The impact of Low-Code in software engineering has come

We believe that the Gartner Impact Radar for Software Engineering^[1] leaves no doubt that the time for Low-Code in IT Democratization has come.

The simplification of access to Low-Code development is now well-known because...

• “The ease of use of LC technology combined with low-cost cloud deployment options continues to accelerate the growth of LC among non-IT users year over year (YoY). Today, on average, 41% of employees in an organization are business technologists — that is, employees who report outside of IT departments and create technology or analytics capabilities for internal or external business use”.^[2]
  
   
• “These especially enable junior and lower-skilled developers to contribute quickly to the software assets of an organization, together with exploiting more specialist low-code tooling, such as for business process automation or integration for more complex use cases.”.^[3]
   

We know that Low-Code platforms are not a new invention, but recently they have become mainstream because they provide development teams with the acceleration needed to respond to the increasing demand for digital solutions. Just look at the increase in spending on enterprise software between 2009 and 2023^[4] ,which has seen an average annual increase of 18% over the last 4 years and even 27% in 2022. 

According to Gartner, “This technology has a high mass because it has a potentially significant and broad role within a wide range of enterprise applications and SaaS solutions.”^[5]. All while being suitable for use in development lifecycles with methodologies such as Agile, DevOps, and Platform Engineering. 

Democratization is happening now, but the impact doesn't stop there 

The impact of Low-Code on the democratization of software development is significant and immediate, but it's not the only aspect on which Low-Code will have a great influence. In the short term, within 1-3 years, platforms will be used for Low-Code Hyperautomation, which involves the use of multiple technologies for end-to-end automation of complex business processes (such as the convergence of BPA and RPA technologies for Ricoh). 
In the medium term (3-6 years), Low-Code will also be used for Business Composition, the composition of business units as modules, of which the applications used will also be composed, integrable, and interchangeable.

Low-Code has a significant impact on software engineering, but it must be limitless 

According to Gartner, "Despite very heavy drivers to adoption, some challenges remain. Most notably, low-code-enabled solutions (such as LCAPs) trade productivity for vendor lock-in (of both applications and developer skills). This lock-in reduces customer flexibility and can increase long-term costs."^[6]

WebRatio Platform does not adopt any vendor lock-in strategy, offering, for example, total freedom of use for developed applications and the use of only open and standard languages, to provide the necessary flexibility to address any changes in the software engineering world. 

Check out the infographic on Vendor Lock-In strategies and how to defend against them >

Sources

[1] Gartner - “Emerging Tech Impact Radar: Software Engineering" 23 February 2023. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved

[2] Gartner - “Emerging Tech Impact Radar: Software Engineering", 23 February 2023

[3] Gartner - “Emerging Tech Impact Radar: Software Engineering", 23 February 2023

[4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/203428/total-enterprise-software-revenue-forecast/

[5] Gartner - “Emerging Tech Impact Radar: Software Engineering", 23 February 2023

[6] Gartner - “Emerging Tech Impact Radar: Software Engineering", 23 February 2023