7 Proven Paths to Better RoI
The enterprise software market is expected to reach nearly $300 billion in 2024 and continues to rapidly accelerate, with technology driving greater efficiency, speed and convenience for enterprises. Yet, for customers using sophisticated software development platforms and tools, many projects still regularly overrun budgets and deadlines, falling short of achieving their goals.
This situation gets even more perplexing for those enterprises who have adopted low-code development platforms – costs of licensing, training, adoption, scaling and sustaining this transformative model are skyrocketing. Low-code platforms were in fact supposed to lower the costs of building and sustaining custom applications by democratizing and increasing productivity across all skill levels.
Backdrop: Low-Code Development is Mainstream
From large enterprises to small businesses – spanning such diverse areas as banking and fintech, manufacturing and telecommunications – it’s clear that low-code development is an increasingly popular option. Gartner (News - Alert) wrote that it would comprise “65% of the IT and software development market by 2024,” while a Forrester (News - Alert) survey, which revealed that 87% of enterprise developers use low-code platforms for “at least some of” their development work, forecasts its value at close to $30 billion by 2028 and, catalyzed by AI, potentially $50 billion.
What’s driving this robust growth? Among the primary reasons are the democratization of application development, legacy application modernization and the acceleration of new software platforms. While many companies opt to outsource development and some buy existing off-the-shelf software, a rising number of enterprise businesses balance their needs and budgets through in-house application development facilitated by a commercially available low-code platform like WaveMaker.
The Benefits and Costs of Custom Software Development with Low-Code Platforms
The benefits of building your own software are endless. They include composability (mix-and-match capabilities for a stream of robust applications), agility (innovate, prototype, launch and iterate quickly), intellectual property (develop owned IP for use, licensing and sale) and control (by managing the tech stack, automation and developer teams, companies can ensures quality, sustainability and efficiency). Software development teams can be very expensive to maintain, however, exacerbated by an acute shortage of tech talent. This is where a low-code developer platform – the right low-code platform – can be critical to deliver results with low TCO, and ultimately boost top and bottom line.
Whether companies look to develop customer relationship management software, project and portfolio management software, supply chain management software, or any other type, they can be stymied by shortsighted strategy, unexpected costs and more technical debt. From manufacturing to banking, many industries are fearful of change and therefore, think and act incrementally leading to small, sub-critical gains. These gains alone are not enough to justify low-development platform license, support, training and scaling/adoption costs, let alone change management related to people, processes, infrastructure and security. Low-code platforms and low-code development by themselves are clearly not a panacea for corporations looking to accelerate modern applications to the business in a cost-effective manner.
7 Proven Paths to Deliver RoI with Low-Code Development
Companies who are wanting to have the proverbial cake (cost-effective development) and eat it too (business outcomes) must take a thoughtful, deliberate and multi-pronged approach. Here are seven important paths that companies and leaders can take to meet their North Star in the long-term:
1. Pick a low-code platform with the long-term in mind. Go deep in conversations with low-code platform providers about their offerings and support, with a bias for open technology standards and a development model that mirrors the way modern developers and teams work. It’s easy to be attracted to a tech product due to flashy features or popularity, but you need to prioritize future-proof flexibility and the potential to maintain strategic options – with or without the provider in the picture. With application scalability and security deep-rooted into the architecture and technology used by the platform, WaveMaker allows companies to build complex and flexible applications that can cater to expanding users and use cases.
2. Plant your flag with a major project. Low-code platforms can be completely relied upon to develop full-fledged end-to-end applications, reducing developer time and cost. Begin by picking a large, multi year-funded project as the first one for development. Through this you can confirm that your low-code platform can satisfy all the elements of a major initiative, so you can be assured that it will benefit others. From there you can add two or three smaller projects to be built from low-code environments, helping the team score a series of quick wins and further refine their process.
3. Define project success and set flexible checkpoints. What does it look like for a project to be successful? Your team lead should take the time to study projects that have been accomplished in a similar vein. Based on this, they can set realistic yet flexible timelines for the entire team to satisfy these goals. Tasks can be broken down into minor tasks – with milestones reviewed once achieved, tweaking as needed – ensuring the project is getting completed within a series of deadlines.
4. Maximize team synergy. With the right “innovation sandbox” in place, start by creating broad interoperability and integration between departments and systems. Innovative applications cannot be conceived and built in isolation – the wider the participation, the higher your chances of success. WaveMaker incorporates essential features like outstanding version control that facilitates seamless collaboration on the latest version of code.
5. Leverage existing digital core platforms. Building a big critical project using low-code doesn’t always imply building from scratch. While clumsy legacy systems and archaic software can pose a challenge, your existing core platforms, such as Microsoft, Oracle (News - Alert), Salesforce or SAP, form the bedrock for low-code-powered composable applications. This vertical architecture can help deliver increased value by enabling rapid, easy and affordable composability for new business-aligned applications.
6. Engage employees through a low-code quotient score. Like the advent of AI, low-code is a force multiplier. Along with training, technology and tools, each employee should be able to earn a low-code quotient score. This is an effective way of driving employee skill and participation, as well as morale and teamwork, fostering a low-code culture within the team which makes adoption easier. Regular executive communication with employees is the key to achieving this engagement.
7. Institutionalize the transformation. Invest early in a “center of excellence” team that includes a minimum of two C-level sponsors. Build a charter that is comprehensive and clear, and staff the team with forward-thinking people who have creative ideas and a track record in getting new, complex projects done. This can be the beachhead from which the transformation and subsequent success in your organization can launch.
Like so many other business initiatives, adopting low-code development can be cost-effective through a strategic approach, synergistic buy-in and clear measurement criteria. Low-code isn’t a corner-cutting way to build applications on the cheap – it’s a transformative platform through which enterprise software can be imagined, built and sustained over an entire lifecycle. And while it is yet to be seen how AI may integrate into low-code development, the optimistic view sees both working together to help companies grow and reinvent themselves faster than ever before.
Vikram Srivats leads commercial strategy and global field operations for WaveMaker, the industry’s most open and developer-friendly low-code platform for modern application developers. Vikram is an intrapreneurial tech executive with a 20-year track record of incubating, recrafting, and scaling businesses for market salience. His work experience spans mature billion-dollar revenue tech players as well as startups. At WaveMaker, Vikram helped build out the first vertical go-to-market strategy and is currently driving overall execution with a purpose-led, passionate team. In previous stints, Vikram incubated an Internet of Things business from the ground-up, helped establish a wireless tech licensing business as #1 globally, and shaped the enterprise go-to-market for India’s first handheld computer.
