In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, digital transformation has become a buzzword that permeates boardrooms and strategy meetings. However, achieving successful digital transformation is more than just implementing the latest technologies; it is a strategic journey that redefines an organization’s culture, processes, and operations. This essay explores the concept of successful digital transformation, its key components, and the factors that contribute to its achievement.
Defining Successful Digital Transformation
Successful digital transformation can be defined as the strategic use of digital technologies to fundamentally change how an organization operates, delivers value to its customers, and remains competitive in a digital age. It goes beyond mere digitization or the adoption of new tools; it requires a holistic approach that integrates technology, people, processes, and a customer-centric mindset.
Key Components of Successful Digital Transformation
Clear Vision and Strategy: Successful digital transformation starts with a clear vision and well-defined strategic objectives. Organizations must have a deep understanding of their market, customers, and competitive landscape. This understanding serves as the foundation for crafting a digital transformation strategy that aligns with business goals and values.
Customer-Centric Approach: Customer-centricity is at the core of successful digital transformation. Organizations need to prioritize enhancing the customer experience, which often involves personalized services, seamless interactions across channels, and quick problem-solving. Collecting and analyzing customer data is crucial for making informed decisions in this regard.
Agility and Innovation: Digital transformation demands agility and a culture of continuous innovation. Successful organizations encourage experimentation, adapt to changing market conditions, and rapidly iterate on their digital solutions. They also foster a culture that embraces failure as a stepping stone to success.
Integration of Technology: The adoption of cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics, and cloud computing is a vital component of digital transformation. These technologies can streamline processes, automate tasks, and provide valuable insights to inform decision-making.
Data-Driven Decision Making: Successful digital transformation relies heavily on data-driven decision-making. Organizations need to gather and analyze data from various sources to gain insights into their operations, customer behavior, and market trends. Data-driven decisions enable proactive adjustments to strategies and processes.
Change Management: The human element is often the most challenging aspect of digital transformation. Effective change management involves engaging and empowering employees to embrace new technologies and ways of working. Communication, training, and support are essential components of this process.
Cybersecurity and Data Privacy: As organizations digitize their operations, they must also prioritize cybersecurity and data privacy. Protecting sensitive data and ensuring compliance with relevant regulations are crucial to maintaining trust with customers and stakeholders.
Factors Contributing to Successful Digital Transformation
Strong Leadership: Leadership plays a pivotal role in guiding and championing digital transformation efforts. Leaders must be committed to the transformation journey, set the tone for organizational culture change, and provide the necessary resources and support.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Successful digital transformation requires collaboration across different departments and teams within an organization. Breaking down silos and fostering cross-functional cooperation is vital to achieving seamless digital integration.
Measuring and Monitoring Progress: Establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) and regularly measuring and monitoring progress is essential. This enables organizations to track the impact of their digital initiatives, make data-driven adjustments, and ensure they are on the right path.
Continuous Learning: The digital landscape is continually evolving. Organizations committed to successful digital transformation invest in continuous learning and stay abreast of emerging technologies and trends to remain competitive.
In conclusion, successful digital transformation is a multifaceted journey that goes beyond technology adoption. It involves a strategic shift in how organizations operate, engage with customers, and remain competitive. Key components, such as clear vision, customer-centricity, agility, and data-driven decision-making, are fundamental to achieving success. Additionally, strong leadership, collaboration, measurement, and a commitment to continuous learning are crucial factors that contribute to the realization of successful digital transformation. Embracing this transformative journey is essential for organizations seeking to thrive in the digital age.
In the rapidly evolving landscape of modern businesses, the demand for efficient and agile software development has become paramount. Traditional software development methods often require substantial time, resources, and technical expertise, hindering innovation and adaptability. This is where low-code platforms like Mendix step in, offering an effective solution to bridge the gap between business needs and technology. Mendix empowers businesses by enabling them to create sophisticated applications with reduced complexity, faster time-to-market, and increased collaboration between business and IT teams. This essay delves into the reasons why Mendix stands out as an exceptional low-code platform for businesses, providing a comprehensive overview of its benefits and contributions to organizational growth.
