The Rise of the Citizen Developer - By Paul Carvouni

As businesses continue to digitally transform, interest in application development is steadily growing, beyond traditional IT, right across the workforce.?In fact, Gartner expects that by 2023 active citizen developers to outnumber professional developers at large enterprises by at least 4 to 1. This is all being made possible by the proliferation of ‘Low-Code No-Code’ (LC/NC) technologies.

In simple terms we can think of citizen developers as business users who build their own apps with little or no coding knowledge. They aren’t professional developers who can develop an app by writing lines and lines of code, but rather end users who leverage simple LC/NC digital tools to solve business problems.?

The Economist explains further how LC/NC tech works, with users ‘using drag-and-drop visual interfaces alone (no code) or with a bit of code creeping in (low code). Under the hood, this is translated into pre-written or automatically generated code, which then whirs away’.

Factors Driving Acceleration in LCNC Technology Adoption

In my daily conversations with APAC Business Leaders across Industries, it’s clear that LC/NC represents a significant opportunity.?From aviation to agriculture, the ability to transform and automate business processes is immense. ?We see a confluence of factors coming together to drive acceleration in adoption here.

First, in an increasingly inflationary macro environment, companies now realize that speed and agility is critical, whether it’s adapting to market demands, innovating to achieve sustainable competitive edge, or driving automation at scale.

Second, another driver here is the post pandemic secular trend around Hybrid Work.?According to a Gartner study it is predicted 41% of employees will work remotely after the current pandemic, a significant uptick.?This shift, coupled with the expectations of increasing population of digital-native millennials also play a role.?As Microsoft shares ‘35% of the workforce is currently made up of digital-native millennials who demand better digital experiences in workplace.’?

Third, organisations traditionally only had two primary alternatives to solve for new systems.?One option was ‘build’ which whilst custom, can be expensive and typically takes more time.?The second option was to ‘buy’ via vendors, which while often more cost effective and likely faster, does not always fit the bespoke requirement.?As outlined by HBR, LC/NC applications provide a unique value and third alternative with a ‘close fit to business requirements, can be implemented quickly, and typically cost much less than systems developed in-house.’?Now organisations can better navigate their legacy app challenges, avoiding costly ‘rip and replace’ scenarios in many instances.

Empowering Every Employee to Innovate & Solve Problems – Driving Impact Across Industries

From something as simple as a ‘covid safe return to work’ type app for people returning to the office, right through to deep industry specific solutions for workers on Oil & Gas industry remote offshore sites, the opportunities for impact are limitless.??

Alongside the business impact, at the employee level, LCNC can also provide an empowering experience for many to transform their careers.?As Microsoft CVP Charles Lamanna shares, ‘with low-code app tools, some grit and curiosity, anyone can now realize a career in tech.’?

Microsoft has developed and continues to invest in a holistic technology platform in this space, Microsoft Power Platform. Microsoft Power Platform includes a raft of LCNC tech solutions, as well as the ability to infuse AI capabilities (like text recognition, language translation, image classification) with AI Builder directly into your apps.

We continue to see cool (and impactful) outcomes, in particular where the Citizen Developer approach becomes truly embedded culturally at scale across an organization.?Toyota leveraged Microsoft’s PowerApps technology to allow eager employees the ability to create their own apps in a simple and quick manner, with over 400 apps being created using the platform in 2020 alone.

Similarly, IKEA Sweden partnered on a solution for its sales staff. The solution has provided a single automated system for the IKEA Sweden sales team when engaging directly with individual customers (B2C) and businesses (B2B).?

Where is your company on the Citizen Developer journey??Love to hear your thoughts as we continue to learn on a myriad of cases across industries!

Blog Cover Source: DevOps.com