Authored by Sanjeev Dahiwadkar, Founder & CEO, ITShastra
The world is getting app-heavy. Businesses and organisations are tapping the app route to reach their end users. As internet penetration rises, it has become an imperative for enterprises to increase their digital footprint. This has led to rapid digital transformation drive across sectors, which has further increased during last two years owing to the COVID pandemic. From large corporates to small businesses, all are taking a nimble approach in digital adoption. But the financial resources available for spending on technology by small businesses are limited. This can hinder their ability to stay relevant in the changing landscape. In this perspective, low-code and no-code application development solutions hold a lot of promise. Developing economies like India- the home to 6.3 crore SMBs as per Ministry of MSME – can see a perceptible change by leveraging these platforms. App adoption in Indian context also remains impressive. According to estimates, India accounted for around 14 per cent of the global app installs in 2020.
Low-code & No-code platforms can be leveraged:
Amid such huge demand for app-based platforms, low-code and no-code application development can go a long way in ensuring faster development of digital platforms for businesses at an affordable cost. Low-code & no-code development platforms allow developers to drag and drop application components, connect them together and create mobile or web apps in a seamless manner. This approach is different in conventional software development wherein programmers have to write codes that power different functions and features in an application. In the conventional software development process, programmers need to have in-depth knowledge of coding and other required expertise. Low-code and no-code platforms encapsulate all that work behind the scenes. This enables even individual users even with low or minimal knowledge to develop a digital platform like app.
At a time, global enterprises are moving to cloud at an accelerated pace and are ever expanding their presence, low-code and no-code platforms is one of the most emerging areas with huge potential. According to Gartner, low-code market grew 23 per cent in 2020 to reach $11.3 billion, and is likely to touch almost $30 billion by 2025. It also forecasts that low-code application development will account for 65 per cent of all application development activity by 2024, mostly for small and medium-sized projects. Industry body Nasscom in a recent report said that Indian IT services providers and startups generated over $400 million revenues in FY21 from low-code, no-code (LCNC) software solutions. This market is projected to grow to $4 billion by 2025 with the right levers, the report said.
Conventional & LCNC to coexist:
Low-code, no code software application is expected to be a disruptive force in the technology world. Powered with emerging technologies like AI, ML, data analytics; these application development approach will be key to digitally transform many enterprises.
Apart from faster development of apps, low-code and no-code platforms will empower small and medium businesses to develop their own platforms without relying on a team of developers or engineers to develop and deploy applications. Small businesses, in return, can save a lot of time and cost. This can lead to faster growth of small businesses. Moreover, low-code, no code platform gives an opportunity to organisations for delivering mission critical projects at a faster pace as compared to traditional methods of development. In a fast-evolving world, companies need to be agile in their go to market strategy and low-code, no-code development strategy can help firms to achieve it.
However, LCNC will not replace the traditional method of application development. Because, traditional approach is more suitable for complex and customised app development environment. Moreover, larger enterprises with huge transformational projects hardly rely on such approach for managing their mission critical IT applications. So, low-code and no-code platforms will not likely to replace traditional development fully. Skilled developers with expertise to develop more complex applications will always be in demand. Nevertheless, small businesses will immensely benefit from such low-code, no-code platforms through faster development and deployment. India with a huge number of small businesses, can leverage this application method to enable faster growth of these enterprises.