Faster Time-to-Market
One of the most compelling advantages of Mendix as a low-code platform is its ability to accelerate the software development lifecycle. Traditional coding requires a significant investment of time and effort to write, test, and deploy applications. Mendix streamlines this process by providing a visual development environment where users can drag-and-drop pre-built components, reducing the need for intricate coding. This results in a dramatic reduction in development time, enabling businesses to launch new applications and features in a matter of weeks rather than months. By expediting time-to-market, Mendix empowers businesses to stay ahead of competitors and respond swiftly to changing market demands.
Ease of Use and Accessibility
Mendix’s intuitive visual interface caters to a broader audience, including business analysts and domain experts, who might not have extensive coding experience. This democratization of application development fosters collaboration between various departments, allowing subject-matter experts to actively contribute to the development process. Business and IT teams can work together seamlessly, ensuring that applications are aligned with business goals and requirements. This accessibility also reduces the burden on IT departments, enabling them to focus on more complex tasks while empowering non-technical users to create and iterate on applications independently.
Reduced Technical Complexity
Low-code platforms like Mendix abstract much of the technical complexity inherent in traditional software development. Complex coding languages and architectural decisions are hidden behind user-friendly interfaces and pre-built components. This approach not only accelerates development but also minimizes the risk of errors that could arise from manual coding. Mendix’s use of visual models allows developers to focus on solving business problems rather than wrestling with intricate technical details. This shift in focus enhances efficiency and ensures that the resulting applications are robust, reliable, and aligned with the business’s needs.
Scalability and Flexibility
Contrary to misconceptions about low-code platforms being limited in scope, Mendix offers considerable scalability and flexibility. It caters to a wide range of application types, from simple departmental tools to complex enterprise-level solutions. Mendix’s architecture allows for the integration of custom code and third-party APIs, providing the necessary flexibility to meet unique business requirements. As businesses grow, Mendix applications can seamlessly scale to accommodate increased workloads, ensuring that the technology can evolve in tandem with organizational needs.
Empowering Innovation
Mendix fosters a culture of innovation within organizations by enabling rapid prototyping and iterative development. With the ability to quickly create functional prototypes, businesses can gather feedback from stakeholders and end-users early in the development process. This iterative approach leads to the creation of applications that better meet user needs and expectations. Moreover, the platform’s support for continuous delivery and integration ensures that updates and improvements can be rolled out seamlessly, allowing businesses to adapt to changing market dynamics swiftly.
Mendix’s effectiveness as a low-code platform for businesses lies in its ability to bridge the gap between technology and business requirements. By offering a faster time-to-market, ease of use, reduced technical complexity, scalability, flexibility, and a culture of innovation, Mendix empowers businesses to develop and deploy applications that drive growth and streamline operations. As the demand for agile and efficient software solutions continues to grow, Mendix stands out as a transformative tool that empowers organizations to remain competitive in the dynamic landscape of modern business.
In the digital age, industries are transforming their traditional operations to keep up with evolving customer expectations. The insurance industry, traditionally known for its paper-based processes and complex procedures, is now embracing digital transformation to enhance the customer experience. By digitizing the insurance customer experience, insurers can streamline operations, improve efficiency, and provide a more personalized and convenient service. This essay explores the numerous benefits that arise from digitizing the insurance customer experience.
Enhanced Accessibility: Digitization brings insurance services closer to customers than ever before. By leveraging digital platforms, insurers can offer self-service options that enable customers to access policies, submit claims, and manage their accounts conveniently. With 24/7 accessibility through websites and mobile apps, customers can obtain information, request assistance, and make transactions at their own convenience, eliminating the need for time-consuming physical visits or phone calls. This enhanced accessibility provides customers with greater control over their insurance needs, leading to improved satisfaction and loyalty.
Streamlined Processes: Digital transformation allows insurers to streamline their processes, reducing paperwork and manual tasks. Online forms, electronic signatures, and automated underwriting processes eliminate the need for physical paperwork, making the application and policy issuance procedures faster and more efficient. Additionally, digitized claims management systems reduce the time and effort required for claims processing, leading to quicker resolutions for customers. Streamlining processes through digitization enhances operational efficiency, reduces administrative costs, and enables insurers to focus on delivering better customer service.
