EXPLORE NEW WORLDSOF BUSINESS VALUE!

Low Code Value
Handbook
Find your value.

Version 2.0© Copyright 2019-2024

ator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value crer. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator.
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ator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value creator. You are a value cre-This handbook
belongs to:Low Code Value Handbook

Summary

Transform IT from a costcenter to a value creator byfollowing Mendix’s framework
to define, calculate andarticulate the business value
you create with low-code
development.

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Contents

04

01

Value: Perception and Reality

02
Value Achieved

03

4

Summary

14

Part II – Value Achieved

24Part III – Measuring Value

38

Part IV – Prove It

9Part I – Value: Perception and Reality

14

Measurable Impact

25

Project Funding

38

Next Steps

9

If Only Perception Were Reality

16

Addressable Market

26

Increase Time to Market Speed

13

Let’s Make Some Value

16

Operational Efficiency

28

Speeding Up Time to Market at InterTech

16

Risk Mitigation

32

Accelerate App Velocity

17

Customer Retention

32

InterTech Builds Faster, Builds More

17

Competitive Capability

35

Improve IT Productivity

18

Intangibles

35

Improving IT Productivity at InterTech

19

Changing the Way You Do Things

35

Infrastructure Impact

22

Tie it All Together

36

Watch the Value Grow

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PART 1 / VALUEPART I

Value: Perception
and Reality
When it comes to how IT is perceived, you are no longer a cost center. This isn’t
news. The notion of IT no longer being just a cost center has been around for
decades. It’s only just starting to get noticed by the business. In fact, according toDimensional Research’s 2019 “Digital Disconnect” survey, 70% of businesses
agree that IT is a value producer.i
It’s no wonder why IT is now perceived this way. Just look at the output. Software
solutions are helping businesses realize new worlds of profits by allowing them toenter new markets or release new products faster; develop novel, innovative ways
to engage with customers; and increase operational efficiencies.
Your software solutions are value-delivery mechanisms, which makes the peoplebuilding these portfolios of applications the value-producing, life-blood-pumping
heart of the business.

If only perception were reality
Of that majority who believe IT to be a value creator, 74% report a huge pipelineof unmet requests for software. Compounding that problem, 61% say that IT isdelivering on less than half of their ideas.ii
The traditional application development process is clotting up the application
pipeline and blocking value. This often puts additional strain on an alreadybrittle maintenance process. Resources are bled out. Expectations aren’t met.
Application quality dips. And IT is no longer supplying value to the organization.
At Mendix, we know this scenario all too well. Based on 15 years of experience,
we’ve seen that businesses the world over are devoting too much time toyesterday’s problems, not nearly enough time on today’s challenges, and little tono time on tomorrow’s opportunities.

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Traditional Development
IT Consumption
100“IT was viewed as amanager of the past.”
Frans Temmerman | CIO, Securex

80%

15%

5%

Yesterday’s
problems

Today’schallenges

Tomorrow’s
opportunities

0This is changing with low-code development. Low code is fast becoming thepreferred method of software development in IT, according to the Gartner’s
2019 Magic Quadrant for Low Code Application Platforms: “By 2024, low-code
application development will be responsible for more than 65% of application
development activity.” iiiWith Mendix’s low-code development platform, you can breathe new life into yourapplication development process and create value at unprecedented rates.
Mendix was founded on the principle of closing the gap between IT and thebusiness. Through a close alignment to the Agile development methodology,
connected integrated development environments, and a plethora of deployment
options, Mendix allows you to manage the entire application lifecycle in a whole
new way.

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ManualPART 1 / VALUE“IT and business units arecollaborating and working
faster. We’re changing theway you’re working.”
Frans Temmerman | CIO, Securex

100
5%

15%

80%

Yesterday’s
problems

Today’schallenges

Tomorrow’s
opportunities

0

When you change the way you develop software, you change the way yourcompany works. With Mendix, you lead the initiative on getting businessstakeholders and IT in lock-step to identify and solve your organization’s mostpressing problems and create the right opportunities with software.
You empower your entire organization to build the value-driving solutions it
needs. You can get those solutions to market sooner, build more, and do it more
efficiently. You turn your organization into one that’s ready for anything. You makebusiness and IT beat as one heart and turn that perception into reality.
So, if IT isn’t a cost center anymore, what is it? The answer is simple.
You are a value creator.

