#56 Will low-code replace my existing Developers? The Low Code Audience Q&A Episode

Welcome back to another episode of the Process in Automation podcast with the Automation Guys. In today's episode, we will go through a list of questions, um, yeah, questions we often get asked by our audience, um, on the topic of low-code. And, um, yeah, so hopefully with our answers on these questions, we can break down some of the technical blurb which is associated with our industry and in automation. So let's kick it off with the first question we have received. Yeah, Arno, do you like to take the first one?

Yes, thank you, Sascha, and thanks to all our listeners for joining. We're actually recording this episode in the sunny city of Milton Keynes, which is of course a city now, and so we are on location again and what better thing to talk about than automation and low-code FAQs. So a lot of people come to us and they ask, what is low-code? And we feel with the, the sort of the current market of technology adoption, it's probably one of the sort of most used but, but least understood terms for anybody that doesn't work with, with low-code. And in a nutshell, low-code is a development approach, and it's a visual development approach to application development that enables professional and non-professional developers to collaborate and rapidly build and deliver applications. So it's technical people working with non-technical people, usually people in a business that requires a technology solution that They work together with these graphical tools, and they create business applications or productivity applications that solve problems, real problems. But in a way that's very accelerated to compare to traditional high-code development, where you have to write C# code or HTML, C++, and so on and so forth.

So, and that really leads nicely into the sort of the next question we have received, especially talking about non-professional developers. So can non-developers really use low-code, and is that easy to do? And yes, of course, the low-code platforms are really designed specifically for business users and make things as simple as and easy to use as possible. And as a, as a non-developer, you don't need to worry about sort of endless training because it's so intuitive to use. But at the same time, seasoned developers can apply all their expertise, all their skills and experience in building these low-code applications, because low-code not necessarily means they're not writing any code. So on that level of code they still have to do, that experience is really, really useful. Yeah. And combining these two things together, the seasoned developers, the business users, you can really build very complicated and powerful application scenarios.

Yeah. And a lot of people ask us, you know, what can you build with low-code platforms? And of course, low-code platforms doesn't necessarily just mean online forms and workflows. We are talking about very sophisticated AI-driven chatbots, sophisticated robotic process automation sequences where you can train software bots. So, you know, there's a whole range of technology products that you could deploy, which is fundamentally classified as low-code, where these sort of non-technical and technical people can work together to create these solutions very fast. And, you know, the answer is very simple on this FAQ, you know, what can you build? Because you could pretty much build any kind of sort of a web-facing application, internal intranet-facing application, a mobile phone application, a backend process that, that's, you know, take data from one system to another system, perhaps a software bot that does specific things, mundane repetitive things where it churns through data. And I've actually come prepared with a list of the sort of most common use cases for, for, for, for these low-code apps. So it includes customer-facing or consumer-facing apps, operational improvement apps, employee engagement apps. That's of course any apps where employee can engage with the business, whether or not it's asking for a leave request, submit an expense claim, asking how much leave they've got left. So that could be an example where you can use a low- low-code driven AI chatbot. Modernization of legacy systems to modern systems where you perhaps have your legacy system, you want to modernize it, you can put a low-code wrapper around it. Very quick, very cost-effective, low-risk replacement apps. And then of course, you know, field and remote reporting and data collection apps. So for instance, where you've got maybe location services where you, you harvest telemetry and that needs to be recorded using an application. For example. These are the things that you could string together very quickly. And of course, we can break this down by department as well. So, of course, those examples were just sort of broad brush ones, but within each department in a business, there's application for low-code as well.

Let's take the first department, which is a very prominent department to apply efficiencies and improvements. And probably the first one I have as an example here is the accounts receivable automation and the accounts payable automation. This seems to be one of the biggest processes to look at in these areas, but there are also processes about reconciliation, invoicing, purchase orders, the whole purchase-to-pay kind of process you can automate. Of course, in companies, there are travel and expenses. So that is one area to look at. And then when it comes to finance, there's lots of data we capture and automating that data extraction and the regular reporting in these departments, automation can definitely support there. A very important one these days is fraud detection. There are so many examples and of course sort of intercompany sort of recharging processes and And there could be like 50, 100 areas more just in the finance department alone.

That's incredible. And I think, you know, people think that the majority of the applications is just in finance. But, you know, if you look within CITE, IT, for example, I feel like if you have a digital transformation journey, IT is probably a very, very good place to start, especially for strategic thinking. Where you deploy these types of platforms that will then enable the business to digitally transform. So, you know, examples of apps you can build in IT on this platform where, you know, diagnosis of technical problems, help desk, issue resolution, things like password resets. I mentioned support tickets, the whole life cycle of managing support tickets, the workflows behind all of that. Application to, to manage and front data backups, um, data cleansing. So, so, so low-code in itself provides a really, really valuable technical asset for IT to the business. And we talked about the sort of non-technical people that can use it collaboratively with technical people to create these apps. But of course, IT can also leverage the low-code platform for some of their internal processes. Those will just be apps that slot on on the platform itself.

Password reset, isn't it? That kind of self-service in some companies, there's so much compliance around password resets, and this is huge volume for IT departments to deal with. So if that is automated, I think everyone will be happy. So the next area brings us to the customer-facing apps Arno mentioned earlier. So let's look at sort of customer service. Just contract renewals are an area within that customer service app section, SLA management, underwriting, the whole onboarding and account creation when customers are coming into the company, processing an order, dealing with complaints, and really updating all the records which are related to a customer. And there's lots of information which can be automated.