Personalization and Targeted Offerings: Digitization enables insurers to gather and analyze vast amounts of customer data, facilitating personalized insurance offerings. By leveraging data analytics and artificial intelligence, insurers can gain insights into customer behavior, preferences, and risk profiles. This information empowers insurers to tailor insurance products and services to meet specific customer needs, leading to improved customer satisfaction and increased cross-selling or upselling opportunities. Furthermore, personalized digital communication and real-time notifications enable insurers to engage with customers proactively, providing relevant information and assistance when it matters most.
Efficient Customer Support: Digitization offers new channels for customer support, making it easier for insurers to engage with their policyholders. Online chatbots, virtual assistants, and AI-powered customer service tools enable insurers to provide instant and accurate responses to customer inquiries, guiding them through various processes and addressing their concerns promptly. This efficient customer support helps improve customer satisfaction and loyalty by ensuring a seamless and hassle-free experience.
Improved Risk Management: Digitization plays a vital role in improving risk management for insurers and policyholders alike. By leveraging technologies such as telematics, IoT devices, and data analytics, insurers can gather real-time information on risks, enabling them to develop more accurate underwriting models. This data-driven approach allows insurers to offer customized coverage, more accurately assess premiums, and reward customers for low-risk behavior. Moreover, digitization facilitates proactive risk mitigation through predictive modeling, helping policyholders take preventive measures and reduce potential losses.
The digitization of the insurance customer experience offers numerous benefits to insurers and policyholders alike. By embracing digital transformation, insurers can enhance accessibility, streamline processes, personalize offerings, provide efficient customer support, and improve risk management. As customers increasingly expect seamless digital experiences, insurers that invest in digitization will gain a competitive advantage by delivering superior service, fostering customer loyalty, and adapting to the changing demands of the modern insurance landscape. Ultimately, digitization opens up new possibilities for insurers to better meet customer expectations and build strong, lasting relationships in the digital era.
Low-code development has revolutionized the software development landscape by enabling individuals without extensive programming knowledge to create applications quickly and efficiently. This paradigm shift has brought forth numerous benefits, such as increased productivity, reduced development time, and democratization of software development. Within the low-code ecosystem, one concept stands out as the most important: empowering citizen developers. This essay explores the significance of empowering citizen developers, the advantages it brings to organizations, and the potential challenges and considerations associated with this concept.
I. The Rise of Citizen Developers:
Traditionally, software development was confined to a select group of professionals with coding expertise. However, with the advent of low-code platforms, the power to create applications has been placed in the hands of non-technical users, often referred to as citizen developers. These individuals, possessing domain knowledge and a deep understanding of specific business processes, can leverage low-code tools to build applications tailored to their unique requirements.
II. Empowering Citizen Developers:
Democratization of Application Development: Empowering citizen developers breaks down barriers to entry and allows individuals from various departments, such as marketing, HR, and operations, to actively participate in the development process. By enabling a wider range of employees to contribute to application development, organizations can tap into diverse perspectives and experiences, resulting in more innovative and contextually relevant solutions.
Increased Agility and Productivity: Low-code platforms provide citizen developers with intuitive visual interfaces, pre-built components, and drag-and-drop functionality, reducing the need for extensive coding skills. This ease of use empowers citizen developers to quickly prototype, test, and iterate applications, leading to faster time-to-market and improved productivity.
Bridging the IT-Business Gap: Empowering citizen developers fosters collaboration between business and IT departments. Citizen developers can communicate their specific requirements directly, reducing the gap between end-users and developers. This alignment enhances the accuracy and effectiveness of the applications created, as the developers gain firsthand insights into the needs and challenges faced by the business teams.
III. Advantages of Empowering Citizen Developers:
Rapid Application Development: Empowering citizen developers enables the swift creation of applications, reducing the reliance on overburdened IT departments. By decentralizing development efforts, organizations can accelerate their digital transformation initiatives and respond more effectively to evolving business demands.
Cost-Efficiency: With citizen developers assuming a greater role in application development, organizations can optimize resource allocation. By leveraging existing personnel, organizations can minimize the need to hire additional developers, resulting in cost savings.
Innovation and Problem Solving: Citizen developers, deeply immersed in their respective fields, possess unique insights into the challenges and requirements of their roles. Empowering them to build applications allows for innovative solutions tailored to their specific needs, fostering creativity and problem-solving within the organization.
IV. Considerations and Challenges:
Training and Support: To successfully empower citizen developers, organizations must provide adequate training and ongoing support. This ensures that individuals possess the necessary skills and have access to resources and assistance when needed. Offering comprehensive training programs and establishing a supportive community can alleviate potential challenges.
