Low-code Enterprise: Expectations vs. Reality

Today, the management methodology has changed a lot. Many people have used a document paper to describe and control the company process. It is an obsolete way and facing many limitations to connect the information with other enterprises, banks, shop houses, commercial trading… However, each company has different demands, requirements, and visions to grow their business. They have a solution using a package developed by a software company. Unfortunately, the business process diversity is complex and one package won’t satisfy everyone and sometimes it is too expensive for the small and medium businesses. Will you think that they can make a Management program by themselves? This solution requests a lot of resources and cash flow from the enterprise. The strong point is the enterprise can control the security of the system and the product befit with the company business. The weak point is the enterprise needs to manage the human resource and knowledge of the project.

For these above reasons, a new technology solution has been discovered for solving the limitations of the current solutions. This is using a visual tool to create the software which can adapt to the requirements of the company but saving the resource and money of the enterprise. This tool must be easily changed or modified to be suitable for the new situation of the business. That is called Low-code.

1. What is Enterprise Low-code?

The enterprise low-code is the application development platform for large corporations with a higher level of functionality. It is a graphical user interface and configuration instead of traditional hand-coded computer programming. This tool allows the users not formal knowledge of coding or software development to create applications for many purposes like mobile apps and business apps. Using the DRAG and DROP interfaces, the user can flexibly create or modify the business process and also know how to use the software with limited training which helps to save the cost and time of the enterprise.

2. Let’s explore the gap between reality and expectations of enterprise low-code

This solution is so interesting, but what happens if you use a low-code platform and you have many devices, computers run on many operating systems (Windows, Linux, IOS, Android…). Don’t worry! The low-code development platform has the logic that it allows you to only need to make the configuration in one device and the low-code automation tool will generate the created configuration into another platform. It is an amazing way to synchronize and ensure information consistency.

In case, you are using the software solution but it is not effective. The low-code technology can help you to expand or enhance the functionality of existing information systems as they are shifted to a cloud-computing environment.

In fact, it is not a perfect picture with any technology solution. I would like to list out some differences between expectation and reality when using a low-code product.

• Low-code means not having any code: it is not true. A low-code application development platform still built by the coding and using the logic code to ensure the configuration of the user on the interface can map with the understanding and expectation of the creator. Sometimes, the requirement is complex and the current version of the low-code application development platform does not support it. The developer needs to invest, make the change, testing and update the version for the low-code platform. After that, the user can try to use the new version and configure it as their requirement.
• The low-code application development platform can integrate with every program: it is another misunderstanding. Each software has a different database design and web service connection. For integration with another system, it needs mapping field data between 2 systems and builds a web service for both of them. So, in cases where there are no web service interfaces in the existing system, integration can be difficult. It may also require additional development effort, making it more expensive as well.
• The low-code application is always easy to use: this item depends on the quality of the product which is provided by the low-code enterprise. If this product has been developed based on good ideals, teamwork, and excellent management, the UI and UX will be clear and have good logic. So that a newbie can look at it and know how to use and configure the system. However, that is not all the fault of the low-code enterprise. Sometimes the product does not close with your use because it has been designed for an individual reason/industry. It requests that you must have a basic knowledge/foundation understood in this industry for understanding the reason why the system does not support some function, process like another one. Conclusion: before selecting any low-code application, make sure this product has solved the problem of some company like your industry or at least it needs to have the function/design which can support the basic process of your company.
• You won’t need any training or user manual when using a low-code application: normally it true, the low-code application has been designed for less or without training. However, reading the document or having a quick presentation is better to catch up with all the system and manipulate all its power.
• The low-code application helps to quickly modify the business process and it has no impact: it is true when you know how to use it correctly. In fact, it has many kinds of processes that exist in your company at one time. Some of them are the prerequisite condition to move for the next process. When you change, replace or modify an existing process, it can be affected by the current data, order, document flow that is running before your change. These flows still can be continued, but using the old steps instead of the new one has been modified by you. The reason for this problem is the business flow may be identified at the created time of your request. That’s why the flow won’t be updated even if you changed/modified their process. This is not a function so that some applications may not support this kind of change and your current data can be stuck forever. For avoiding, my advice is: you should finish all the pending orders before making any change. If it is impossible, ask your vendor or expert in your application to get the advice. In case you did it and your orders have been stuck, don’t worry, you only need to contact the technical team for updating the data of the pending orders and the problem will be solved.
• It does not need any Technical Skill: in almost time, you won’t need a technical skill to use the low-code application. However, in certain cases, if you have a little bit of understanding of technical, you can work with complex requirements and forecast the potential gap in the design process. When the new version has been updated, you can assess the impact on your business process and have the correct action to prevent the effect on your normal enterprise business.
• The transformation process to low-code platform is always cheap: the cost of transformation to low-code platform may be low in all normal cases. It still has some special cases when the enterprise has a complex process and the employee cannot make the first configuration. In this case, you will need an expert to help with building the first-time configuration.

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If you want Kyanon Digital to help you apply Enterprise Low-code effectively, just book a call.