Low-code development platforms are becoming more popular in medium and large enterprises, and according to Gartner's latest prediction, the global market for low-code technologies is expected to grow by 19.6% from 2022 to 2023, reaching a value of $26.9 billion. Analysts attribute the popularity of low code development to the increase in business technologists and the growing trend of enterprise-wide hyper-automation initiatives. More business users will adapt to this trend as companies recognize the advantages of low-code products.

Enterprise Low-Code application platforms (LCAP)

Gartner defines an Enterprise Low-code application platform (LCAP) as a software product that uses low-code and no-code techniques such as declarative, model-driven applications to design, develop, and deploy applications rapidly. LCAP platform can support many use cases: it can create responsive web and mobile apps and handles the choreography of pages, business processes, or decisions. It provides a single interface for developers, business analysts, and end users to design and build applications quickly.

The following are five reasons why enterprises adopt low-code development platforms:

Reason 1: To accelerate application development

One of the critical benefits of low-code development platforms is the ability to build and deploy software solutions rapidly. With citizen developers using low-code development platforms, the time taken to develop an app can be reduced by up to 10x compared with traditional approaches that require coding skills which can take months or even years.

For instance, AgilePoint's Business Process Management and Automation platform enabled The Salvation Army, USA, Western Territory to prepare and respond quickly to the COVID-19 crisis. In less than 48 hours, The Salvation Army deployed a no-code/low-code process automation solution that allows geographically dispersed offices to request, approve, and provision remote work technology while staying compliant with the company's "stay at home" mandate.

Reason 2: To streamline and automate mission-critical processes

The second reason enterprises adopt low-code development platforms is to simplify and automate mission-critical processes. Low-code, no-code development platforms allow developers to create custom solutions for their businesses without writing code. It will free employees to do more meaningful work rather than wasting time on repetitive tasks.

In search of a way to streamline their purchasing process, Elbit—an international defense electronics company—searched for an application development solution that would increase efficiency in processing purchase orders by at least 60%. The average time it took to process these orders before their project was 28 days.

AgilePoint streamlined Elbit'sElbit's workflow and empowered its business users with 550-activity purchase order applications for all subsidiaries. It reduced the average processing time of purchase orders by as much as 95%, from 28 days to 2.3 days. Now, 75% of Elbit'sElbit's 70 AgilePoint applications are defined as business critical, with less than 1-day average purchase order processing time for amounts over $2M.

Reason 3: To rapidly roll out digital transformation initiatives

Citizen development is a powerful way to drive digital transformation initiatives. The ability to rapidly roll out innovative solutions that transform business processes is essential to staying competitive. Enterprises need citizen developers who can create low-code platforms and applications for end users, thereby driving innovation and digital transformation within companies.

Canon Solutions America utilized AgilePoint V8.0, an enterprise-ready, low-code automation platform, to quickly deliver solutions that meet the needs of today'stoday's hybrid work environment. The cloud-based digital transformation platform enables agility for all users across physical and virtual workspaces without requiring significant changes or barriers within their existing infrastructure.

Reason 4: To automate workflows, and data-flows end-to-end via a single platform

With the rise of citizen-facing solutions that help automate workflows and data flow end-to-end via a single platform, companies can create better customer experiences and increase productivity and efficiency.

Citizen Development initiatives often focus on building internal apps that help employees accomplish their goals more efficiently. Still, they can support external customers who need access to your company's data or functionality.

For example, you can easily integrate AgilePoint's digital process automation platform with UiPath to offer end-to-end automation opportunities across the entire enterprise—from data acquisition and knowledge extraction through analysis, reporting, and audit.

Reason 5: To reduce IT-business divide

With the proliferation of low-code development platforms, it is now possible to create functional applications with a lesser level of technical orientation than was traditionally required of professional software developers. Citizen developers can directly collaborate with IT to build applications that can be used for both business and IT. You can mentor business users who don't have coding or programming knowledge (but a technical bent of mind) to create apps and have IT provide maintain nice guidelines for these solutions.

According to Jesse Shiah, Co-founder and CEO of AgilePoint, sustainable Citizen Development programs are the missing links that will help businesses overcome their data divide and take advantage of new, exponential value-creation opportunities.

A global company adopted an enterprise Citizen Development approach to quickly create cross-functional automation while simultaneously achieving bottom-line benefits, such as cutting down cost and cycle time.

Bonus point: To save the cost of app development

Low-code solutions are not only cost-effective but also help enterprises maximize resource sharing and reduce the need to hire professional developers or purchase third-party applications.

Citizen development also reduces application maintenance costs and provides a significant ROI on the overall project by reducing time spent in development and providing an open-source platform for developers to extend functionality further than what was initially implemented.

An example is how AgilePoint helped The Salvation Army develop more applications for less money. The Salvation Army is a large, global non-profit organization that operates on a tight budget. Using AgilePoint, citizen developers of the Salvation Army were able to build a range of applications, from simple internally-facing apps that meet the needs of their departments or workgroups to complex externally-facing applications for organizational use.

Key Takeaway

You can see that there are many reasons why enterprises adopt low-code development platforms. The good thing is that there are so many tools available to help businesses streamline their development processes and create apps faster than ever before.

AgilePoint combines a powerful and future-proof digital transformation platform with low-code/no-code ease of use—designed to make adoption widespread.

Learn how AgilePoint can automate your business processes and workflows at scale. Sign up for a free trial today!