COVID-19 impact: Low code development to be crucial in times of rapid digitisation
In the coronavirus scenario, CIOs are in the hunt for technology platforms that can reduce the time to market - end to end. One of the platforms, which can prove to be a major game-changer is the Low Code Development Platform (LCDP)
Microsoft has seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in just two months of its third-quarter (January-March period), Says, CEO Satya Nadella; COVID-19 has sped up digital transformation by 5.3 years, says a recent study; One more study says, COVID-19 has made the retail sector invest in 3 years’ worth of digital transformation in a span of 6 months.
There are many such examples of how the pandemic has turbocharged digital transformation in companies, sectors across the board.
The trend of work from home (WFH) & work from anywhere (WFA) and the paradigm shift in buying patterns wherein, customers using online platforms has gone up, the IT teams at companies have been on their toes in catching up with not only customer demands but also fighting it out with their competition in keeping up with application development, maintenance, releases, security, etc.
Companies can no longer afford to have digitisation cycles which run in years. The pressure on time to market has always been there but ‘Nothing compared to what we will see in the future’. CIOs are in the hunt for technology platforms that can reduce the time to market – end to end. One of the platforms, which can prove to be a major game-changer is the Low Code Development Platform (LCDP).
The Edelweiss experience
Edelweiss is using LCDP for the Loan Origination System (LOS) “Large part of Origination process is data capture / CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update and Delete) operations and workflow. An LCDP provides us with tremendous agility to rehash both with changing market conditions and regulations. We have taken a platform-based approach for processing any kind of loans and built a library of configurable widgets and analytical scorecards. It effectively enables us to roll out new features in production in a matter of weeks rather than months. The configuration capabilities of the platform allows the business teams to change onboarding and underwriting parameters at will without any dependency on the IT team.,” says Mehernosh Tata, CEO, Edelweiss Retail Finance Limited.
So, what is that characteristic of LCDP that empowers it to design applications so fast and with ease? To put it simply, it’s ‘code and development cycle automation’. It’s a matter of just drag and drop, connecting the dots and the code is generated and at a push of button published to Production. This can be done across the lifecycle of software programming – be it UI/UX, logic design, process design, deployment, etc. All of this is automated.
Compare this to a full-stack environment – the programming language has to be decided upon, which specific version is best suited, teams have to be formed to do development, process integration, etc. This is all bypassed in LCDP. The power of development of the application is given back into the hands of the business user.
Edelweiss has replaced its ageing Loan Origination System on an LCDP. “The company has replaced the full stack custom build software with the LCDP from Outsystems,” says Subrato Bandhu, Regional Vice President – India, Outsystems. The irritant with the old platform was the lack of agility. A lot of heavy handling was required to effect the demands from the business on a daily / monthly basis. Usually, in the scenario of full-stack, to fulfill a major business demand with respect to launching a financial product, it used to take about an year. The Turn Around Time with the LCDP for the same kind of work would be just about three months. Another benefit is less reliance on manpower because of the low code nature of the platform. The business teams can themselves add functionalities. The LCDP can also be easily integrated with the data lake.
LCDP covers the entire canvas of app development
The low code development is giving rise to the movement of citizen developers however it goes much beyond that. The Outsystems’ LCDP in addition to the software development also conducts the DevOps and application monitoring part. Thus the company has topped in the Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low Code Application Platforms.
The LCDP also has a mechanism of freely available ‘forge’ components, which enable integration between the low code platform and commercially-off-the-shelf software or even legacy software running in enterprises. These forge components are freely available in the libraries developed by Outsystems.
As the demand for app / web development and omni channel service will further go up, the requirement for companies to go for low code platforms will also gain importance. As per Gartner, by 2024, low-code application development will contribute to more than 65 percent of app development. By 2023, about 75 percent of large enterprises will be using a minimum of four low code development tools for IT application development.
