When the economy is tough, it's essential to keep your business running as efficiently as possible. Enterprises need to prepare for an upcoming recession. If not, companies may suffer severe losses, and employees may experience layoffs and reduced wages. To avoid such dire consequences, enterprises need to plan. One way of doing so is to implement enterprise citizen development. 

Citizen development is a methodology by which non-technical employees are trained to develop applications to meet the organization's demands. It reduces the cost of software development while allowing users to build applications more quickly and with more accuracy. In addition, with the proper training, employees can use the skills they have obtained to help the organization in other ways. Citizen development can help enterprises become more competitive and recession-proof. 

In times of economic stress, many businesses hesitate to make significant investments or acquisitions. It is due to the fear that such decisions may not be wise in light of current market conditions. However, by using enterprise citizen development, businesses can overcome these concerns without making significant expenditures or taking on too much risk. By relying on the skills and knowledge of their employees, companies can create low-cost applications that meet their specific needs without having to spend a lot of money upfront. Since citizen development is conducted by employees who already possess the necessary skills, it can help speed up the flow of information within a company. It can also reduce risks associated with shadow IT. By utilizing enterprise citizen development, businesses can gain a competitive advantage and become more agile and efficient. Let us look at five ways enterprise citizen development can help during a recession. 

1. Reducing Costs through Enterprise citizen development 

Using enterprise citizen development is becoming an increasingly popular way for businesses to reduce the money they spend on software development. With enterprise citizen development, companies can leverage the skills of their non-IT employees to create low-cost applications tailored to their specific needs. It can help save time and money since employees already possess the knowledge and experience in their respective domains. Citizen-developed applications can be quickly deployed, allowing businesses to benefit from their investment quickly. Enterprise citizen development is a cost-effective way for companies to meet their software development needs and is considerably less expensive than hiring a professional developer outside the company. 

Enterprises that embrace citizen development can reap tremendous cost savings from their IT initiatives. Enterprise citizen development can help businesses mitigate the effects of a high attrition rate within their IT departments. By allowing business users to develop applications and workflows to address specific business challenges, IT resources can be freed up to focus on more strategic endeavors. By creating an environment that encourages collaboration between business users and IT professionals, knowledge retention and transfer within the organization is more easily achieved, thus reducing the impact of employee turnover. Ultimately, enterprise citizen development is a cost-effective solution to help businesses maximize their resources and remain competitive. 

2. Enterprise citizen development helps upskill business users 

When businesses need to update their software or hardware, they often turn to outside professionals or IT to help them do the job. Most companies need business users with the technical expertise to undertake the project independently. However, by implementing enterprise citizen development programs, businesses can equip employees with the skills they need to complete such tasks. It allows companies to reduce reliance on hiring outside professionals, decrease the burden on IT and quickly resolve any software issues that may arise. Updating software and hardware can be a complex process that requires a wide range of technical expertise. 

By giving employees the training they need, businesses can minimize the time necessary to complete this task and ensure that all required updates are implemented quickly and accurately. Furthermore, by relying on employees' skills, businesses can avoid potential mistakes that could lead to rework or system failure, thus reducing the accumulation of technical debt. Companies can also keep pace with rapidly-changing industry trends and maintain their competitive edge. 

3. Accelerates new product and service development using Enterprise citizen development   

Businesses often need more time to attempt to develop new products or services. It is because developing new products or services requires a lot of research and planning, which can take a long time to execute correctly. Businesses can overcome these delays by relying on the skills and knowledge of their business users, who, in most cases, are very well aware of the processes and customer journey. Since this type of development is conducted by employees who already possess these skills, it can be considerably faster than hiring a professional developer from outside the company. 

Additionally, since citizen-developed applications are created in conjunction with IT, they can take care of the governance and security aspects. It makes citizen development an affordable option for businesses of all sizes and is a powerful tool for accelerating the development of new products and services. By leveraging the skills and expertise of business users and IT professionals, organizations can achieve rapid development cycles and improved customer experiences. Enterprise citizen development also offers teams new opportunities to collaborate, innovate, and create cost-effective solutions tailored to their customers' needs. With the right processes and support, enterprise citizen development can help organizations deliver value quickly and efficiently. 

4. Enterprise citizen development mitigates shadow-IT risks 

Shadow IT refers to the use of business software by a department or individual without the knowledge of the IT or security group within the organization. Businesses often face the risk of their employees using unauthorized software or accessing confidential data without proper authorization. Many employees feel beholden to work around the perceived or actual shortcomings of the central information systems approved by IT by utilizing freely available open-source software to overcome business obstacles. 

However, training business users to work on enterprise citizen development platforms helps them better understand appropriate application development and security protocols and creates a better communication channel between IT and business users. Adopting enterprise citizen development practices within the enterprise brings many vital benefits. It also helps reduce risks associated with shadow IT. By allowing business users to develop applications within an IT-approved platform, the enterprise can ensure that applications are safe, secure, and compliant with corporate standards. 

5. Enterprise citizen development helps improve business process efficiency and increases productivity. 

Through enterprise citizen development, non-technical personnel can create, modify and maintain existing applications, allowing them to quickly and effectively respond to changing business needs. This agility is essential in today's dynamic business environment in the face of a looming recession, and having the ability to make quick changes to existing applications can save time and resources. Enterprise citizen development helps improve data accuracy, allowing for greater accuracy and precision when analyzing data which is extremely useful for making informed decisions and forecasting trends. 

Enterprise citizen development is a powerful tool that can help businesses improve their business processes, increase efficiency, and boost productivity. It allows organizations to create custom applications tailored to their specific needs and requirements while enabling them to quickly and cost-effectively develop innovative applications and solutions. Enterprise citizen development can help businesses get the most out of their technology investments and is a great way to ensure that businesses stay competitive in today's ever-changing market. 

Conclusion 

Organizations can obtain several business benefits by empowering business users to develop software solutions with low-code or no-code tools. They can save costs, reduce technical debt, help fight employee attrition, increase process efficiency, accelerate new product and service development, and reduce risks associated with shadow IT. Utilizing enterprise citizen development can create a competitive advantage for a business, giving users the power to accelerate projects quickly, respond to customer feedback, and develop business applications with minimal effort. 

Enterprise citizen development can help businesses stay profitable and thrive in the upcoming recession. It allows them to quickly and efficiently develop cost-effective solutions to help them remain competitive in a challenging economic climate. By leveraging the enterprise's assets and knowledge of its business users, businesses can better manage resources and drive innovation to stay prosperous and achieve top-line and bottom-line targets during an uncertain economy. 

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