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Perspectives

How Low Code is Impacting Industries and Solving Difficult Challenges

Written By: Matt Lieberson
September 28, 2021
11 min read

By 2030, the global low-code market is forecasted to generate about $187 billion in revenue. This is absolutely impressive, and its growth presents plenty of opportunities, not just for the industry but also for end-users and businesses.

In fact, about 75% of large organizations will use at least four low-code tools in both citizen development and IT application development in their quest for digital transformation. From project management to sales to supply chain, we’re picking exciting trends in the adoption of low code as organizations rush to improve their workflows and core processes.

But what does this mean to late and new adopters? What areas of their businesses are ripe for low-code implementation? How can today’s enterprises exploit the full potential of low code to drive innovation and improve operational agility?

To help address this, we’ve broken down some of the typical low code use cases as well as low code examples that we have witnessed here at Quickbase. Read on to inform and inspire your key decisions in adopting and implementing the low-code development approach.

Use Cases by Industry

At Quickbase, we’ve seen more than 6000 clients across industries use our technology across different segments and departments to replace costly, manual, and resource-intensive processes. Here are some of the industries that can harness the redefining power of low code development platforms:

Real Estate

Real estate management involves lots of processes and paperwork with different partners to close deals or manage large-scale projects. Without the right tools, handling marketing, leasing agreements, investments, and tenants can be a complex task.

With low-code platforms, real estate investors, managers, and companies can be relieved from the traditionally complex and time-consuming tasks. They can simply create low-code applications to help with time tracking, listings, finances, property portfolio, facility management, agent reporting, and tenant relationship management.

The use of apps eliminates the paper trail while providing easy access to property management data and key metrics, such as maintenance requests, open vacancies, revenue, and inventory. Bear in mind all this is possible within a cloud-based platform, which connects all key parties and centralizes business operations.

Government

Local and state agencies have the biggest “customer” numbers: the public. Hence, such organizations need to digitize and modernize their operations to improve service delivery and operational efficiency. A low code development platform offers a reliable solution for achieving that, providing complete visibility into key information and processes.

For example, the State of Georgia’s Department of Administrative Services deployed Quickbase to improve administrative efficiency. They wanted a solution that didn’t involve heavy investment in infrastructure. With Quickbase, the department reduced their app development times by up to 50%. Now, they have a better way to work that delivers improved productivity and better performance.

Manufacturing

Manufacturing is usually intensive with dependent processes that demand proper employee management for accurate execution. Unfortunately, manual and labor-intensive tasks are rife in traditional manufacturing processes. This can affect productivity, performance, and business outcomes.

With low code development, manufacturers have a digital opportunity to achieve operational excellence and meet the needs of their customers. Low code development platforms centralize key data, making it easy for managers to make decisions and maximize resource utilization while ensuring accountability across different departments.

Metso, an industrial machinery company, implemented Quickbase to improve order management and reporting. The company created a low code application that centralized data from inventory, warehouses, and ERP. They also automated order tracking, enabled notifications, and created custom reporting. These changes resulted in annual cost savings of $1 million.

Construction

Project managers in the construction industry understand how challenging work can be. From designs to procurement and inspection to finances, they’re expected to oversee a myriad of functions to ensure successful project execution. In most cases, one-size-fits-all solutions never deliver the flexibility that construction teams need.

Enters low code, a simple yet sophisticated solution that offers custom and effective solutions for workflow automation and process improvement. It allows construction companies to connect their data, equipment, and people for easy access to project information. Whether out on the job site or in the office, teams can coordinate seamlessly while staying safe, compliant, and productive.

Boyett Construction, a general commercial contractor, can attest to that. The company built a Quickbase app called BMS to eliminate paper-based processes and centralize data for easy access on dashboards. The app supports all functions of the firm, from bidding to closeout. This has allowed them to take on more projects while enabling business growth like never before.

Healthcare

For years, hospitals and health service providers have been using off-the-shelf and point solutions to store patients’ records and manage operations. For the most part, this worked just well until COVID-19 hit, disrupting everyday processes and putting everything in disarray. Health teams were challenged like never before, and they suddenly needed solutions that supported telehealth and secure EHR access.

Low-code platforms offer the flexibility that such teams need to transit to new ways of working without disrupting the quality of health services. Low-code presents a new approach to ensuring readiness for any disruption. It allows fast creation of apps for compliance management and monitoring as well as seamless integrations through APIs for standardized access and authentication management.

For example, Healthbit, a San Diego-based company, helps laboratories to improve their operations. When COVID-19 hit, the company created a Quickbase app to help healthcare NGOs in India to manage oxygen concentrators, and they created the app in just seven days. The company also uses low code to ensure strict compliance, manage clients, and provide laboratory data access.

Use Cases by Job Type

If you’re looking to implement low code development in your organization, it’s vital to identify applicable use cases that will benefit from process automation and improvements. Here are typical use cases of low code platforms you need to know:

Supply Chain Management

In the supply chain, disruptions are typical, from natural disasters to material shortages to pandemics like COVID. Such disruptions are always imminent — what matters is your ability to react quickly and build agility to reduce the impact of disruptions on your supply chain operations.

Low-code development platforms provide the right solution, allowing supply chain teams to build resilience through workflow automation and real-time visibility. With just a simple app, you can manage contracts, fleets, suppliers, assets, and shipments quite effortlessly. The right app provides a complete view of all your operations, giving you the ability to mitigate risks and adapt to new changes at today’s pace.

