Driving Operational Excellence with Low-code Applications

Operational excellence improves the bottom-line and delivers consistent service to the customers. Internal operational issues not only impact employees, they do affect the customers.

The benefits of investing in operational excellence include streamlining product development, service delivery, customer acquisition and support. Undertaking an operational excellence initiative usually involves multiple departments and requires IT resources to enhance the systems needed. The limited number of developers available makes it challenging to expedite improvements.

Low-code application platforms have enabled a new category of “citizen” developers who aren’t professional developers to create a myriad of applications for tackling business problems. According to Forrester, low code platforms can make software development as much as 10x faster than traditional methods.

The drag-and-drop features make the tool easy to learn and use. Businesses are excited to have the capability to enhance operations without going through a long queue for programming resources. To make the adoption of low-code platform a success, there are three key success factors.

1. Clear governance policies. Without guidelines, it could become chaotic quickly when groups venture to utilize a low-code platform of their choice. Questions such as who will select the platform, who is qualified to be a “citizen” developer, and who does that person report to need to be addressed. Such policies are important to establish coherent practices for clear accountability. It is also essential for the application users to have assurance that there is a standard of quality. Clear governance is a pre-requisite for opening up the playing field.
2. Adequate training and support. Despite the relative ease in building applications with low-code platforms, proper training is essential to ensure the “citizen” developers have the needed skills to deliver good work. When problems arise, where do people get help? Would you rely on the vendor or an in-house support group? In the early days, it makes sense to rely on the vendor when platform utilization is limited. As the adoption becomes enterprise-wide, it would be advantageous to have a support centre within the organization. The support centre becomes a hub where knowledge and expertise reside.
3. Emphasis on collaboration. Operations in a business is built on a network of processes that cross departments with people performing the work supported by systems. Siloed improvements achieve short-term gain with narrow impact. To introduce significant improvement, the work at stake likely will involve multiple areas. This applies when you want to achieve a high return from your low-code application. As we know well, silos are the culprits for conflicts and confusion. Subsequently, you want to encourage collaboration. Share success stories. It helps to build excitement and appetite for improvement.Siloed improvements achieve short-term gain with narrow impact. Share on X

By adopting a low-code platform, you free up developers’ time on complex projects that require their expertise. You expedite improvement, stay competitive and meet customer needs.