Let’s make some value
Modernizing your application development process and making sure IT is
creating value is easier said than done. To help, we’ve developed a framework
to help you measure and articulate to your organization the value you create
when you use the Mendix low-code platform.

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PART 2 / VALUE ACHIEVED

PART II

Value Achieved
Business value embraces intangible assets as well as the economical facts. There’s
zero consensus on the true definition of business value – it can be quantifiable
and subjective. What we can tell you is that Mendix customers have delivered
value in many different ways.

Measurable Impact
The applications you create produce myriad types of business value. This type ofvalue is measurable in number of ways: hours shaved off of a process, customer
loyalty increased, developer productivity gains, SLA uptime increased. Here aresome of the business value results you can achieve building with low code.

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Addressable Market
These are results that increase the addressable market ofa company’s products or services. PostNL, a parcel delivery
and postal service company in the Netherlands, leveraged
Mendix to build a mission-critical system that helped
deliver 250 million parcels in one year, a 20% increase
from the year before. The application is used by 4.5 million
users.
Operational Efficiency
Business value is often measured in time saved or costs
reduced. Zurich Insurance used Mendix to modernize theirpolicy writing system for their acts of terror coverage. The
app reduced policy update time by 90%, and drove over
£280K of operational efficiency savings per year.
Infrastructure Impact
Often, organizations are paying more money than theyshould for customized software. North Carolina State
University was quoted by a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS)
software vendor at $3-10M to build a non-credit course
registration system. With Mendix, NC State built thatsystem, REPORTER, with a six-figure investment in just six
months, creating other value opportunities too.
Risk Mitigation
Risk mitigation is often based around governance that
help reduces risk through standardizations. With Mendix,
developing from one platform with the option of using
prebuilt, reusable components helps you ensure data
integrity and security across all solutions. With deployment
options like private, public, and hybrid cloud that match
today’s and tomorrow’s needs, you don’t have to worry
about lock-in.

Customer Retention
Customer retention comes from good customer
experiences. Knowsley Council, the local government
responsible for UK borough, Knowsley, used low code tobetter understand the needs of its users and shift fromcostly phone and in-person customer service transactions
to more cost-effective online services. They increased
online transactions from 2% to 50% in just three years
and improved the livelihoods of many of its community
members.
Competitive Capability
A company’s success often hinges on how it stacks up
against its competitors. Saga Healthcare was looking toenter the well-established home healthcare markets. They
first looked to outsource development of this system,
but were quoted three years development time. Using
Mendix, Saga developed a caregiver home schedulingsystem in just six months, allowing them to enter anddisrupt an entirely new market two and half years earlier
than expected.

“We wanted a bleeding-edge technology that would
create competitive advantages for Saga.”
John Cahill,
Managing Director of Operations
Saga Healthcare“REPORTER started off as addressing a very specificneed around compliance and our outreach reporting,and the system has since become a full-blown
enterprise application”
Jack Foster,
IT Director at NC State
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Intangibles

Changing the Way You Do Things

When it comes to Mendix, you can measure business value in revenue realized,
productivity gained, and hours saved. In some instances, however, value can’t bedirectly measured.

Rather than spending time figuring out how technology can change processes
or systems at your organization, focus on how you can change your entire
organization. Mendix enables you to evolve your application development
process to a faster, more agile way of working, which in turn allows you to turnyour organization into a flexible, change-ready one.

That doesn’t mean you’re not making an impact.
Quite the contrary. IT is in a vital position when it comes to an organization’s culture
and success. “Culture can be an accelerator of digital transformation,” says Elise
Olding, Research Vice President at Gartner in an early 2019 Gartner article iv. Gartner
states that by 2021 CIOs will be as responsible for cultural change as chief HR officers.
CIOs, according to Olding, “have the means to reinforce a desired culture throughtheir technology choices.”

In their McKinsey article, “Managing change and release,” authors Berhausen
and Hannon state that by adopting practices from the Agile methodology, an
automotive company was able to ensure quick decision making.v Accelerating
decision making means you can deliver solutions faster, which means that yourorganization and end users are getting the tools they need to do their jobs.

“Sometimes I consider myself a Chief
Improvisation Officer because our boardof directors are quite rightly demandingthat they have a kit to move their ideas
to market very quickly.”
Matt Rogers | CIO, Suez
The technology you choose has massive implications on how your organization
develops software solutions and how your end users – stakeholders andcustomers -- consume them.