Customer Service

Today, customer service is a key differentiator — up to 90% of customers consider customer service when making purchasing decisions. Therefore, companies need to deliver the right experiences throughout the customer journey. Building great relationships with customers will improve your retention rates, hence your bottom line.

A low-code platform delivers its magic in customer support, too. You can quickly develop an app that provides service reps with real-time visibility into user experiences, request history, and information. This results in faster results, improving response times and the overall experience. You can also monitor KPIs to ensure service teams are adequately meeting customer needs.

Process Improvement

In a bid to adopt different business solutions, companies today end up with siloed, complex systems that hamper operations and complicate processes. This results in poor performance, reduced productivity, costly processes, and slow production times. In some cases, burdening processes can lead to employee churn.

Thanks to low code development platforms, businesses can remove bottlenecks in their processes using automation, real-time insights, and effective integrations. With easy access to org-wide data, you can quickly spot inefficiencies and implement corrective actions that fit your unique processes.

Whether it’s sales, supply chain, or manufacturing operations, low code platforms enable continuous improvement by automating repeatable tasks, streamlining manual processes, and cleaning your data for actionable insights.

Project Management

For most organizations, project management is the single most crucial task. Yet, only 35% of project managers are satisfied with project management systems in place. Some companies do not have a defined methodology for managing projects. As a result, they bear the brunt of inferior processes, which lead to the wastage of 11.4% of all their resources.

Hail low code development platforms, as they provide disruptive digital solutions to remedy such situations. They eliminate emails, tools, and spreadsheets in PM, allowing managers to consolidate processes and data for seamless collaboration and productivity. A simple dashboard provides powerful insights into each project, connects teams, and highlights the essential resources needed to complete projects successfully.

Sales & CRM

Off-the-shelf Sales & CRM software solutions come with lots of features that some organizations don’t need. This adds unnecessary complexity for users, impacting how businesses interact with customers or prospects throughout the sales process. Plus, companies spend more time on their processes than on customer prospecting and lead conversion.

Fortunately, you have the opportunity to build a custom and scalable solution that’s unique to your process. With a low code platform, you can tailor your CRM database to centralize your data and integrate it with existing systems, such as SAP, SalesForce, and legacy systems. Plus, it allows you to develop a sales app with custom charts, reports, and dashboards for easy access to key data anytime, anywhere.

Examples of popular low-code use cases

Regardless of your industry, here are core low-code use cases that fusion teams can exploit to build operational agility and improve their core processes:

  • UI design: UX/UI designers can also benefit from low-code platforms since all processes are visual. You can try different built-in and pre-made components using drag and drop features to create a user-friendly user interface.
  • Platform integration: With low-code, it’s effortless to use APIs, connectors, and business logic constructs to build integration flows with minimal hand-coding. For example, Quickbase offers Pipelines, an innovative feature that lets you integrate existing systems and automate workflows.
  • API generation: Implementation of APIs is also simple with low-code development. Quickbase offers JSON RESTful API, which enables secure access to apps and automates the software development lifecycle. APIs are great for improving the capabilities of your apps and pulling data from different sources, including legacy systems.
  • Business process management: Process managers understand the value of streamlined and automated processes. Low-code platforms allow them to optimize key business processes while using alerts, notifications, and insights to eliminate efficiencies.
  • Containerization: A low-code platform supports the development of apps that you can run anywhere — you simply build it once and run it on different environments. This portability makes it effortless to manage business applications and move them as needed to apply digital solutions where they’re most needed.

Common Low-Code Questions

What is low-code mainly used for?

In a nutshell, low-code is mainly used for developing enterprise-grade applications in a visual environment. It reduces hand coding to cut down development times while leveraging rapid prototyping to test features and functions quickly. In the app and software development market, low-code is an excellent alternative to traditional waterfall development as it provides quick solutions.

Low-code application development uses reusable code, ready-made components, models, and templates to build apps faster. So, you don’t need to create some elements from scratch — you simply use drag and drop functionality to add or remove components as required. Plus, the whole process happens in a visual environment, allowing you to visualize your end product and make changes as you go.

What can you build with low-code platforms?

Today’s application development landscape is quite dynamic, and it’s dictated by the requirements and uniqueness of a solution. Low code platforms are ideal for solutions that require fast development — you don’t need to wait 3 to 6 months. Basically, they’re suitable for developing portals, customer-facing apps, and web applications, including:

  • Innovation apps
  • Customer service apps
  • Operational efficiency apps
  • Legacy migration apps

Low-code is a versatile solution that supports digital transformation efforts, and its biggest value proposition is the development speed it offers. Regardless of your industry or business, it supports different use cases for quick app development, allowing fusion teams to improve governance, security, scalability, and compliance.

Is low-code development useful?

Yes, low-code app skills are pretty helpful, particularly today, where businesses are experiencing skills gaps. As the “developer drought” spreads widely, IT teams are coming under the spotlight, constantly under pressure to deliver solutions that work for different departments. Consequently, adopting low code software development allows enterprises to spark innovation and creativity through citizen development and rapid application development (RAD).

Low-code platforms give organizations a myriad of digital capabilities, which are crucial in today’s fast-paced digital environment. As businesses pursue digital transformation, they need solutions that connect teams, automate processes, streamline workflows, improve time to market, and provide easy access to data. Low code platforms enable them to do just that, driving innovation across departments and unifying disparate systems.

Matt Lieberson
Written By: Matt Lieberson

Matt Lieberson is a Content Marketing Manager at Quickbase.

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