In most companies, IT experts rather than citizen developers use low-code platforms
Webcon, provider of the low-code platform Webcon BPS for Business Process Automation (BPA), has published the results of a new study on the status of low-code application development in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In collaboration with the market research institute Opinion Matters, Webcon surveyed 261 IT decision-makers from B2B and B2C companies who are involved in application deployment in their organizations.
The study shows that 36% of companies currently deliver four to ten IT applications per year, while a further 36% deliver eleven to 20 new applications. However, this is not nearly enough to meet the demand for useful IT applications - 77% see a need for improvement in the company's own IT.
Low code has long passed the trial phase in most companies: 63% of companies have two or three low-code platforms in use - the applications developed on these platforms are critical to business success for 87% of those surveyed.
The most frequently cited advantages of low-code application development are
- More favorable development and delivery: 82 percent
- Faster delivery: 89 percent
- Applications are better tailored to business needs: 82 percent
- Greater flexibility of use, easier to change: 83 percent
"Many companies are faced with the challenge that user requirements are not clearly defined and are constantly changing over time," says Philipp Erdkönig, Consultant at Webcon. "The study shows very clearly how important the adaptability of applications is: 49 percent of the companies surveyed state that new applications no longer meet all user requirements after just one year. With low-code platforms, these fulfill the requirement of flexibility much better than standard software (80.5 percent) but also than individually programmed applications (82.2 percent)."
84 percent of all respondents therefore assume that low-code platforms will become even more important for application development in the coming years - 42 percent even say that their importance will increase significantly.
"The study results confirm the suspicion that low code and citizen development only form an inseparable pair in Power Point presentations and marketing documents," continues Erdkönig. "In practice, IT is still indispensable for the development and provision of applications: The clear majority (78.7 percent) state that low-code development is in the hands of professional developer:s from their own IT department. However, there is a clear trend towards greater involvement of specialist departments in the development process. Especially in companies with up to 1000 employees, cooperation between business and IT is the most frequently cited strategy (57.7 percent) for the provision of new IT applications. This corresponds exactly to the method of so-called citizen-assisted development, which is a further development of citizen development."
Source: www.webcon.com
