Best Practices for Selecting and Adopting Low-Code Application Platforms in Enterprises

Overview

Over the last few years, there has been a significant development in the evolution of low-code application platforms. They have become mainstream for application development at many enterprises. According to Gartner, the global market for low-code platforms is expected to be around $67 billion by 2027, and $187 billion by 2030, with a CAGR of 31.1% between 2020–2030. Great potential for adoption within enterprises. By taking a strategic approach while selecting and adopting the right low-code application platform, enterprises can greatly benefit in their digital transformation journey. In this article, I will take the opportunity to walk you through some of the best practices for their selection and adoption within enterprises.

What is a low-code application platform?

Low code is a software development approach where you require low coding (or no coding in some cases) to build applications and processes. Usually, you will use visual interfaces with drag-and-drop-like capabilities to build the low code applications. These features are offered by the low-code application platforms, along with the basic logic, integrations, and the underlying application lifecycle management from build to deployment. Also, it is not that these platforms completely avoid coding. For some complex scenarios, we may need some customization or a piece of code to make sure integrations work properly.

Benefits of using low code platforms

The primary benefit of the low code platforms is rapid application development and the capability to take new ideas/features to production faster. Enterprises on their digital transformation journey can take advantage of this, along with additional benefits they offer

• Increased agility: With more access to development by nontechnical users, enterprises can increase the agility towards the user or employee needs and the market dynamics.
• Reduced costs: Overall Low code platforms save costs of development and maintenance, in the range of 20–40%. Otherwise, their presence and penetration in enterprises wouldn’t go this far.
• Reduces technical debt: With rapid changes happening in technology, dealing with technical debt has become a mainstream challenge for enterprises. When compared to custom applications, low-code applications reduce the technical debt associated with them. These low-code platforms reduce technical debt by providing a standardized and structured environment for managing the entire application lifecycle through which poor coding practices and shortcuts in development are remediated at the source.
• Mitigate talent shortages: These platforms allow us to develop applications without the need for large teams. In a way, they address talent shortages typically seen in enterprises.

Selecting the right low-code platform

Selecting the right low-code platform for an enterprise is never easy. Enterprises should be more strategic while selecting the platform to maximize the benefits. Low-code platforms play an important role in enterprises’ digital transformation journey. There are multiple areas one has to look at while evaluating a platform. Such important areas include

• Core platform: Provides the foundation for low code development with all the needed heavy lifting required, including configurations, access, security, workflow automation, visual tools & controls for development, hosting, cloud capability, scalability, etc.
• UI capability: Out-of-the-box UI capabilities to support the modern look and feel, including multiple channel and multi-language support. Usually, the user experience of low-code platforms would not match the custom application but they are not far behind to address the needs of the digital users.
• Integrations: The integration capabilities of the platform play a vital role in its overall success. Ideally, it should support both legacy and modern types of integration, of both internal and external sources, along with having pre-built connectors for standard or regular use cases. E.g. Connectors for ERP, SSO, document management, content management, databases, cloud, etc.
• Customizations: The ability to customize existing features plays a vital role if you are looking to use a low-code platform for complex use cases. Not all platforms allow the same level of customization.
• App lifecycle management: Platform should support easy developer onboarding, with the developer and operations tools, sandbox environments, approvals, application versioning, and the entire app lifecycle management from the inception to sunset.
• Ecosystem: One needs to take into account the kind of applications you want to build using the low code platform and the ecosystem in which these applications integrate and create more value for the enterprise. E.g. An enterprise using more Microsoft stack for their business applications can benefit from their PowerPlatform (low code offering) provided pricing and other aspects are fairly equal when compared with other low code platforms.
• Product roadmap: There should exist a healthy roadmap for the low code platform by the product team to address both the current challenges and emerging needs around the platform.
• Community: The active and vibrant community around the platform plays an important role in its adoption within enterprises. The availability of skilled resources and building the capability internally are foundations of the overall success.

Best practices in the adoption

Many enterprises have already started the journey towards the adoption of low-code platforms. Doing that in a way that provides opportunities for greater success is important. I am sharing a few best practices that have surfaced in my experience, hoping that they could help you too.

• Adopt to a portfolio or group of applications — It is better to migrate a group of applications at once to a low-code platform (or adopt the low-code platform at once to a group of applications) to start seeing quantitative benefits. By doing so, you will leverage your capacity, the low code platform, and partnerships to extract the best business value and cost savings.
• Migrate applications in a phased manner — Plan to migrate the applications in a phased manner instead of trying all guns blazing from the start. For example, migrating internally facing business applications can be a good starting point to see the platform in action, challenges in adoption, and validation of the projected business value. This approach will also help to course correct and tailor the journey for the enterprise.
• Mindful about ecosystem benefits — At times it can be tempting to go for the best platform in the market, but considering the technology landscape within the organization and the ecosystem benefits that a platform offers could outweigh the benefits from others. For example, Microsoft PowerPlatform can be a great fit if the applications portfolio and business applications within the organization are using Microsoft technologies.
• Build Center of Excellence — Along with top-down focus, capability building around the selected platform is vital for the success of the low code adoption within the enterprise. Building a Center of Excellence around these capabilities will greatly enhance the adoption journey. With knowledge base and capability accumulations happening over a period of time, low code development has the potential to become mainstream development within the enterprise.
• Look for cost benefits too — Do not ignore cost benefits while low code platforms offer speed or reduced time to market. A good strategy is to consider both from the start and have visible benefits to the business. The right platform for an enterprise benefits in both dimensions.
• Don’t leave out exit strategy till you exit — Quite often enterprises do not consider exit strategy for low code platforms seriously thinking it is not needed in the near future or exit may not happen in the tenure of the decision maker. This mindset can potentially limit the performance of the enterprise either by getting locked to the vendor or the limitations of the platform start affecting the business. Having an exit strategy de-risks the enterprise. Many of the platforms do not offer exit features for all the solution components.

Conclusion

Low-code platforms have become integral to enterprises that are on a digital transformation journey. While some enterprises are using it for internal-facing business applications, some forward-looking enterprises are using it for consumer or external-facing applications too. Having a clear strategy for low-code platform adoption is important. Choosing the right low-code platform provides multi-dimensional benefits in terms of cost, reduced time to market, agility, reduced technical debt, and mitigating talent shortages. Following the best practices increases the success probability and benefits even further. While the low-code platforms are not a solution for all kinds of enterprise applications, they offer great value in certain portfolios.