Discover how DHL Group increased connectivity across the enterprise and automated multiple processes end-to-end
Agility. Employee Empowerment. Simplicity. Low-code platforms have revolutionized the way enterprise applications are designed and built. It's now easier for non-technical users to execute projects that once relied heavily on input from skilled developers and software engineers. Companies across all industries are cutting costs, saving time, and boosting productivity.
Of course, as more and more businesses embrace the benefits that low-code offers, the number of competing software solutions has ballooned. To help you select which is right for your needs, we’ve compiled the following list of things to consider when making your decision:
Gather information from teams across the business about the issues they currently face and what is needed of the solutions that could help address them - conduct interviews, surveys, and workshops to identify common pain points and inefficiencies. Review existing systems to determine where a low-code platform could extend their capabilities or replace them entirely. For example, if your first use case involves extending SAP, then you’ll want to select a platform with strong experience and capabilities in that area.
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So you know what you want to build using the platform – but do you have the right team to do it? Understand who will be responsible for building and managing applications and their level of technical expertise to ensure you get the most value from it. This is important because some low-code platforms involve and integrated development environment, and are really geared towards being used by developers, where other tools are designed specifically to also support non-technical business users.
A low-code application, no matter how well-designed, is only valuable if it can be seamlessly integrated with your existing legacy systems. It's important to assess the other systems you need to integrate and the technical skills of those responsible for setting up and managing the integrations to take advantage of end-to-end orchestration within your applications. The platform you choose should offer connectors and APIs that enable you to connect your entire enterprise's tech infrastructure.
In today’s complex and ever-evolving business environment, it’s vital to know that business and customer data is managed according to established security practices and compliance requirements. User authentication, role-based access control, data encryption, and other security measures prevent unauthorized access to data.
Offering tools that enable greater intelligence in the business such as approvals that follow complex logic for automated approval and integrating AI and Machine learning technologies to enable even smarter business decisions.
Leading platforms for low-code development provide the ability to create applications in multiple languages and for users in different countries to engage with apps in the language of their choice. For example, DHL uses low-code apps running in 17 languages.
Low-code software should enable both business and IT teams to work together. The best low-code platforms (Bizagi included) provide different interfaces for different types of users within your team. This enables technical and minimal-to-non-technical users to collaborate in a single environment, but to have access to different pieces of the puzzle. For example, you may want everyone to be able to work on the business rules, but only technical users need access to add scripts or work on integrations and security.
It’s important to choose a platform that can grow along with you. A robust and scalable low-code platform allows a business to evolve organically without the potential disruptions that often arise when a company is forced to make a major software system change. Your platform of choice should be flexible enough to enable organizations to be agile and easily adapt to fluctuations in resources, growth, and demands across the business.
Your employees are working from a variety of devices, in different locations, at all hours. Your technology partner should be able to provide a design/build low-code solution that allows team members to be as productive on their phone as they are at their desk. Choosing a platform that enables you to build one application that will work across any device will ensure consistent user experiences without any additional development time.
The word “shortcut” gets a bad rap in the business world. But, in low-code development shortcuts can be a good thing: they save time, reduce frustration, and let your citizen developers concentrate on things that ultimately improve an organization’s overall productivity. Seek out a platform that will let you create consistency across the enterprise, and offer a simple way to repurpose and customize template components such as forms, business rules or a standard approval workflow.
Low-code platforms should enable reporting either natively or using third-party reporting tools such as Tableau or PowerBI. This enables organizations to review performance metrics and gain insight into business operations and identify improvement opportunities to boost efficiency or the customer experience.
There are various compensation models in the low-code space, ranging from traditional per-seat/per-user license fees to the more innovative, client-centric shared success approach. The latter (which we use at Bizagi) is tailored to fit an organization’s existing needs, but designed to keep pace as demand increases. The idea is to charge you for only what you use, without imposing unnecessary costs for excess capacity.
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