Craig Christiane, Service Orchestration Practice Lead at Metsi, breaks down how low code application platforms can help business analysts, and why they are best placed to develop integrations into global IT systems.
Low code application platforms have seen a meteoric rise in adoption over the past 5 years. Gartner forecasts the market of low code development technologies to grow by 23% in 2021 alone, further projecting that by 2024, 80% of technology products and services will be built by people who are not technology professionals. With these platforms decentralising the creation of software from dedicated IT teams to all departments, they continue to drive accelerated automation of key business processes.
Low Code vs Conventional Development
Where the traditional application development cycle includes numerous drawn-out stages – requirement specification, architecture planning, wireframing, backend and frontend development, test cycles, etc – these low code platforms considerably reduce the steps involved. These platforms employ intuitive and logical techniques, such as drag-and-and drop functionality, utilising pre-existing code snippets and freely available APIs. The data, logic, interface and process layers are all integrated into the visual interface and can be chopped and changed freely depending on the application requirements.
Low-code platforms are objectives driven. By understanding the functional problem the application intends to solve, you can visually map out the desired workflows and user interface, connect the required APIs, test the relevant use cases and deploy. During the development process, the various integrations can easily be viewed and traversed in a graphical representation. This is in contrast to traditional code methods where functions are called at specific points and reused throughout the code snippet. The visual interface of low code platforms streamlines the troubleshooting process as errors are more easily identified during the run time.
The Unique Viewpoint of the Business Analyst
Business analysts are uniquely positioned to understand the IT services offered by a company end-to-end, not just on a specific domain in the IT environment that forms a part of the IT service. This privileged vantage point provides unique insights on how the service, and integration of that service, would be most optimally implemented. Business analysts would then be able to help domain experts develop certain workflows in their respective areas, without the long cycles associated with app development.
“Low Code platforms are objectives-driven and an invaluable tool for small, agile teams.”
In the digital era, the work of IT organisations is more crucial than ever, while expectations soar. The traditional development of custom applications is a long process, requiring considerable skill and experience. For small and agile teams (characteristic of startups), insufficient resources prevent investment in expensive and sophisticated solutions. Low-code platforms allow these teams to create the applications they require for themselves, whilst freeing developers to tackle more complicated tasks.
Whilst low code platforms are by no means perfect (they are, for example, plagued with the challenge of scalability, and are often limited in the functionality they offer and thus not always customisable), they do allow for swift deployment and can help teams automate key processes. Business analysts would be well served to include these in their problem-solving toolkits, as they can be the link that ties together the loose ends in customers’ global digital infrastructure.
Analysts understand that an integrated global view of your information architecture is crucial to business success in the digital age. Metsi Technologies helps clients clarify their IT transformation vision with a clear understanding of the most important first, or next steps, and which components of their transformation programs to prioritise. We help identify capability gaps in transformation strategies and define enabling service architectures that align to the business, providing an accelerated path to maturity.
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Issued by OZRA Media on behalf of Metsi Technologies.
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