Low code isn’t a silver bullet, but it will change how you deliver value

Over the past three years, the rising star of user-friendly software development has been low code tools developed by global software vendors from Apple to SAP and plucky start-ups from Pillir to Unqork. As a result, HFS expects investment in low code tools to significantly increase, and here are five reasons your firm must take low code efforts seriously.

Five stats that should bolster your team’s sense of urgency to adopt low code

A recent HFS study on low code adoption surveying 150 application development decision-makers uncovered five low code insights you need to know:

1. Investment in low code is going through the roof in the next three years. Our research indicates a 50% increase in low code software spending by 2024.
   As a CIO/CTO, be wary of the low code hype cycle and every vendor’s eagerness to offer a solution you might not need. One only has to look at the recent “death of RPA” to draw similarities you can avoid.
2. Low code tools are not about citizen developers. Instead, 91% of low code investments are led by technology teams using these to speed development, collaborate more effectively, and better serve the business (Exhibit 1).
   Every CIO and service provider executive I have spoken to agrees that citizen developers are more of a long-tail result from adopting low code. So keep your eye on this but realize that technology is funding low code to aid in their talent and shortened software development cycle needs first.

Exhibit 1: IT leads investments in low code

Sample: n=150 Global 2000 Enterprise decision-makers
Source: HFS Research, 2022

3. Low code is essential to migrating to the cloud. Thirty-eight percent (38%) of responses indicate low code is a valid alternative to developing cloud-based applications with microservices, thus reducing the dependence on high-cost and high-demand talent.
   Moving to composable applications and data containers is the future. However, today’s value lies in getting legacy code from solutions like SAP and making them more available across the business.
4. Sixty-two percent (62%) indicate a lack of training on deploying, using, and maintaining low code is the biggest inhibitor to its adoption across business and technology teams. I have specifically not called out “no code.”
   No code is marketing banter, making it sound like any idiot can code. There is still a need to plan, frame, code, test, integrate, QC, and release. All of this takes training, and that requires its own allocation of time and investment.
5. Forty-eight percent (48%) say the primary driver for adopting low code is its ability to accelerate digital innovation while reducing IT backlog (Exhibit 2).Across the industry are seeing more people pontificate about the need for “speed to value” as the next step in “doing IT right.” Of course, the primary driver for spending on low code is the promise of speed to develop applications your employees and customers will love. Our data shows that this is top of mind with decision-makers; however, as I hope you have seen, getting to this speed requires many previous steps, many of which aren’t speedy.

Exhibit 2: Low code supports efforts to drive digital transformation while reducing IT backlog

Sample: n=150 Global 2000 Enterprise decision-makers
Source: HFS Research, 2022

Low code’s bigger picture is less about technology and more about enabling a future of co-creation and development to solve business problems.

At the end of the day, low code is about people, not technology. Today, Gen Z individuals make up less than 10% of a company’s workforce; by 2030, this number will be over more than 30%.

Enterprises must take low code seriously because almost every employee they hire from 2022 onwards and nearly every new customer they land will have grown up with a mobile device.  And likely, every one of these new employees will consider themselves a digital citizen with a right to code! So, they will create without your corporate IT blessings! While research shows non-IT users are slowly moving to low code, rapid adoption is happening in IT departments.

When you think of the long tail of low code, think about how it will help in your attraction and development of teams that can work more effectively to solve problems. The generation of workforce that will benefit the most from low code is still 2-5 years away. However, preparing your technology systems, teams, and policies around low code is here and now. So, begin this journey by looking at how other journeys (like RPA) have evolved, understand what low code solutions will bring more functionality to the workplace, and expect that low code will allow your joint business and technology teams to create a mobile-first world.

The Bottom Line: The excitement about low code promises to change how organization develop software to solve business and customer problems. However, you must take a long-term view as to what you need to do first to enable adoption and long-term success. Don’t get lost in all the marketing hype.

From 1990 to today, companies have been evolving the way they work. Fax machines giving way to email and mail-in ordering replaced by e-commerce were just the beginning. As enterprise technologies automated everything from accounting to customer service, we have continued to create new ways of working. And until now, they were technology led rather than business-led. Low code is the start of recapturing how technology investments made it harder to deliver quickly when the change was upon us.

Begin your low code journey with a pragmatic view of what technology-based services add the most value to your customers paying you for the services you deliver. Next, look for tools to unlock the speed needed to compete and sustain a loyal customer base. Then apply low code to make it easier for the technology teams to address service requests, feature improvement requests, or product updates. Start with these steps, and as you move to new technologies, low code will become the asset you use versus the one you have bought too much of.