Governance and Security: While empowering citizen developers can enhance agility, organizations must establish governance policies and security measures to mitigate risks. This includes ensuring adherence to data protection regulations, conducting regular security audits, and implementing proper controls over application deployment.
Balance between Citizen and Professional Developers: Organizations must strike a balance between citizen developers and professional developers. While citizen developers bring domain knowledge and expertise, professional developers contribute technical proficiency and maintain overall system integrity. Collaboration and communication between these two groups are vital to ensure successful outcomes.
Empowering citizen developers stands as the most crucial concept within the low-code development paradigm. By embracing the unique skills and insights of citizen developers, organizations can unlock the full potential of low-code development. Democratizing application development not only increases agility, productivity, and innovation but also bridges the gap between business and IT departments. However, it is essential to consider the challenges associated with empowering citizen developers, such as training, governance, and maintaining a balance with professional developers.
As low-code development continues to evolve, empowering citizen developers will remain at the forefront of its success. Organizations that embrace this concept and invest in the necessary resources and support will gain a competitive edge by accelerating digital transformation, fostering innovation, and achieving greater operational efficiency.
Ultimately, empowering citizen developers not only transforms the way applications are built but also empowers individuals to contribute their unique perspectives and expertise, leading to a more inclusive and collaborative approach to software development. The future of low-code lies in the hands of citizen developers, unlocking a world of possibilities for organizations across various industries.
In recent years, the financial services industry has witnessed a significant shift towards digital transformation. To keep up with the changing landscape and increasing customer expectations, financial institutions are exploring innovative ways to streamline their operations and deliver superior services. One such approach gaining prominence is low-code development. Low-code platforms enable organizations to build applications rapidly with minimal coding, empowering business users to participate in the development process. This essay explores the key aspects of low-code for financial services, highlighting its benefits, challenges, and potential applications.
Accelerated Application Development: Low-code platforms provide financial institutions with a visual development environment and pre-built components that simplify the application development process. With drag-and-drop functionality and intuitive interfaces, business users, such as financial analysts or operations managers, can participate actively in developing applications. This acceleration in development time allows for faster deployment of new solutions, reducing time-to-market and enhancing operational efficiency.
Increased Agility and Flexibility: The dynamic nature of the financial services industry requires organizations to respond quickly to market changes, regulatory requirements, and customer demands. Low-code platforms enable rapid prototyping and iterative development, facilitating agility and flexibility in adapting to evolving business needs. Financial institutions can easily make adjustments to their applications, add new features, or integrate with existing systems without extensive coding or disruptions to core operations.
Enhanced Collaboration: Low-code development promotes collaboration between business users and IT teams. Traditionally, business requirements were communicated to developers through extensive documentation, leading to misunderstandings and delays. With low-code, business users can actively participate in the development process, working closely with IT professionals to build applications that align with their requirements. This collaboration bridges the gap between business and IT, fostering a shared understanding of goals and ensuring that the resulting applications meet the desired outcomes.
Integration Capabilities: Financial institutions typically operate within complex IT ecosystems, relying on various legacy systems, databases, and third-party applications. Low-code platforms provide robust integration capabilities, allowing seamless connectivity with existing systems. This integration facilitates data sharing, automation of manual processes, and improves overall operational efficiency. Furthermore, low-code platforms often support industry-standard APIs, enabling financial institutions to connect with external partners and leverage emerging technologies like artificial intelligence or blockchain.
Compliance and Security Considerations: The financial services industry is subject to stringent regulatory requirements, such as data privacy, security, and compliance with financial regulations. When adopting low-code platforms, organizations must ensure that these platforms comply with relevant industry standards and provide robust security measures. Data encryption, access controls, and auditing capabilities are vital features that financial institutions should assess to safeguard sensitive information and maintain regulatory compliance.
Challenges and Considerations: While low-code development offers numerous advantages, financial institutions should be aware of potential challenges and considerations:
a) Learning Curve: Training employees to utilize low-code platforms effectively may require an initial investment of time and resources.
b) Vendor Selection: Financial institutions must carefully evaluate low-code vendors based on their platform’s features, scalability, security, and track record.
c) Technical Debt: Rapid development can sometimes lead to suboptimal code quality and increased technical debt. Organizations must establish proper governance and best practices to mitigate these risks.
d) Application Lifecycle Management: Effective management of applications developed using low-code platforms requires processes and tools to support version control, testing, and deployment.