Yeah, and, um, you know, of course, from a, um, a human resources perspective, um, you know, we, we can find numerous use cases inside HR where we can deploy low-code automation. And this is, for example, a big one: application and CV processing, interview and feedback notifications, Employee onboarding is a huge one. We have joiners, movers, and leavers, for example. File and data management, retention management of records, for example. Employee induction, training, automated training scheduling, or scheduling. You know, we're talking about personal development planning. So those, those are big use cases as well that people generally manage with inside an Excel spreadsheet and send a lot of emails across if they remember to do so. Of course, automation will have automated alerts that could help the employee remember what type of personal development they need to do for a particular year. That's, that's especially applicable in regulated industries— finance, insurance, even medical. So, so, so that in itself is a subject on its own. Monthly payroll automation, company surveys, employee surveys, attendance and record timekeeping, recording of timekeeping, you know, criminal background checks, all of the sort of due diligence you need to do and referencing. So again, within HR, these are just a handful of popular ones, but you know, there's obviously lots more that you can identify.

Yeah, we had several use case episodes here on the podcast. So yeah, we recommend to listen to a few other episodes on low-code and in other areas, chatbots, RPA. So plenty of use cases which will help you to get started with these areas. So the next big question we receive is, uh, was mainly, so how does using low-code compare to traditional development methods? And yeah, very simply put, low-code is sort of the, the process of dragging and dropping visual blocks of existing code into a workflow, um, or into, into sort of UIs to, to create the application you need. It feels a little bit like, to a certain extent, a bit like Lego. So because they are pre-made components and building blocks you have available, and that can of course be enriched. So since it can completely replace the traditional methods of high code in an entire app, so skilled developers can work smarter, much faster. So there's some research, there was some research done by Forrest and Loco can actually speed it up by 10 times to 20 times, depending on what kind of app you're building. Yeah, and you don't have to really deal with all that repetitive coding. And the big advantage, of course, is your business users can build these apps with very little or no training. And that's huge when you think about innovation within the business.

Yeah, and a lot of people also ask, you know, can I use low-code for mobile app development? And absolutely you can. You know, application built using low-code platform automatically gets optimized for all mobile devices. You know, these mobile-first applications do not require the developer to write and maintain different code bases, for example, for these different devices. So it, you know, offers up much more time efficiency, um, you know, for in terms of developer productivity, and it fits all, all of these devices. Another thing we talk about, speed of execution and how quickly you can create low-code apps. Um, you know, usually the rule of thumb is cost and drop a zero, maybe add a bit of contingency, and that's, that's where you land with low-code. But it is very, very quick. I think that you get the mobile app development sort of almost as a byproduct. So there's a lot of benefits adopting and using these platforms that we talk about on this podcast so often. So again, you know, just in terms of sort of collaboration with people, costs, automatic output into mobile, really, really powerful technology to adopt with inside your organization.

Yeah, that's cool. I think it was low-code. We not just have to do the mobile development as a side product, isn't it? So all the— very often the security comes with it as well. We don't really have to take care of, in many cases, the hosting. We can just get started with building these applications, and that's huge. So every project takes very long if you have to deal with all the other things in detail. So the really, really big question which comes, comes a lot is, okay, with all that low-code available, or these low-code technologies available, will low-code replace existing developers? And yeah, it's very clear, or very important to say, low-code isn't about reducing the skills and any kind of value of the developers. Low-code is there to enable teams of developers to produce more value quicker while drawing on their understanding of how to create and maintain these high-quality business web and mobile applications. That's sort of the key point. With everything that's going on there at the moment, the need for innovation the, um, so the need for more automation, we need to build more apps anyway. So, and, um, so the style of coding will change, yes, that's fine, but we need developers, we need experienced developers still, and we need far more of them. We are probably running into a crisis that we're running out of developers. Low-code will help because we can make business users part of that. Yeah, so definitely will not replace sort of existing developers. It will not get rid of developers. Yeah, it will just make them faster.

So I guess the question out there, there might be a listener that will ask, so, you know, how can the automation guys help me embrace low-code? And I guess in a nutshell, the message is you can reach out to us. You know, we will help you to analyze your problem, even if it's just an everyday problem or a very complicated problem. It could be business process across your organization in this department. And then, you know, we'll help you to sort of formulate a plan to bring low-code and automation in general into your business and help you to, you know, to be a bit more profitable and to start that journey and, you know, reduce operating costs using this, this great technology. And of course, you know, we have got a lot of episodes out there that we talk about a variety of topics. So between Sasha and myself, you guys can, can reach out to us if you've got any, any questions on particularly the use cases on this particular episode of low-code, but in general, you know, the use cases for AI technologies in general. You know, we would love to share our stories, we would love to share our successes with you guys, and hopefully that could pick or provide a sort of pathway, a roadmap, if you want to get started, or perhaps if you already started with automation and you want to actually ramp it up and scale it. You know, we're here to help. You know, reach out to us and hopefully we can get you on the path to where you should be using these really, really exciting technologies.

Yeah, and everyone out there listening right now. So if you really like to get started nearly immediately, like to have your own sandbox and get a few automations going, yeah, join our Automation Guys community. There we have that membership available for you to get your sandbox, go through lots of scenarios, and really get hands-on. And yeah, take that to the next level. So that's what we have on offer. And if you have any questions on that community, especially, reach out to us. As always, we are here. And yeah, so that's pretty much it for today. Thanks again for listening. And yeah, until the next time, let's automate it.

Unfortunately, that's it again with this episode of the Process and Automation Podcast. If you like this episode, please give us a 5-star rating and don't forget to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss any upcoming episode. We hope you will tune in next time, and until then, let's automate it.

Happy holidays!