Low Code – the accelerated way to extend applications

Low Code – the accelerated way to extend applications 

Business efficiency is the order of the day. In challenging economic and market conditions, business growth relies on having visibility across the organisation and being able to manage day-to-day processes as efficiently as possible.  

It’s common for businesses to have disconnected IT systems and disparate data sources. After all, growing businesses take on the technology they need, when they need it. This often translates to systems working in silos, without the connectivity that the business really needs in order to drive strategic growth. 

This is a challenge that businesses know they have. The problem is that it’s seen as too time-consuming and expensive to fix. The thought of starting a huge IT transformation project puts many business leaders off.  

There’s a cost-effective, high-performance alternative, though: Low Code Application Platforms – or LCAPs. 

What is an LCAP? 

LCAPs are a revolutionary shift in software development, enabling businesses to create applications with minimal hand-coding. Platforms use visual development environments, drag-and-drop features, and pre-built templates to simplify the app creation process. This ‘democratisation’ of application development drives faster and more accurate development and allows teams across the business to collaborate to build technologies that meet business needs. 

LCAPs are useful on many levels – they are great for designing and building new applications, and also for extending or upgrading existing applications. This is important, because organisations are often using solutions that have been hastily put together to solve a particular problem – and a LCAP approach can help to extend that application into something more useful, more intuitive and able to flex as the organisation changes. 

What are the attributes of an LCAP? 

LCAPs shouldn’t be confused with ‘no code’ technologies. In our opinion, LCAPs are best used, not by citizen developers with no coding experience, but by developers who understand the principles of software design and development.  

That understanding means that your application is in good hands from the very beginning, and developers can take advantage of the attributes of an LCAP without compromising the fundamentals of good application product design. The key attributes of an LCAP include: 

• Drag-and-drop features 

• Pre-built templates 

• User-friendly visual development environment 

• Easy customisation 

• Reduced need for coding expertise 

• Easy to modify for continuous improvement 

• Security and compliance built in 

• Scalability to support business growth 

LCAP use cases  

The versatility of LCAPs makes them useful in a wide range of scenarios. In the healthcare sector, for example, LCAPs may be used to develop patient management systems, telehealth applications, or compliance tracking tools. In the financial sector they can be used to build customer onboarding platforms, fraud detection systems, and regulatory compliance solutions. Retail businesses can leverage LCAPs to develop inventory management systems, e-commerce platforms, and customer loyalty programs.  

LCAPs are valuable for businesses who want to build internal applications that streamline processes or allow the business to gather, analyse and report information in a particular way. They can also help with building external applications which help to improve customer experience, give suppliers an easier way to manage their relationships or allow investors to stay up to date. 

In short – there’s very little that an LCAP can’t do to help your business. 

The OutSystems LCAP 

OutSystems is one of the world’s foremost low code platform providers and is regularly recognised as leading the way both in technological innovation and the results it delivers for its customers. 

As an OutSystems partner, we know just how good the company’s enterprise LCAP offering is. Earlier this year, it was named by Gartner as a ‘Leader’ in Gartner’s 2023 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low Code Platforms (LCAP). 

OutSystems is consistently a leader in this field because it focuses on allowing developers to manage high-performance software development at pace. Developers and can design and build without any of the hold ups often associated with hand coding. And, because OutSystems can easily integrate with other systems, it can be used to address a wide range of business needs without disrupting day-to-day operations. 

Most importantly – and one of the main reasons that LCAPs are seeing such a high adoption rate – is the ability to continuously evolve, improve, extend and update applications. This flexibility and scalability means organisations can stay ahead of the game without committing to large budgets or timescales – and get a far superior outcome.

Contact us to find out more.