Low-code development has emerged as a powerful tool for financial institutions aiming to drive digital transformation. By empowering business users, accelerating application development, and promoting collaboration between business and IT, low-code platforms enable financial institutions to meet the growing demands of the industry. With careful consideration of challenges and adherence to compliance and security requirements, low-code development can revolutionize the financial services landscape, facilitating innovation, and delivering exceptional customer experiences.
In today’s digital age, IT and business have become inseparable. However, these two departments often operate in silos, causing communication gaps and inefficiencies that slow down the organization’s growth. Bridging the gap between IT and business has become more important than ever, and low-code technology has emerged as a powerful solution to this challenge. This essay explores how low-code can bridge the gap between IT and business and its benefits.
Low-code development is a visual approach to software development that enables developers to create applications through a drag-and-drop interface instead of writing lines of code. Low-code technology empowers non-technical stakeholders, such as business analysts, to build applications without needing to know how to code. This democratizes the software development process, allowing business users to create applications that meet their specific needs, eliminating the need for IT departments to build everything from scratch.
Low-code technology bridges the gap between IT and business by providing a common language and visual interface that both departments can understand. With low-code, business users can create applications that meet their specific needs and IT teams can provide the necessary technical expertise to ensure that these applications meet the organization’s standards. This collaboration between IT and business allows for faster development and delivery of applications, reducing the time to market and increasing business agility.
Low-code technology also enables IT departments to focus on more strategic initiatives instead of spending their time on routine and repetitive tasks. With low-code, IT teams can quickly create application templates that can be easily customized by business users, freeing up IT resources to work on more complex projects that require technical expertise. This way, IT can focus on creating more value for the organization while business users can create applications that meet their specific needs without the IT team’s assistance.
Low-code technology has numerous benefits, including faster time to market, increased business agility, and better collaboration between IT and business. With low-code, organizations can quickly create and deliver applications that meet their specific needs, allowing them to stay competitive in an ever-changing market. Moreover, low-code technology can help organizations reduce costs, as it eliminates the need for IT departments to build everything from scratch.
In conclusion, bridging the gap between IT and business is essential for organizations that want to stay competitive in today’s digital age. Low-code technology provides a solution to this challenge by enabling business users to create applications that meet their specific needs without the need for IT departments to build everything from scratch. With low-code, IT and business can collaborate more effectively, resulting in faster time to market, increased business agility, and reduced costs. As a result, low-code technology is becoming increasingly popular among organizations that want to stay ahead of the competition and drive innovation.
The economic downturns that come with a recession can be tough on businesses. In such times, companies need to find ways to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and maintain productivity to stay afloat. One way to achieve these goals is by implementing low-code development. Low-code development can recession-proof your business by enabling rapid application development, faster time to market, and more efficient use of resources.
Low-code development is a method of software development that relies on visual modeling and configuration rather than traditional coding. With low-code platforms, businesses can develop and deploy applications faster and more efficiently than traditional software development methods. This approach can help companies cut down on costs, reduce the time required to develop applications, and improve the productivity of their development teams.
During a recession, businesses need to be agile and responsive to changing market conditions. Low-code development provides companies with the ability to quickly create and deploy new applications to meet evolving business needs. With low-code platforms, companies can develop applications in a fraction of the time it would take with traditional development methods, allowing them to respond quickly to market changes and maintain a competitive edge.
Furthermore, low-code platforms allow businesses to optimize their resources. Low-code development requires fewer development resources than traditional software development, allowing businesses to allocate their developers more efficiently. Additionally, low-code platforms enable citizen developers, or non-technical users, to build applications, freeing up IT teams to focus on more complex tasks. This allows businesses to get more done with fewer resources, reducing costs and improving overall efficiency.
In times of recession, many businesses are forced to cut back on their technology budgets. With low-code development, companies can continue to innovate while staying within their budgets. Low-code platforms have a lower total cost of ownership than traditional software development methods. The platforms require fewer developers and less time to develop and deploy applications, reducing costs and increasing ROI.
