From HRs, marketers to salespersons, how non-techies can build applications

For top leaders around the world, digital transformation is a philosophy that demands a cultural change in organisations, in terms of how agile and technologically-enabled their workforce can be. At an operational level though, the extent of digital transformation correlates with the extent of automation in an organisation.

A company that consistently automates its redundant, paper-based processes, is well on course to become digitally transformed. But it’s easier said than done. Most businesses know that automation leads to improved key performance indicators (KPIs) and business growth, but still, the average automation level in an organisation is approximately 20 percent.

● The leadership doesn't have the necessary vision and will to automate legacy applications and build an agile workforce that can work its way through evolving technologies, operations, and business requirements.

● Organisations don’t have the right set of technologies to build automation solutions in an agile, responsive, and time-efficient manner.

● Organisations don’t properly define the scope of automation. They plan to automate anything and everything and end up automating nothing. There is no one-size-fits-all automation solution, and some effort is needed to select the perfect-fit solution. For example, some automation solutions are easy to implement but are very basic in nature (you can automate but cannot customise workflows). On the other hand, some of them are customisation-friendly but they are not easy to implement.

● Organisations don’t have a versatile workforce (where non-programmers can build process automation applications). Instead, the entire onus of workflow automation is on their in-house or outsourced technical teams. It can overwhelm project teams with a huge IT backlog and derail the entire innovation programme.

Enterprise-wide process automation requires a large human capital and cannot be the priority of IT alone. Therefore, process automation requires democratisation of software development. It requires inclusive, flexible and collaborative teams that can independently build applications for their most critical priorities.

Seventy percent of large-scale automation initiatives fail to reach their goals. The conventional development methodologies (traditional coding and low-code development) haven’t aged well and are not in sync with the existing digital ecosystem.

This is where no-code ticks all the boxes when it comes to achieving enterprise-wide automation.

● It democratises software development.

● It brings inclusivity by turning non-technical employees into citizen developers (business users who build applications with no-code platforms).

● It reduces the dependence on IT teams.

● It supports quick customizations.

It may sound too good to be true but with the right no-code platform, non-technical employees (HRs, marketers, salespersons, etc) can build bespoke applications by dragging and dropping components (like lego blocks) - without writing a single line of code. No-code allows marketing, sales, operations or HR teams to create with technology, feel equally empowered and contribute towards rapid innovation.

IT teams, on the other hand, can simply monitor and maintain no-code applications. They can use their expertise to pursue greater innovation goals, instead of getting burdened with everyday troubleshooting.

The software development life cycle is much shorter in no-code development when compared with traditional development or low-code. Therefore, no-code is highly suitable for scenarios involving agile transformations and continuous iterations. It enables business users to participate in the solution building process (by removing the necessity to have highly skilled or experienced programmers), and therefore reduces cost.

A 100 percent automation essentially means going 100 percent paperless to significantly alleviate the process pains. With no-code platforms, business and technical teams can collaboratively move towards a paperless environment, by building intelligent automation solutions for their mission critical priorities, without writing a single line of code.

Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) is a quintessential example of no-code automation. With this next-generation solution, users can create usable data from unstructured and semi-structured information. It uses natural language processing to categorise, extract, and validate relevant information from a variety of unstructured sources (PDF documents, emails, images, etc). Organisations can use IDP to:

● Process barcodes and invoices to expedite supply chain operations

● Convert physical documents into machine-readable formats with searchable text

● Automate document creation to deliver customised, in-depth reports and much more

Besides, there are other equally important no-code solutions that can hyper automate CRM, help desk support, CRM, travel and expense management, and organisational training management to name a few.

Organisations worldwide are shifting to a hybrid workforce model, where IT support may not be available to remote business users on the fly. Therefore, it is the right time for non-technical employees to adopt no-code development and not overwhelm remote or on-premise IT teams with everyday troubleshooting. It is the right time to democratise and pace up innovation - letting business analysts, product designers, and marketers build custom applications, without writing a single line of code.

The future of coding is no-coding. Similarly, the future of automation is no-code automation. No-code platforms are evolving and offering a great opportunity for business and IT leaders to fulfill their major strategic objectives with enterprise-wide automation being the most significant one.