Trends in low-code development: Citizen development and the usage of low-code platforms in companies is increasing due to features for even easier access

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Low- and no-code development tools are becoming increasingly popular. This is because they accelerate software development and enable users with low or no programming skills to create their own applications. According to Gartner analysts, more than 65 percent of all enterprise applications will be developed using low and no-code tools by 2024. Forrester Research expects the overall market for these tools to grow by 40 percent over the next two years.

Today, low-code tools are primarily used to create simple info apps, employee portals, CRM applications and customer portals. Low code also offers enormous potential for the integration of logic into business processes. In the next few years, however, companies across all industries will increasingly use low-code development platforms for mission-critical applications. Even the public sector is increasingly focusing on this topic.

“A low-code platform is a must for every IT infrastructure. With our release 6.0 and the new features, we follow the trends in low-code development and help enterprises get into low-code even easier.”

Florian Rühl
CSO

The number of low-code users is growing continuously both among professional developers and among “non-IT professionals”. One of the main reasons is the lack of programmers who would be able to implement applications promptly. Many IT departments are unable to meet the growing demand for software created by digitization in-house. New IT specialists are hard to find, and the market is empty. Low platforms can be used to close this gap: Thanks to ready-made components that are relatively easy to assemble, more and more users from business units are able to create applications or participate in their creation.

Citizen Development: Closer collaboration between business units and IT

Another advantage is that the so-called Citizen Developers are closer to the customer and the processes, and can implement the business requirements and their own ideas directly into the software. The IT department still retains control over all applications that are created, provides appropriate support and ensures that governance and compliance requirements are adhered to. But implementation is increasingly occurring in the business units directly. This does not mean that IT and pro developers stop building applications. Quite the opposite – they continue to do so. But now, thanks to the support from the business units, they gain more capacity and can focus on more complex things and the essentials. In this way, collaboration between IT and the business departments is reinforced, and everyone works jointly on solutions that benefit the entire company.

Agile Software Development, Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Currently, most low-code apps are still developed and deployed by the IT department. By using visual, intuitive platforms with ready-to-use templates and connectors, they can save a lot of time in their usually very demanding work. And that fits in with agile software development, which nowadays a company can rarely do without. In addition, artificial intelligence is increasingly being used in platforms to highlight anomalies and reduce complexities.

In addition, AI is used to learn how applications are built. This means that in the future, large parts of an application can be created automatically without a developer having to intervene or coding many lines of code on their own. And this will be done while ensuring a consistently high standard with regard to the generated code quality. In the learning process, the AI is expected to acquire relevant information from the procedure and sequence of individual steps in app creation that lead to a successful result in order to build its own logics. Based on this, apps can be created even more efficiently, and the app builder receives information on how to achieve the result even faster with a simplified procedure (shortcut). The first approaches to AI in low-code platforms can already be identified by the use of assistants that guide and support the developer step by step in the individual processes. This helps everyone who is using low-code platforms to create applications – whether citizen developers or professional developers.

How Simplifier supports these trends

This is exactly where our new version has an impact: Simplifier 6.0 features a better overview and is even more intuitive to use than previous versions. Wizards guide you step by step through the app creation process – a clear trend towards AI-supported development. Since the new no-code features have made it that easy to integrate a connector, table or database, with Simplifier 6.0 we are expanding the scope of potential Citizen Developers and helping companies to reduce the workload of their IT departments and meet their growing software needs.

The new Simplifier update on 01/31/2021 will bring new features that support many trends in low-code development. Look forward to our next blog post the following week, where we will introduce the new features in advance. In the meantime, keep on digitizing!

The Simplifier Team

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