The Benefits of Moving to a Low-Code Systems Economy

Professionals, Students, and internet surfers by hobby, who may have accidentally stumbled onto this page... I’d like to formally welcome you to the first part of a series of discussions that will focus on the emergence of low-code systems. Throughout this series we will be exploring the impact that low-code systems have on an organization and/or industry, and how it may play a key role in shaping the future of the economy as a whole. This topic, truthfully, is chock full of valuable information and the implications are far reaching. So, I figured it’d be best to break the topic out into sub-topics and present information into digestible bits so that the learning process is practical, detailed, and convenient. I also hope to make these discussions equally as entertaining as they are informative so that you may actually enjoy learning about low-code systems. If you have any interest in low-code systems, the impact that this technology may have on the future, or want to hear more about how Kilby Solutions develops business process solutions for our clients using a low-code platform then you are in the right place! Stick around and learn at your leisure.

Now that the intro is out of the way… (assuming you’re still here) …you must be wondering, who am I and why am I so zealous about low-code systems? Well to answer those questions, my name is Brandon and I am a Technical Consultant at Kilby Solutions. I had originally begun my career working in Finance as an Investment Analyst at a large Asset Management firm. I always had an interest in programming, computer engineering, and the ever-evolving impacts that technology has on the global economy. I often found myself, in my free time at work, doing research and taking on learning opportunities that would help put me in a position to work closer with building technology solutions. However, I began to realize that given an absence of any coding credentials from my undergraduate program, my chances of successfully following my interests were slim. There just didn’t seem to be a path. I understood business processes and had a strong interest in building technology…but I had no opportunities to put these things together, that is…until I discovered the world of low-code platforms.

There are numerous low-code platforms on the market today. Some primitive, that will inevitably get chewed up and spit out, and some exceptional, that will drive the market forward. I choose not to waste your time discussing the primitive platforms that I have come across so I will stick with the platforms that will, in all likelihood, drive innovation in this space. One of the more exceptional low-code platforms that I had come across was brought to market by Appian Corporation, a cloud computing company, that sells its platform as a service (“PaaS”) for building enterprise applications. As a Technical Consultant at Kilby Solutions I have been working directly with Appian’s industry leading low-code platform. And I have seen behind the curtain into the seemingly infinite range of possible business solutions that could be designed. I quickly understood why Appian and its partners have had such great success in selling its PaaS to clients who seek to improve their business processes either by replacing their legacy systems or by designing brand new automated intelligent business processes from the ground up.

So, now that we have set the stage…what is low-code? Well, low-code is a way to design and develop software applications fast and with minimal coding. Some of the features unique to low-code application development platforms includes the ability for a designer (aka developer) to create high-utility interfaces through the interaction and configuration of graphical user interface (“GUI”) components as opposed to traditional computer programming. The creators of low-code platforms have done all the heavy lifting! All designers need to do, is design an application, understand the flow of data in a process, and put the pieces of the puzzle together using much less code than traditional methods of application development. Typically, building a business solution using technology requires Front End Developers, Back End Developers, Database Managers, DevOps, a Support Team, Business Analysts, Computer Engineers, QA Testers, etc. It requires the team to understand various programming languages and how they interact with various components of the system. This inevitably takes a lot of time, effort, and money from the organization that is undertaking these projects. And at the end of the day, sometimes these solutions are worth the cost and sometimes they’re just not. This process can be so cumbersome, expensive, and could ultimately result in little-to-no value add. And business leaders hadn’t even known any better since there didn’t seem to be any other way. [Enter Low-code] Low-code enables the development team to be nimble, use a universal programming language, make changes in real time as feedback is received, and ultimately produce an end product at fractions of the time it would take to produce an application that was traditionally developed. Thus far, low-code development has made a net positive impact on its adopters and a strong case can be made that low-code will provide benefits far beyond the enterprise level. Now, as business leaders are becoming increasingly aware of this business software development alternative…the landscape appears to be shifting.

I hope you all have enjoyed the first glimpse into our discussion of low-code. And if you didn’t? Just stick around for a little, I promise I’ll get better at this. In the following series of posts, we will go into further detail surrounding the many benefits of developing low-code systems, how moving towards low-code systems could improve the economy, and how we, at Kilby Solutions, have used low-code application development to help our clients improve their business processes.