Low-code/No-code Development: A Conversation with 451 Research

451 Research, a division of S&P Global Market Intelligence, recently met with Thanga Ponnusamy,
Senior Product Manager for Agile Business Suite (AB Suite®), to discuss the emergence of low-code/no-code development and its impact on development teams and the organizations they support. A condensed version of their discussion is replicated below.

451 Research: What is low-code/no-code development, and why is it important to enterprise mission-critical computing?

Thanga Ponnusamy: We’re facing two key challenges: First, traditional IT systems aren’t able to move at a pace the business demands. And second, there aren’t enough developers to support emerging business needs, so many new initiatives don’t kick off at all. Low-code/no-code technologies help to solve these problems in two ways.

One, as the name implies, these technologies enable developers to quickly build applications with minimal coding. It also enables people we call “citizen developers,” those who have limited familiarity with IT, to easily start developing applications.

451 Research: Our research shows there are a number of stakeholders – beyond software developers and IT operators – that are critically important to DevOps. Is it fair to say these individuals will benefit from low-code/no-code development?

TP: We typically view citizen developers as non-IT people – those in marketing, sales, business operations, and so on. Historically, they depended on IT to create applications. But with this approach, they’re able to jump-start the development of their applications – with the support of IT. This model also helps limit the spread of shadow IT and potential governance issues.

451 Research: What are the advantages and synergies enterprises can gain by embracing a low-code/no-code approach?

TP: Number one is better collaboration between business and IT teams – this is by far the top benefit we see among our clients. The second is the speed with which organizations can go to market. Speeding up application development by generating code, databases, etc. in the background makes for a faster, seamless deployment.

451 Research: It seems low-code/no-code development can address something we see come up as a top challenge in our surveys: conflicting processes and approaches within the organization.

TP: This is an area where AB Suite is differentiated from other vendors’ offerings. When you’re looking at an enterprise-grade application, it’s important to realize that you’ll have many developers involved who all need to collaborate. And everything from source control to testing to production – it’s all effectively managed in AB Suite, across the entire DevOps cycle.

451 Research: What are some key capabilities enterprises should consider when evaluating
low-code/no-code platforms?

TP: The fact is, there are hundreds of vendors in this space, so a lot of due diligence is required to arrive at the right one. And different vendors have different focus areas. Some are good at the database part. Some are good at multi-user experiences. Others focus on process logic or process automation.
So when an organization is evaluating vendors, the first thing to determine is the area they’re trying to address and the key capabilities they’ll need. Can you get by with something specific, or do you need general-purpose capabilities?

Also, consider scalability and security. These are critical facets of any enterprise-class application, and they’ll only become more vital as the number of users continues to grow.

451 Research: Ultimately, it’s a balance between giving DevOps teams the tools they want, but doing so in a sanctioned and compliant way.

TP: Absolutely. Even though the citizen developers are being enabled, it’s commissioned, managed, and supported by enterprise IT. That’s the big benefit of this approach: eliminating shadow IT.

To see more of Thanga’s conversation with 451 Research, please watch the full recording.