News & Views

Rise in low-code tools
 

Two-thirds of software developers have increased use of low-code development tools since the pandemic according to research by Nuxeo (www.nuxeo.com).

Research found that 70% of software developers believe digital transformation had become more of a priority to their organization since Covid-19, but 47% say they lack the tools to build applications and products quickly enough to meet deadlines, while a further 44% say that their organization has abandoned application projects because they took too long.

The report, ‘The Low-Code Imperative’ (www.nuxeo.com/resources/low-code-research) explores how common the use of low-code development tools is among software developers and how that has changed since the pandemic. Over 60% of software developers use low-code developments tools only occasionally or rarely, although 55% say their employer encourages them to use low-code development tools more.

“The pandemic has only served to accelerate digital transformation programmes that were already underway, with businesses having to shift further online, provide new customer experiences and deliver better products quicker than ever,” says Chris McLaughlin, Chief Product and Marketing Officer, Nuxeo.  “Organizations need the right tools to improve agility, flexibility and to respond to market demands quicker – for content-based applications, the right tools means low-code development.”

Low-code development tools were shown to provide a range of benefits to the businesses that use them.  The biggest benefit was that such tools simplify the development process (35%), but differentiating from the competition (25%), helping the company be more innovative (25%) and improving the customer experience (24%) were also mentioned.  Customer experience and differentiating a brand have become even more important over 2020 and low-code development tools allow organisations to improve both and bring content-based apps to market significantly quicker.

There are also personal benefits to software developers from using low-code development tools.  More than one-third say doing so makes for more effective use of their time, 32% say it enables them to do more varied and interesting work and 29% believe they can bring more value to the organization.  This highlights the impact that low-code tools can have on areas such as retention and personal development and this is driving demand by software developers who want to use low-code tools in their organization’s app development.

In addition, Nuxeo’s research reveals that 43% of respondents say it takes more than three months in their organization to complete a typical content-based application.  Content is vital both internally and externally, so in a fast-paced business environment this is simply too long to deliver a content-based app.  Common reasons that a content-based application project would be abandoned include an inability to respond quickly enough to changing market requirements (22%) and the project simply taking too long (15%).

“It’s always been important to be agile, flexible and innovative but it’s become even more so this year,” continues McLaughlin. “To achieve this, organiztions need to bring their content-based applications to market much quicker and with a minimum of cost and complexity, and low-code tools will play an increasingly central role in doing so.”

The Nuxeo research paper – ‘The Low-Code Imperative: the mounting urgency to transform content and optimization as service innovation tops the business agenda’ – is available at (www.nuxeo.com/resources/low-code-research)