Is Low-Code a misunderstood thing which deserves your attention?
In the past 18 months we learned the answer is ‘yes.’
‘Low-Code’ may no longer be sufficient as a term to describe the capabilities of some of the platforms in today’s market. The more sophisticated Low-code platforms are now solving for non-trivial requirements, ranging from IOT data collection to supply chain integrations with ERP and even large-scale consumer front-end mobile applications.
It seems that Low-Code is better understood and more widely adopted in Europe than the UK and is going through a meteoric rise in countries like Portugal, Germany and The Netherlands where we’re seeing market leaders like RaboBank driving a ‘Low-Code first strategy’ for huge swathes of their services and operations, including consumer banking apps...
In the UK we’re witnessing significant developments in some sectors, notably from Siemens in shaping the future of the manufacturing industry and from Shell driving a 4,000+ army of Low-Code developers in oil and gas, but we also perceive whole industries that have not yet realised the maturity of Low-Code, whom deem it only useful for trivial requirements.
In the past year at Forever Foundry, we’ve witnessed scores of examples of non-trivial enterprise apps being shipped upon Low-Code platforms. These apps are delivering complex services in key industrial sectors such as aerospace manufacturing and automotive operations management. In the manufacturing examples we see platforms like Mendix integrating ‘out of the box’ with PLM products such as ‘Teamcentre’ from Siemens Digital Industries Software and further integrating this with market leading ERP systems, like SAP.
These types of Low-Code solutions seem to be far outweighing the capabilities of some platforms which are also labelled ‘Low-Code’ – most of which do not have the capabilities to handle complex external data or integration requirements. Even the large players, such as Microsoft with the Power Apps and Power BI platforms, struggle to keep up with these enterprise Low-Code vendors, especially when large external data sources and integrations are required.
We’re beginning to realise that perhaps either ‘Low-Code’ has changed, or it’s a little misunderstood, particularly it seems, here in the UK.
The in UK, when we talk about Low-Code to a CIO, most times, the response is “we already do that. We’ve invested in Power Apps.” Whereas in other countries (like Portugal, Netherlands and Germany) the conversation goes more like “we’ve enjoyed remarkable returns on understanding and implementing various low-code platforms for various requirements.” We would then ask, “ok great, in what technical areas have you learned that some Low-Code platforms excel and others cannot function to your requirements?” The top 5 responses have been: Data orchestration, user experience, developer experience, cloud engineering and pricing.
In 2019 Gartner published research, stating: “By 2024, 66% of large companies will use a minimum of four different low-code platforms.” And Forbes confirmed this in 2020. Further, in 2023 Gartner announced the global growth of Low-Code market by 23% that year along with a host of others). In Europe it appears that this milestone was reached in early 2023, we wonder if the UK is lagging behind it European neighbors, just a little…?
For a top-line introduction to Low-Code and why it matters see this great Medium article by re-tone (a Low-Code specialist based in Portugal, a bit like Forever Foundry)
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Hi, I’m Scott Seaborn. I’m a Creative Technologist.
I talk about Digital Transformation and Digitalisatiion. As a pioneer of mobile applications, back in the days before the iPhone, I was responsible for consumer apps on behalf of global brands like HSBC, Coca Cola, Nectar, Amex, Porsche, Unilever, GSK and many more.... I'm an award winning international keynote speaker and the founder of Forever Foundry, where we create apps that crush technical debt, Forever...
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