Low-code development is also beneficial for businesses that need to maintain legacy systems. As companies look to modernize their applications, low-code platforms offer a cost-effective and efficient solution. With low-code development, businesses can build new applications that integrate with existing systems, providing a modern user experience while maintaining the functionality of legacy systems.
In conclusion, low-code development can recession-proof your business by enabling rapid application development, faster time to market, and more efficient use of resources. During a recession, businesses need to be agile and responsive to changing market conditions. Low-code platforms provide companies with the ability to quickly create and deploy new applications to meet evolving business needs. With low-code development, businesses can optimize their resources and continue to innovate while staying within their budgets. By adopting low-code development, businesses can emerge from a recession stronger, more efficient, and more competitive.
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If you want to learn more about how low code can help you adopt a successful digital conversion strategy, you can contact BAYPM. However, if you are more interested in learning about the pros and cons of leading low code platforms, check out Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Enterprise low code implementation platforms.
Low-code platforms are gaining popularity in the software development industry as they allow developers to create software applications with minimal coding requirements. These platforms provide a visual interface that enables developers to drag and drop components to create applications, reducing the time and effort required to develop software applications. However, choosing the right low-code platform can be a challenging task for organizations. In this essay, we will discuss how to navigate low-code platform project fit.
The first step in navigating low-code platform project fit is to define the requirements of the project. This involves identifying the business needs, technical requirements, and user expectations. The requirements should be clearly defined and documented to ensure that the low-code platform can meet the project’s needs. The project requirements will determine the type of low-code platform that is required, such as a platform for web or mobile applications, or a platform that can integrate with other systems.
The second step is to evaluate the low-code platforms available in the market. This involves researching the features and capabilities of the platforms, such as the ease of use, scalability, security, integrations, and customization options. It is important to evaluate the platforms based on the requirements of the project, as not all platforms may be suitable for all projects.
The third step is to test the low-code platforms. This involves creating prototypes or proof-of-concepts using the low-code platforms to determine how well they meet the project requirements. Testing the platforms allows developers to identify any limitations or issues with the platform, such as the inability to integrate with other systems or limited customization options. Testing also provides an opportunity to evaluate the user interface and determine if it is user-friendly and intuitive.
The fourth step is to consider the cost of the low-code platform. This includes the licensing costs, implementation costs, and ongoing maintenance costs. It is important to evaluate the costs of the platform in relation to the benefits it provides, such as reduced development time and increased productivity. It is also important to consider the scalability of the platform and whether it can support future growth and expansion of the project.
The fifth step is to consider the support and training provided by the low-code platform vendor. This includes the availability of technical support, training resources, and community forums. The level of support and training provided can impact the success of the project, as it ensures that developers have the resources and assistance they need to use the platform effectively.
In conclusion, navigating low-code platform project fit requires a thorough understanding of the project requirements, evaluation of the available platforms, testing of the platforms, consideration of the cost and support provided by the vendor. By following these steps, organizations can choose the right low-code platform that meets their project requirements and delivers value to their business.
Low-code development platforms have become increasingly popular in recent years as a way for organizations to develop software more quickly and efficiently. Low-code platforms allow developers to create applications using visual interfaces and pre-built components, rather than writing code from scratch. This approach promises to save time and money, but how can organizations measure the return on investment (ROI) of low-code?
Reduced Development Time
One of the primary benefits of low-code development is the reduced development time. By using pre-built components and visual interfaces, developers can create applications much faster than if they had to write code from scratch. This reduced development time translates into cost savings, as developers can create more applications in less time. Organizations can measure the ROI of low-code by comparing the development time and associated costs of a low-code project to a traditional development project.
Improved Time to Market
Another benefit of low-code development is the improved time to market. Because low-code development is faster than traditional development, organizations can get their applications to market sooner. This can be especially important in industries where speed is critical, such as in the financial sector or in healthcare. Organizations can measure the ROI of low-code by comparing the time to market of a low-code project to a traditional development project.
Reduced Maintenance Costs
Low-code platforms can also help reduce maintenance costs over time. Because low-code applications are built using pre-built components, there is less code to maintain. Additionally, low-code platforms often include automated testing and monitoring tools, which can help identify and fix issues more quickly. Organizations can measure the ROI of low-code by comparing the maintenance costs of a low-code application to a traditional application over time.