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ManualInfused with an Agile development methodology mindset, the Mendix Platform
brings more cross-functional teams into the software development process.
Integrating the end user into the development lifecycle means you’re building
solutions that the business want. This is important, as Isaac Sacolick points out inhis article “3 ways CIOs can change the CEO’s perception of IT from cost center tostrategic” because for CIOs to be perceived as strategic, “it requires championing

PART 2 / VALUE ACHIEVED“It’s not just another tool. It’s
another way of working.”
Gerrie de Jonge | CIO, PostNL

customer experience improvements.” vi
Mendix allows you to bridge the gap between IT and business stakeholders.
This sparks a domino effect of positive change: features will be created faster,
applications will be launched sooner, and you’ll start to see and understand thepotential value of better-built applications. When you’re closer to the user, you’rebetter able to improve the customer experience.
This is one example of where the intangible feeds into the quantifiable. Customer
loyalty and retention increases when you enhance customer engagement by better
defining requirements with the people that are closest to the customer.
With low code, perception and reality are starting to converge. At the center of thisis you, creating the means to develop and foster all of this value.

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Tie it All Together
So what does the value of developing applications with Mendix, both quantifiable
and intangible, look like when you map it out?

RESULTSROI

You drive value at every level of your organization.
The importance of aligning value at every stage of developing with Mendix is to help
you show and prove value at every stage. The teams who are creating your portfolio of
applications provide business impact. They’re empowered by managers at the programlevel, where you see the organization become change-read. The business impact andchange impact all feed into the strategic level impact, where a vision of a new way ofworking at scale yields ROI.
Communication of value at every level is vital. When you show people that developingwith Mendix is working, you eliminate doubt and reluctance and prove that you cancreate more opportunities and solve more problems.

STRATEGICVISIONSCALESTRATEGIC IMPACTEMPOWERMENTCOLLABORATIONCHANGE IMPACTTEAMPORTFOLIO

BUSINESS IMPACT

PROGRAMPROJECTS

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Measuring Value

Using this form Jackie concludes that her new solution, Dealer Portal, will achieve:

Before you can communicate value, you need to measure it first. Measurement starts with abusiness case.

Revenue: 150K/ month

Cost savings: 50K/ month

Creating a business case defines the solution you’re going to build and the business value it will
create. Knowing this, you can determine the ROI of going to market sooner. To demonstrate this,we’re going to dive into a hypothetical scenario.
Jackie Smith, VP of application development at InterTech, has identified a software problem.
End users are manually entering vehicle data (e.g., vehicle information, testing results, billinginfo) in a system used by car dealerships and they don’t have ready access when they need
it. Compounding the issue, the development team needs a long lead time to implement any
changes in the system. Jackie fills out this business case intake form to understand her problem.

BUSINESS CASE INTAKE: DEALER PORTAL
Current situation:

Our current system through which end users input vehicle data is limited. End users are spending too many hours
manually inputting data like vehicle information, transportation and billing infromation, testing results, andcomplaints. They don’t have ready access. To make any changes, the development team needs a long lead time to
implement any changes.

Total Business value: 200K/ month
Now that Jackie knows what she wants to build, it’s time to build it and measure
how fast it will arrive in the market, its effect on InterTech IT’s backlog, and on IT
productivity.

Project Funding
When you’re budgeting for a Mendix project, traditional funding processes aren’t
always going to line up with the speed at which you can develop.
Traditional IT project funding is typically done on annual cycles, which works wellwith waterfall projects with fully defined requirements, timelines, and resources.
But detailing a full body of work is the antithesis of working with Mendix (andAgile in general). Make funding as flexible as possible.

Description of the idea (“we believe”):

We believe that a new application, Dealer Portal, will automate the manual administrative processes and provide
dealers better access to information.
It will solve:

Affected KPIs:

Enabled by:Automatic data retrieval will
provide real-time insights fordealers and reduce manual data
search and entry efforts.

Operational efficiency
improvements and additionalsales this year:

We will use Mendix to develop acustomer portal, (Dealer Portal),
and an automatic data retrieval
function.

a) hours reduced by
75% = 50k/ mob) increase up-selling
opportunities by 5% = 150k/mo

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To do this, Jackie and her team could use modern, people-focused budget
planning options that are evidenced-based or team-based to gain enterpriselevel funding.

