Low Code Hits New High - Results Of A New Survey

Had a really interesting conversation the other day with Adrian Bignall, he who is in charge of International Sales at Evoke Technologies.

Evoke is a rather large tech consultancy that only relatively recently set foot in the UK; however, the timing couldn’t have been better as Adrian was talking about the results of a survey of a subject close to both his and my working (and hopefully will continue to do so) heart: Low Code development. Originally “invented” by Forrester back in the last decade, it’s only in recent years that it’s really begun to take off and is flying far better than any 737 MAX (they obviously didn’t use low code in the dev). Those of a limited memory (you know who you are) might recall a report wot I wrote for #Swimlane a couple of years ago on the subject, as part of testing its Turbine platform (though it hadn’t been named then):

https://swimlane.com/resources/reports/low-code-security-automation-report/

The Evoke survey (250 UK respondents) focused on whether Low Code had lived up to its promises, such as faster development timescales, lower application delivery and maintenance costs, aid to deliver enterprise applications without expert developers needed (where are they nowadays anyway?) and enhanced interworking between business and IT in delivering those applications to improve both customer and employee experience and productivity. Oh, and what impact will generative AI have on the use of these platforms, of course 😊 – AI, the new “paradigm shift”. All Enid Blyton books are being rewritten using ChatGPT; actually, there’s a thought…

If you want the full read – highly recommended – the survey is available here: https://www.evoketechnologies.com/lp/low-code-research-report/ – but here’s a quick summary of the Low Code findings:

In short, 83% of respondents agreed that Low Code is living up to its promises. So, what did they particularly like? Lower costs, higher speed of changes/updates and a reduced need for developer expertise all figured highly, but the two key advantages expressed were its impact on collaboration between business and IT, as well as the increased speed of application development, with over 90% citing Low Code resulting in decreased application development timescales (over 50% faster in almost half the cases). An interesting one was that 30% had invested in Low Code to enable Fusion Development – combining citizen development and professional development, that’s gotta call for a paradigm shift 😊. Oh, I remember the old days of coding with users; you’d go and take notes on EXACTLY what they wanted, deliver the application in record time, for them to say: “that’s not what I wanted at all”. Dear Mr or Mrs User, might I refer to paragraphs A-Z of the application design specification defined by, er, yourself. “I can’t have possibly requested that…”

I digress. More facts n figures:

• Almost 60% of respondents already used their Low Code platform(s) to develop mission-critical applications.
• Over 72% are – or are planning to – use Low Code to build mission-critical applications within the foreseeable future (potential paradigm shift).

On the downside, almost 50% noted struggles in getting started with Low Code after investing in the platform. And companies had, on average, more than one platform in existence in their enterprise, so that kind of negates the idea of reducing the steep learning curve. And there are concerns, such as security, scalability, vendor lock-in and licence pricing, resulting in the desire to hire experienced developers with skills in a particular platform topping the list of strategies that organisations have engaged in, in order to increase the use of Low Code. Again, this kind of goes against the grain, though is understandable from a human – if not AI – perspective. Even something that is created to make life easier is still NEW – and that scares businesses (ye olde “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality). On the plus side while, as the survey notes, as being far from the most common strategy, training and enabling new developers – i.e., growing the overall skills pool – is rated as the most effective means of increasing their use of Low Code by organisations that have achieved this.

Now that’s more like it! Obviously, this is very much still a “watch this space” scenario, but there is no doubt that Low Code has a lot going for it. And users are – in theory – a lot smarter now than they once were. Allegedly. Citizens and developers unite over Low Code! Now there’s a headline in the making. And a paradigm shift…