Will low-code solve 2020’s most pressing issues?
2020 is a challenging year. IT timelines are accelerating. The global pandemic pushes more online interaction, and digital transformations slated for years are shortening down to months or even days. As many departments face a nationwide developer shortage, companies have turned to low-code tools to keep pace.
Naturally, interest in low-code is booming. Gartner estimates that by 2024, low-code will be behind at least 65% of application development initiatives. Today, low-code is already at the heart of many digital transformation initiatives—some vital to human life.
I recently met with Ryan Ellis, SVP, Product Management, Platform at Salesforce. He shared how low-code is at the forefront of some very critical areas, such as COVID–19 testing, PPP loan processing, remote meal delivery, workplace safety and more. In this article, we’ll see how low-code tools are helping organizations quickly respond to these unprecedented issues.
Low-Code Solves 5 Top Issues of 2020
1. Meal Delivery
Sun Basket uses low-code to scale omnichannel support rapidly
What does digital transformation mean nowadays? It used to refer to new ways of meeting your customers online—i.e. brick and mortar business adopting eCommerce. Now, digital transformation is about providing omnichannel support for customers: phone-in, email, chat, social message and more, noted Ellis.
Since the COVID-19 lockdown began, Sun Basket, a meal kit delivery platform, has experienced a massive increase in demand. To answer the surge in customer support, Sun Basket used a low-code platform to build a chatbot to enable users to track or edit their orders using natural language. Since investing in low-code, Sun Basket has increased the number of customer support cases handled simultaneously by 50%. This “ability to pivot to the surge in demand” is what gives low-code platforms an edge, he said.
2. COVID-19 Testing
UC Berkley adopts low-code to facilitate rapid COVID-19 testing
To help underserved communities in the fight against COVID–19, researchers at UC Berkeley’s Innovative Genomics Institute recently rapidly transformed a CRISPR study lab into a pop-up COVID testing facility with the help of low-code tooling.
The lab constructed a web portal for remote diagnosis and automated patient test scheduling. The system needed to catalog samples by barcode, synchronize the flow of information between researchers and doctors, and automatically deliver test results to patients—all while using regulatory-compliant code.
This is one area where low-code shines: The researchers could quickly utilize pre-built components with the right data privacy measures to become operational in three weeks. “HIPPA compliance and security are built-in advantages,” said Ellis. IGI is an inspiring model for how science and technology can unite amid a global crisis.
3. CARES Act And PPP
Banks adopt low-code to automate loan approval processes
With the passing of the CARES act, 70% of small U.S. businesses impacted by coronavirus quickly applied for federal loans. “Banks had to respond to a huge influx of demand and process these loans,” Ellis said. At many banks, the sheer number of applications became unmanageable.
To handle the volume at Academy Bank, a savvy employee realized the need to automate some tedious, repetitive tasks. They used a low-code platform to build a tool for tracking application statuses and generating reports. This created an end-to-end loan approval process, which helped process more Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) applications, reduced manual repetition and improved visibility.
Another financial service that relies heavily on low-code is nCino, a cloud-based bank operating system. nCino, which recently had one of the highest U.S. tech IPOs in recent times, built an entire automated business on top of Salesforce using a combination of some-code and cloud-first strategy.
As banks behave more like tech companies, they need to evaluate their DevOps approach. “Leverage scale from low-code and cloud combined,” recommends Ellis. “Use the power of the cloud to push solutions to a broad base of customers all over the world.”
4. Workplace Safety
Low-code helps build corporate social distancing applications
Many companies are considering their post-pandemic return to the workplace. Purpose-built low-code applications could be utilized to keep a log of fever checks and enable limited-exposure collaboration.
Work.com, for example, offers employee health tracking, contract-tracing and workplace-planning applications to reduce risk and enforce social distancing guidelines. For example, elevator use could be optimized to avoid crowding a tight space, Ellis said.
5. Distance Learning
COVID has forced many schools online. Some, like Case Western, are getting creative with augmented reality HoloLens. Other schools are implementing things such as financial aid chatbots or updating their old ERP systems.
Low-code could assist these distance learning initiatives or complement the EdTech platforms already in use. Over 100 universities worldwide already use low-code platforms within their online education curriculum.
Digital Transformation 2.0 Is All About Automation
Digital transformation initiatives have been brewing for years. But now, greater forces are driving immediate change—and this time, we’re all in on automation.
The emphasis is now on optimizing and refining digital processes. “Utilizing low-code, businesses are taking processes that were very manual, error-prone, simplistic or repetitive, and automating it into a process that ensures consistency,” said Ellis.
The above case studies demonstrate how low-code, in practice, is not only reshaping brick and mortal and traditional IT but ushering a new focus on automation and event-triggering for digital organizations, helping them adapt to turbulent times.
The need to automate business processes pervades all companies. Ellis positively identifies an “uptick in low-code momentum these days across all customers.” For example, over two months, Salesforce noticed an increase from 160 million screen flow executions (automated workflows) to 200 million screen flows per month.
Low-Code In Our Desperate Hour
2020 is a challenging year. Now in the thick of a global pandemic, economies have been severely affected. However, citizen development technologies offer solutions. According to Ellis, low-code is truly “saving people—in terms of lives, businesses and livelihoods.”
Of course, low-code platforms are no silver bullet and present a trade-off. Companies gain speed and agility, yet they move infrastructure dependencies to a third party. If not well-adopted or governed properly, low-code could enable shadow IT to proliferate. Ellis believes these concerns are negligible. “The value you bring is expertise and industry knowledge,” he said. The abstraction layer is worth it to “to move away from having to reinvent the wheel.”
For Ellis, broader low-code adoption is on the horizon. “We’ve seen huge increases and inbound interest and use of low-code technologies. More and more people are opening up to it,” he said. Though low-code is certainly in vogue amid the pandemic, low-code tools leveraged today could be here to stay for the long-term.