Increased Flexibility
Another benefit of low-code development is the increased flexibility it provides. Low-code platforms make it easier to modify applications as requirements change, because developers can simply drag and drop new components or make changes to existing ones. This can be especially important in industries where requirements are constantly evolving, such as in the technology sector. Organizations can measure the ROI of low-code by comparing the costs and time associated with making changes to a low-code application versus a traditional application.
Conclusion
In conclusion, low-code development can provide significant ROI benefits for organizations. By reducing development time, improving time to market, reducing maintenance costs, and increasing flexibility, low-code platforms can help organizations save time and money. To measure the ROI of low-code, organizations should compare the costs and time associated with a low-code project to a traditional development project. By doing so, organizations can determine whether low-code development is the right approach for their needs.
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If you want to learn more about how low code can help you adopt a successful digital conversion strategy, you can contact BAYPM. However, if you are more interested in learning about the pros and cons of leading low code platforms, check out Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Enterprise low code implementation platforms.
There are a number of excellent benefits that your business can get out of building a mobile application for its needs; whether that be for internal communication, marketing to new clients, or communicating with existing ones.
The objective that the mobile app you are building is meant to fulfill will have a major impact on the type of app you are developing; particularly with reference to its architecture.
In such a situation you have a choice.
You can either build a standalone native app that must be downloaded from an app store and take advantage of the features of a user’s device; or you can opt to build a simpler, more cost-effective and less resource-intensive progressive web app.
In this article, we will explore the differences, benefits and drawbacks of each of these.
This should give you a better idea of which framework would best meet the objectives of your business, no matter what reason you are developing an app for.
Native Apps
Native apps make use of a specific codebase and are developed to be compatible with certain devices that use that framework.
For instance, if a native app needs to be released for both Android and iOS systems, the app will need to be developed for each of those frameworks separately.
This allows the app to take advantage of the hardware and features of that specific device, and also enables it to stand alone as a functional application.
This gives them a number of unique advantages over web apps, but also means that they require specific skill sets to develop, and as such, generally come at a much higher cost than the other two.
Still, if you need to develop an app that is fast, highly functional and complicated, the native approach is generally the best bet thanks to the way they excel in terms of intuitiveness and functionality.
Benefits
From the above description, a few of the top benefits of native apps should start to show themselves.
Let’s take a look at some of the top advantages of choosing native development. These include superior performance, app store support, an enhanced user experience, the ability to use features on the device using the app, as well as higher levels of trust between potential users.
Best Performance
Out of the three approaches mentioned in this article, native apps provide some of the best levels of performance. These builds are generally more stable, reliable and efficient in the way that they use device resources.
This, in turn, creates a more pleasant experience for users but also provides the only viable option for particularly complicated or functional apps.
App Store Support & Discoverability
Because native apps are generally only downloaded from recognised app stores, they are also given more comprehensive support from platforms like the Google Play and iOS App Store.
On top of this, having a presence in these app stores also makes native mobile apps more discoverable than other types, which means that there is a much higher chance of users finding and using it, as opposed to other types that are not hosted on stores, and therefore may need additional marketing to get them into the hands of your potential users.
Smooth & Intuitive User Experience
Because native apps are built using compatible code for specific devices, they are built within a framework that accentuates best-practice guidelines for that specific device.
This means that navigation, usability and functionality all come with a sense of recognisability for users, who will find using the app an intuitive and natural experience without much of a learning curve.
By allowing for a framework that is familiar to your users, these types of apps make them more accessible to users, regardless of the devices they were developed for.
Make Use of Device Features
One of the top advantages to native mobile apps is that in being built with code that is compatible with specific devices, these types of apps are able to make use of the features and hardware on that specific device.
Consider the way Google Maps uses your location through GPS, how Apple Music can send you a notification when your favorite artist releases a new album, or how Instagram can make use of your phone’s camera and apply filters to it.
All of these are examples of how native apps use the functions of a device to provide a unique and seamless experience for users.
App Store Approval Raises Trust
As media consumers, we are all quite a picky lot. If we smell a rat, we are likely to keep our distance. Having native apps listed in the various app stores requires them to first be approved by the stores themselves.
This means that by simply being listed, there is an added layer of trust between the app and its potential users, which means a greater chance of users confidently downloading it.
Drawbacks of Native Apps
Of course, if native apps were just a list of benefits there would be no need for web-based ones. So, let’s have a look at a few of the disadvantages of building native apps.
