible, and highly personalized digital experiences. Meeting customer demands is no longer a competitive advantage. Exceeding those expectations is what distinguishes organizations in today’s difficult business landscape. Long wait times, low first-time resolution rates, and agents lacking the necessary information during customer interactions are just a few of the issues that can affect customer satisfaction levels.

Low-code platforms provide organizations with flexibility and speed, allowing them to build applications that bring data and insights together to rapidly improve customer experience. Such platforms also assist agents in providing better customer service by providing tools such as real-time updates, reduced delivery times, improved interaction, and targeted user feedback.

Planet Crust – Improve Your Business With Low-Code

Combining low-code with agile can help your business create enterprise applications much faster than ever before, increase cross-departmental collaboration, automate various business processes, empower citizen developers and establish automated customer service channels.

Planet Crust’s low-code platform, Corteza, provides the tools your business needs to optimize and streamline workflows. Get a trial now so that your business can take advantage of the various benefits of low-code technology.