Low-Code: Enabling Bi-Modal IT
Gartner recently released a study showing that 60% of companies worldwide will adopt Low-Code as their main development platform by 2028, and that by 2029, 8 out of 10 organizations will use this development approach to create business-critical applications.
As the barriers between countries have diminished, advances in technology and communication have accelerated, and consumers have begun to enjoy an increasingly digital consumer experience, IT has come to play an increasingly strategic role in companies.
The sense of urgency imposed by these new modern imperatives has led organizations in all industries to rush desperately to digitize themselves, and, for that, they have invested massively in ready-made system packages that cover a large number of key areas of companies and implement standardized and validated processes for each industry in the shortest possible time. The great reference point for this movement is SAP's ERP systems, used as the centerpiece of the IT strategy in most companies to this day
It turns out that it is impossible to demand that systems made with a standardization mindset can meet the variety of needs and particularities that each company has. It was therefore inevitable that customizations would begin to be inserted into the initial codes of these standardized core systems, making the routine processes of applying corrections, continuous improvement and even technological updating more expensive and difficult.
With the development of cloud solutions, highly specialized SaaS applications that can be easily integrated with these central systems began to appear on the market, popularizing names like SalesForce, ServiceNow and WorkDay, among many others. Initially, they seemed to be the ideal solution for reducing and even avoiding customizations in standardized central systems, but in practice the result ended up being different.
As SaaS applications also use a standardized approach, they invariably require customization to meet all the specific requirements of the business areas. So instead of solving the problem, we just spread the customization problem to more places. It is now necessary to add customizations to the core systems and also to the various complementary SaaS applications, increasing the complexity of companies' technological environments and requiring more and more money to be directed towards operational and less strategic activities.
While operating costs have increased, and today representing more than 70% of IT budgets, customer and consumer expectations have evolved. Now they don't just expect a good digital experience, but a personalized one. In this scenario, it's hard to imagine how these standardized systems alone can be the answer to this demand for innovation and differentiation, and we need to approach this problem from new angles.
Aligned with a Bimodal vision of IT, the ideal technological solution to resolve this impasse is a two-pronged approach. According to this concept, introduced by Gartner more than 10 years ago, the orientation is, on the one hand, to buy the core systems and specialized SaaS applications whenever there is great adherence to the company's processes and needs, keeping them without or with a minimum of customizations; and, on the other hand, to build the functionalities that complement, integrate and innovate these different systems and applications on development platforms specifically designed for this purpose.
A good example of the use of this dual approach solution is the one being adopted by companies to successfully upgrade their SAP ERP systems to the latest version, S/4HANA. It's not uncommon to find SAP ERP installations with thousands and even millions of lines of customized code. In these cases, IT teams are using OutSystems' Enterprise Low-Code platform to very quickly and optimally rebuild these customizations into applications that can be easily integrated into the SAP systems that originated them, returning to a standardized SAP ERP installation that is easy to migrate to the latest version.
The OutSystems platform, with its Low-Code componentized development approach, where pre-developed, tested and validated code components are brought together visually, quickly and assertively to create services and applications that can meet demands of any area, magnitude and scope, allows us to extend systems and applications, but also to modernize legacy applications, automate processes, remove the factors that prevent the adoption of AI and innovate our business.
This is why analysts project a substantial increase in the use of Low-Code platforms for the unrestricted creation of applications in companies over the next few years. Among many benefits, they help us to implement a Bimodal vision in IT, bringing together the "buy" and "build" strategies in a harmonious and complementary way. In some cases, it's good to buy ready-made, but whenever the need arises, we should not forget to use the OutSystems platform to build everything we need.