Requires Experienced Developers
Because each platform that a native app is being developed for differs completely in their coding and frameworks, native apps need to be developed separately for each operating system it is released on.
This means that different developers will need to be used for each platform since each will specialise in a specific coding language.
Even when finding a developer that works across a few Operating Systems (such as Android and iOS), the app will still need to be built independently for each different OS, which can raise the price and time of development substantially.
Higher Cost of Development
Because of the reason mentioned above, and also because of the specialised skill set needed to develop native apps in various forms, these types of apps come at an extra cost to other types.
But when you consider their added functionality and superior performance, this extra cost is worthwhile for apps that need to take advantage of native development.
Not Ideal for Simple Apps
Because of the monetary and time costs of developing native apps, and because they work within a complicated framework of specific coding languages, they are not ideally used for simple apps with limited functionality.
While they can be used for more simplistic apps, the approach isn’t always practical, especially when web apps can facilitate them at less of a cost, and with less time in development.
Web Apps
Now let’s move to an approach on the opposite end of the spectrum, progressive web apps.
These types of apps take a much more general and simplistic approach to development, albeit one that offers far less functionality.
Still, cost-effectiveness and relative ease of development makes web apps ideal for simpler apps.
Web apps are generally used in browsers like Opera or Google Chrome. This is because they are developed using coding languages similarly used for websites like C++ and HTML.
Because of this, web apps only need to be built once. Since web architecture can be used seamlessly across multiple devices, it can be employed to be used on console, PC, Android and iOS all at once; as long as the device using it accesses the app through a browser.
In this way, the app itself is stored on a server rather than a device, from where it is accessed by users when they open the app through a browser. When changes occur on the web app, there is no need to push updates to users’ devices, since the changes will automatically be applied when they access the web app.
It does this, however, while sacrificing on the added functionality of native apps.
Benefits
The fact that they are somewhat simplified doesn’t make web apps worse than native ones. Just different. There are still a number of advantages that they can bring when used in specific situations:
Easy to Use Across Device Types
Because they are developed within a web framework, the same web app can be accessed, as is, across multiple devices, regardless of the operating systems they use.
This means two things: firstly, it means that the app only needs to be developed once, and secondly, it will be able to reach a wider perspective audience.
Less Costly to Develop
Because they are built for the web, these types of apps don’t require as specialized (and rare) a skill as native apps do.
They also only need to be developed for one platform that can be used across devices.
This results in remarkably lower development costs and times when compared to native apps.
No Need for Marketplace Approval
Since these apps behave similarly to websites, they are hosted in the same way as well.
This means that they don’t have to go through the sometimes-lengthy approval process that native mobile apps have to face. This is as true for hosting as it is for when the app needs to be updated.
Because of this, they can be made available to users in much less time than the other types of apps.
Easy to Update
When you update a native app, it needs to be done on the store. At that point, your users will be notified of the update and prompted to do it.
Progressive web apps on the other hand, only need to be updated on the host.
Since these apps are not necessarily downloaded to the device that is accessing it, updated features will show immediately when users access it.
This makes things a lot more convenient for your users, and also gives you more control over which build of the app they are using.
Drawbacks of Web-Based Apps
Limited Use of Device Features
Because web-based apps make use of a C++ framework, they do not contain any of the code that allows the app to take advantage of device-specific features. This means no camera, no GPS and no access to your contacts or storage.
Because of this, web-based apps are only really suited to very basic functions.
Difficult to Collect Usage Metrics
Collecting information on how many users are accessing your apps is straightforward enough with native apps since all of that information is readily available through the respective app store.
Since progressive web apps are hosted independently, that is, away from app stores, getting usage statistics that you can use to improve your services is a little more difficult, and not as detailed or accurate.
Poor Discoverability
Discoverability is also a concern when apps are not hosted on app stores. They will have to be marketed much in the way a website is if you want to attract in users.
This is perfectly fine and well if you are using an app to communicate with existing clients or offering them a service. But when you want your app to build its own success, native apps on stores are far more discoverable.
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If you want to learn more about how low code can help you adopt a successful digital conversion strategy, you can contact BAYPM. However, if you are more interested in learning about the pros and cons of leading low code platforms, check out Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Enterprise low code implementation platforms.
