The Diverse Ways a Low-Code Platform Can Help You Reshape Your Organization

June 12, 2019

Would-be buyers of low-code development platforms tend to fall into one of two camps.

If you’re in the first, you see the promise and potential of this new technology. But the number of ways you can use it can be mind-boggling and overwhelming. You may not know where to start.

If you’re in the second, you know exactly what you’re going to do with your brand-spanking-new low-code platform, the second you turn the key and hear the beautiful, powerful engine purring beneath the hood. But that intense focus may blind you to additional ways in which you can leverage this technology.

Whichever camp you’re in, you’re likely only scratching the surface as you think about the ways you can use the new generation of low-code platforms.

Ironically, these platforms bring so much power to the table, but in a way that is so easily accessible, that they can become their own barriers to you realizing their full potential.

Regardless of where you are on your low-code journey, this three-part series will help you conceptualize the diverse ways that a low-code development platform can help you transform and reshape your organization in ways big and small.

In the first two parts of this series, we will explore the three broad categories of use cases in which enterprises are using low-code tools and share examples of how they are using them to address different challenges and seize advantage as the market changes at an ever-increasing pace.

In the final part of the series, we will break down the key elements you should consider as you choose a low-code platform to ensure that it gives you everything you need to realize meaningful business value the moment you put the key in the ignition.

Let’s dive in!

Optimizing the Enterprise

One of the first places that organizations think about leveraging low-code is in the optimization of business and operating processes. And for good reason.

The ability to rapidly automate and streamline long-standing and often inefficient practices is a clear way to realize immediate value from a low-code investment. But even in the realm of optimization, automating and streamlining processes is only the beginning.

Often, process optimization goes hand-in-hand with customer satisfaction and, if approached with the correct mindset, can deliver top-line and bottom-line results simultaneously. For example, Barclays, a global financial services firm, used the Appian low-code platform to optimize nine processes in only ten months. The result was an 85% reduction in back-end processing time, while increasing customer satisfaction by 64% — all within the first month of operation.

While simultaneously increasing efficiency and customer satisfaction is a classic win-win, optimization can come in many forms. For instance, managing risk is an often arduous task that organizations must get right or suffer catastrophic consequences. But the complexity of managing risk across diverse business portfolios has typically made it an expensive and value-draining endeavor.

Options Clearing Corporation, the world’s largest equity derivatives clearing organization, transformed their entire approach to risk management by developing and deploying nine critical risk management applications in only eighteen months. These new applications allowed it to employ automation, improve data management and visibility, and embed controls and compliance validation directly into core business processes.

While using low-code platforms to automate and improve efficiency within the enterprise is a classic use case and common starting point, organizations should take care not to miss more substantial opportunities to use them to optimize more complex and cross-functional processes.

These opportunities are particularly prevalent in use cases that demand the orchestration of business and operating processes across people, systems, and teams, and which can best leverage the deployment of artificial intelligence, robotic process automation, and other intelligent agents.

The Intellyx Take: Every Place is a Great Place to Start with Low-Code

The first low-code use case we explored is instructive because it sums up one of the best ways to get started with low-code: start anywhere.

In many cases, organizations actually spend too much time either contemplating options or being overly focused on a single use case. But one of the greatest advantages of modern low-code platforms, such as Appian, is that they enable rapid prototyping, experimentation and iteration.

There is no one place or a singular “right way” to get started with low-code. Just get started, but remain open to the next possibility that may present itself.

In part two of this three-part series, we will explore the next two broad categories of low-code use cases. Stay tuned!

To learn more about the current state of low-code development and how organizations have already leveraged it to deliver meaningful results, register for the upcoming webinar How to Transform your Organization with Low-Code on June 27, 2019.