Business App Development: How to Boost Efficiency with Low-Code Platforms
Imagine being able to construct and launch a business application within the same day. Or add a new feature with just a few clicks.
Often regarded as a new phase in business transformation, low-code tools offer unprecedented business agility without the technical intricacies.
Utilizing a low-code approach, companies can speed up the release of apps and business offerings through visual interfaces, drag-and-drop features, seamless deployment, and connectivity to legacy or cloud systems.
Comparable to assembling Lego blocks, staff with minimal coding experience can drag and drop application elements, connect them, and generate web or mobile apps.
Low-code developer platforms also empower IT teams to automate workflow, make development quicker through reusable components and high-abstraction coding, and design applications without having to explore, write, and test new scripts.
Since low-code development eliminates most costs associated with deploying, operating, and preserving business apps, companies can streamline operations with a minimal initial investment.
Does low-code have a high return on investment?
The rising demand for software automation, low starting costs, and reduced development duration motivate businesses of all sizes to adopt low-code development platforms.
However, besides these advantages, what is the actual return on investment of low-code platforms?
A 2022 study by Forrester, interviewing customers of a dominant low-code platform, unveiled a 506% ROI over three years. Improved operational efficiency, contributing to 38% of the total benefits, was one of the most significant areas for cost savings.
Additionally, businesses utilizing low-code tools typically recover their investment faster. In the same research, Forrester estimates that it takes organizations up to 6 months for the low-code platform to pay for itself essentially.
How low-code can have a tangible business impact
Constructing a business application requires an ongoing investment, especially as the app expands.
Ongoing support, updates, security patches, maintaining the codebase as libraries become obsolete, and cloud infrastructure costs can significantly add up in the end.
Low-code development platforms tackle most of these issues in the background, ensuring your app can accommodate growth without compromising performance. Low-code tools provide a cost-effective and adaptable approach to updating organizational processes, such as providing faster access to business intelligence, speeding up approval processes, or enhancing planning.
However, despite the fact this method simplifies technical complexity, it doesn’t imply that manual coding is unnecessary or should be eliminated.
Ultimately, this is what distinguishes low-code from no-code. Working collaboratively with developers can provide an additional degree of personalization and customization, with low-code tools allowing, for instance, the execution of JavaScript code.
Case study: building a low-code platform for fast business app development
nedyx® reached out for ETEAM’s help to construct a low-code platform. The idea was to assist businesses of various sizes to swiftly create and launch web and mobile business applications.
The objective was to provide citizen developers and business teams with the tools necessary for quicker delivery, while also enabling users without previous coding skills to develop apps.
This helps organizations accelerate their digitalization initiatives and automate their operations without the need for additional programming training or infrastructure expenses.
The ETEAM solution
Together with our client, our engineering team examined a range of use cases. Our goal was to provide users with a level of flexibility not usually found in other low-code products.
The nedyx® platform had to address both the needs of startups and small companies wishing to quickly roll out an MVP and the complex logic typically found in large-scale business applications.
Covering requirements of any complexity
To cater to a wide variety of business situations, our team began by outlining the most crucial components for building applications.
We determined seven essential widget types (table, text, cell, button, menu, images, charts) that can be used to construct components and develop relationships through an intuitive, functional language we developed, known as ClearLines. The formula editor also offers in-line suggestions as you type.
Below are a few examples of business applications that can be developed using nedyx®, ranging from simple use cases to the most sophisticated features.
Desk booking — swiftly construct an app that enables the management and tracking of reserved desks in co-working spaces and displays workstation occupancy.
Analytics and reporting — nedyx® includes dozens of charts and the capability to link your app to multiple data sources to formulate powerful visualizations and reports, such as profit & loss analysis.
Logistics — develop apps that can efficiently allocate incoming delivery orders based on the delivery area, accessible drivers, and available storage space.
Manufacturing and supply chain — nedyx® caters to enterprise-level resource planning requirements, ranging from minimizing machine downtime in manufacturing assembly lines to monitoring stock levels and ordering spare parts.
Creating a user-friendly language for nedyx®
One of the strongest features of nedyx® is its user-friendly syntax. We aimed to offer users, who aren’t familiar with any coding languages, the ability to add functionality and gain comprehensive control over their applications through:
- A language that doesn’t require learning because of its simple semantics, functions, and parameters.
- A consistently expanding function collection, including a formula wiki, tooltips, and autocomplete options.
- The facility to reference custom templates or actual formulas using named #hashtags.
One-click deployment with no cloud setup
Launching your application is among the most rewarding experiences. It’s also something you want to do swiftly, without any further setups.
With nedyx®, going live is as straightforward as publishing your app with a single click and inviting other team members to start using it. There’s no need for DevOps or complex cloud configurations — the platform takes care of all that in the background!
To facilitate this, our solution architects examined several managed cloud architectures and settled on the Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service Cluster as the optimal choice. Advanced load balancing, along with security features, make EKS Clusters an excellent option to ensure 100% uptime during peak hours and robust security via features like network isolation and role-based access control.
The following figure depicts the utilized AWS environment:
Seamless connectivity to apps and data sources
Business transformation is frequently mistaken as a process to entirely replace old systems with new ones.
Yet, this doesn’t imply leaving previous investments in infrastructure and applications.
One of the most significant benefits of low-code platforms is the ability to connect any new app you create with existing data sources. Thus, organizations can extract added value from their core systems like CRM or ERP, without undergoing lengthy, intricate upgrades.
Our engineers worked hard to ensure the possibility of connecting to a range of third-party data sources, including:
- Enterprise business applications such as SAP and SharePoint
- Relational databases (PostgreSQL, SQL Server tables)
- Multidimensional databases (Microsoft Analysis Services, Oracle Essbase)
- Data warehouses such as Snowflake and Microsoft Azure Data Lake
With the straightforward syntax of nedyx®, you can extract data, modify it, and reintroduce it without writing a single line of SQL code.
The bottom line
In just 4 months, we managed to launch the initial phase of the product, which was warmly welcomed by several significant early adopters.
After 15 months, nedyx® entered full production, being used by companies across various industries to construct common process automation tools.
With the assistance of intuitive functions, business logic, and reusable components, organizations managed to reduce their implementation cycles and expenditures.
Various departments can now independently build the business apps they need, lessening the burden of challenging tasks typically delegated to IT teams.
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