Harnessing the Low-Code Revolution: The promise and perils of the citizen-led innovation

Introduction

Perhaps the only silver lining of COVID-19 has been the acceleration toward adopting digital technologies across geographies, sectors, product categories, and customer segments. To survive and thrive in the face of the paradigm shift in consumer behavior triggered by the pandemic, banks launched digital outreach channels to offer flexible payment options for loans and mortgages, retail outlets transitioned to remote sales and service, and telemedicine and digital learning gained tremendous traction. The list goes on.

McKinsey Digital estimates consumer and business digital adoption vaulted five years forward?in eight weeks, driven by the pandemic [1]. While the pandemic may have now subsided, the new “normal” of digital transformation is here to stay.

As enterprises continue to march to the digital drumbeat, the ability to pivot from an incumbent mindset to an insurgent mindset will separate leaders from laggards.?

According to the EY Tech Horizon report [2],?the leaders demonstrate the following six habits

1. Focusing on customers first and foremost
2. Accelerating AI to drive growth
3. Driving innovation through ecosystems and partnerships
4. Nurturing talent with new incentives and strategies
5. Activating governance plans for emerging tech
6. Powering innovation by leveraging data and being agile

What do all six practices have in common? Digital transformation with human at the center, innovation at scale, and experimentation at the edges

Against this backdrop, enterprises are increasingly leveraging Low-Code/No-Code (LCNC) platforms to accelerate ideation-launch-iteration cycles, develop cutting-edge products and services pre-built for AI, cloud, and mobile, and drive hyper-automation initiatives (for example, automation workflows, integration, and decision analytics).?

From idea to impact using LCNC platforms

For several decades, enterprises have been grappling with the “build vs buy” conundrum. Strategic fitment, existing business and operating models, and internal capabilities across technology, business, and operations are some of the factors that are required to be assessed comprehensively during the decision-making process. This complex and time-consuming endeavor could be completely derailed by even seemingly inconsequential mistakes in judgment.

With LCNC platforms gaining mainstream acceptance and maturing swiftly, the C-suite has a third option at its disposal. It leverages the best features of both custom software and commercial off-the-shelf solutions, resulting in a 10x faster time to market compared to the bespoke model of software development [4].?

Transitioning from traditional enterprise to intelligent enterprise

Enterprises are evolving into tech-enabled workplaces today, with teams from business, technology, and operations moving toward more customer-centric initiatives. To derive maximum value from this citizen-led innovation, crowdsourcing ideation and execution and increasing employee productivity with tools and technologies are essential prerequisites.

Here, the low-code approach serves as an excellent catalyst, changing the ways users interact with organizations and the ways organizations interact with information. LCNC platforms can facilitate collaboration between domain experts and technology specialists to create, customize, and iterate functionally rich applications, as well as assist product owners in developing and testing prototypes on a small scale without incurring significant development time and cost.

Remember how organizations married development and operations to create DevOps? By bringing business to the table, low-code advances that idea to BizDevOps [3].

Key driving factors fueling the adoption of low-code development technology are as follows:

1. Application development is a team sport: There has been an unprecedented increase in executive-sponsored democratization and citizen-led innovation initiatives to foster knowledge sharing across teams and infuse agility to break through the bottlenecks that have traditionally impeded development efforts.
2. Low code does not mean low utility:?Disruptions from trends such as Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Services (CIPS), SaaS, Cloud-Native Platforms (CNP), and composable business architecture necessitate enterprises to adapt and evolve rapidly. To address these burgeoning demands, LCNC platforms lower the barriers to entry, powered by citizen developers, and accelerates the ideation-launch-iterate cycles
3. Changing software development landscape: The acute shortage of highly skilled technology talent (more than 85 million tech workers by 2030, which in turn can potentially translate to a lost revenue of $8.5 trillion annually) coupled with the rapidly evolving business needs, and the demand for greater velocity in application delivery, has accelerated the adoption of low-code development technologies.

Citizen-led innovation powered by LCNC platform: Critical Success Factors [5] [6][7]

While LCNC platforms offer enormous potential benefits and far-reaching implications, necessary guardrails are critical to optimizing results, ensuring alignment and accountability, and avoiding pitfalls.

1. Forward-looking technology strategy and roadmap: It is critical to have a robust strategic framework in place to assess and onboard LCNC platforms, identify and prioritize use cases, cultivate change management, and track and monitor citizen development initiatives.
2. Revisit organization structure and operating model: New organizational models such as a federated Center of Excellence may need to be established, supported by internal digital portals (or “storefronts”) where citizen developers, system developers, and leaders can collaborate, learn, and quickly get help when encountering roadblocks.
3. Enterprise Architecture alignment: Enterprise-grade LC/NC platforms enable customization and expansion of their out-of-the-box capabilities. Consequently, it is critical to develop guardrails and design patterns to offload complexity with appropriate abstractions[8]
4. Harnessing talent: The idea that LCNC allows any business domain expert or a functional consultant to simply start creating applications is misleading. While a citizen developer may not require deep levels of technical expertise, familiarity with software development fundamentals (such as security, data protection, version control, and systems integration) is critical.
5. Holistic governance model: Furthermore, proper governance structures are required to avoid poorly designed applications with insufficient change, vulnerable security practices, and data control mechanisms. Such applications can easily proliferate and obstruct visibility into the application environment, increasing the operational risk of infrastructure sprawl, technical debt, and shadow IT.

Bottom Line

LCNC platforms and the citizen development model open new avenues for innovation, redefine software development paradigms, drive and accelerate digital transformation, and strengthen the competitive posture of the enterprise. To reach its full potential, however, the model does require crucial components including leadership commitment, efficient governance structures, and mechanisms to foster collaboration and buy-in.

References:

[1] The COVID-19 recovery will be digital: A plan for the first 90 days, McKinsey Digital

[2] Tech Horizon: Six habits of digital transformation leaders

[3] Why You Need To Know About Low-Code, Even If You’re Not Responsible For Software Delivery, Forrester

[4] The Low-Code Movement Has Shifted Into High Gear -- And You Can, Too, Forbes

[5] Accelerate software development utilizing citizen developers, Deloitte

[6] Low-code and no-code development platforms, Deloitte

[7] Unleash the force of Low-Code No-Code and empower your “Citizen Developers", Deloitte

[8] Low-code/no-code: A way to transform shadow IT into a next-gen technology asset, McKinsey Digital