Increase Your Time to Market Speed
For your organization, and companies the world over, speed is always of theessence. Getting your product to the market more quickly is not only common
sense, it’s also a quantitative recipe for success. This notion is backed up in
Practical Project Management where author Harvey Levine cites that when a new
product is created for a new market, the first to market will “likely garner 50%of the total market” as well as set the pricing for the rest of the players. Thoseother players in that market? Left to divvy up the remaining 50%, but on the firstcompany’s terms. vii
On the other side of that coin, delays in time to market can negatively impact
your return on the investment you made for the scheduled work. Delaying a
project doesn’t delay your ROI proportionately. According to Levine, delays canhave a compounding negative affect.
With this in mind, shorter application development cycles make a lot of sense.
The faster you develop and iterate an application, the faster it’s released tomarket, the faster you become that big player grabbing that 50%. When it
comes to value, measuring an increase in time-to-market speed is vital.
Using Mendix’s digital execution best practices, you can develop a solution atleast four times faster than traditional development. Through 1-click
deployment, model-driven development, built-in collaboration tools, reusable
components, and integrated application lifecycle management, Mendix allows
you to deliver products to market sooner.

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Speeding up time to market at InterTech
We’ve established that Jackie’s Dealer Portal has a business impact of 200k per month.
Now, with or without low code, Jackie and her team of developers can build thisapplication.

PART 3 / MEASURING VALUE

TRADITIONAL APP
DEVELOPMENT

Using Java or .NET, this application would take Jackie and team four months to develop.
If work began in January, InterTech would start receiving 200k per month in May. Overthe remainder of the year, InterTech has received a total of 1.6M from Dealer Portal.
That’s a good deal of business impact from one application.

DEALERPORTAL

Let’s take a look at it through a Mendix lens. Through model-driven development and an
Agile way of working, Jackie and team can build Dealer Portal at least four times faster,and go live in one month.

JAN

FEB

MAR

APR

MAY

JUL

AUG

SEP

OCT

NOV

DEC

DEV

DEV

DEV

DEV

200K 200K 200K

200K

200K

200K

200K

200K

START

JUN

8 Months
1.6M

GO LIVE

The business impact of the application is still achieving 200k per month in this scenario.
The difference? Three more months of value. Because InterTech went to market sooner,
they’re realizing 2.2M versus 1.6M. That’s 600k in added value.
Seeing this extra business value over the calendar year is a great thing for Jackie. But
getting a solution to market more quickly is just the tip of the value iceberg.

RAPID APP
DEVELOPMENTJAN
DEALERPORTAL

DEV
START

FEB

MAR

APR

200K 200K

200K

JUN

JUL

AUG

SEP

OCT

NOV

DEC

200K 200K 200K

200K

200K

200K

200K

200K

11 Months
2.2M

GO LIVE

200K 200K

MAY

200K

=600K

DELTA
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But Jackie and her team have a backlog of solutions they need to build. To more
efficiently manage expense reports, InterTech needs a new approval workflow application
for work expenses. Jackie fills out her business case form for this new app.
Expense Workflow – Total business value 150k/ month
Traditionally, this solution would take eight months to build and go live in November.
With Mendix it takes one, and Jackie is able to go live in March. That’s another 900k in
added value.

CUSTOMER STORY:WASTE NOT WANT NOT

TRADITIONAL APP
DEVELOPMENT
DEALERPORTAL

JAN

FEB

MAR

APR

MAY

JUL

AUG

SEP

OCT

NOV

DEC

DEV

DEV

DEV

DEV

200K 200K 200K

200K

200K

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200K

200K

DEV

DEV

DEV

DEV

150K

150K

150K

150K

MAY

JUN

JUL

AUG

SEP

OCT

NOV

DEC

EXPENSEWORKFLOWJUN

Suez, the largest waste management company on earth, used Mendix to create, in justthree months’ time, a fully integrated eCommerce portal that allows fully transparent,
self-servicing pricing for waste management. Just three months into its launch, theportal delivered £500K in additional business, at 20% of the customer acquisition cost.
Read more about Suez

RAPID APP
DEVELOPMENTJAN
DEALERPORTAL
EXPENSEWORKFLOW

DEV

FEB

MAR

APR

200K 200K

200K

200K 200K 200K

200K

200K

200K

200K

200K

DEV

150K

150K

150K

150K

150K

150K

150K

150K

150K

150K

150K

150K

150K

150K

150K

150K

DELTA

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Low Code Value:
1.5M

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Accelerate App Velocity – More Apps Faster
It’s simple. If the process of developing an application is faster, you have the ability to build
more.

TRADITIONAL APP
DEVELOPMENT

We call this application velocity.

InterTech builds faster, builds more

DEALERPORTALThe Finance team at InterTech has requested an upgrade of their invoice tracker which waspreviously built on Lotus Notes.

EXPENSEWORKFLOW

Jackie once again fills out her business case form for the invoice tracker application anddetermines its value:

INVOICETRACKER

JAN

FEB

MAR

APR

MAY

JUN

JUL

AUG

SEP

OCT

NOV

DEC

DEV

DEV

DEV

DEV

200K 200K 200K

200K

200K

200K

200K

200K

DEV

DEV

150K

150K

150K

150K

DEV

DEV

DEV

DEV

DEV

DEV

Invoice Tracker – Total business value 100k/ monthWe’ve established that if Jackie develops with traditional methods, time-to-market is slower.
But the effects of developing traditionally also impact the InterTech IT team’s ability towork on the Invoice Tracker because the other applications have taken longer to develop.
The application will take another four months of development, not going live until thenext calendar year. The longer development cycle delays that application’s value until thefollowing year as well.

Version 2.0

JAN

On the other hand, moving to low-code development allows Jackie and her team toachieve true app velocity. Because Jackie and team were able to go live with Dealer Portal
in February and the expense workflow application in March, they can address Finance’s
request for a new invoice tracker, which will take another one month to develop and go livein April.

DEALERPORTALThat’s nine months, or 900k, in added value that a traditional development team wouldn’t
have had time to create.

INVOICETRACKERThis is application velocity.

32

RAPID APP
DEVELOPMENT

EXPENSEWORKFLOW

DEV

FEB

MAR

APR

200K 200K
DEV

MAY

JUN

JUL

AUG

SEP

OCT

NOV

DEC

200K

200K 200K 200K

200K

200K

200K

200K

200K

150K

150K

150K

150K

150K

150K

150K

150K

150K

150K

DEV

100K

100K

100K

100K

100K

100K

100K

100K

100K

1.5M + 900k =Low Code Value:
2.4M
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PART 3 / MEASURING VALUE

Improve IT Productivity

HIGH VALUE INHIGHER ED
After delivering a non-credit course registration application in just six months
versus a quoted five years, NC State University developers were able to build a lab
management solution that cut administration time by 2/3rds and delivers $1M in
new revenue per year.
Read more about NCSU

With Mendix, the value isn’t just a matter of applications’ compounded business impact.
Using Mendix also helps you improve IT productivity overall, reducing hours devoted tomaintenance, better dedicating development hours, getting more return on your costs
per hour, and revitalizing your infrastructure to make it more efficient. All of which help
you deliver more value.
Improving IT Productivity at InterTech
At InterTech, they have a vision of building six solutions in year one. Jackie’s aware thatthe average developer day rate is 300 at InterTech. So, to accomplish their goal withtraditional methods it would take for Jackie and team:
600 developer days – 3 applications
Total: 180k spent
Conservatively, developing with Mendix is at least four times faster. So now Jackie andteam can take:150 developer days – 3 applications
Total: 45k spentWith Mendix, InterTech achieves 135k in total cost savings. Jackie and the development
team have been able to produce more solutions in less time, saving more.

4X

300

135,000

FASTER AND
COST EFFECTIVE

DAY RATETOTAL
BENEFITS

Infrastructure Impact
Because Mendix has overlapping functionality with a number of technologies (robotics
process automation, mobile development, cloud, business process management, AI),
Jackie is finding benefits beyond developer productivity.
InterTech suffers from platform fatigue. With Mendix, Jackie has reduced spend on other
COTS software and platforms that InterTech has invested in over the years. By simplifying
integration and ongoing maintenance costs as well as cutting reliance on third-party
services, Jackie’s could see a cost avoidance of at least 1.5M.
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PART 3 / MEASURING VALUE

Watch the Value Grow
Because Jackie can measure these numbers and articulate those figures, she can
now better validate and advocate the value of this new way of doing things.
In total, by using the Mendix low-code platform, Jackie has realized 2,035,000 invalue in one year. She’s also armed her organization with a new way of creating
opportunities and solving problems.

1,500,000
TIME TO
MARKET VALUE

900,000
APP VELOCITY
VALUE

135,000
APP PRODUCTION
COST REDUCTION

2,535,000
LOW CODE VALUEYEAR ONE

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PART 4 / PROVE IT

PART IV

Prove It
Now that you know the how and why of the value of low code, here’s what’s next.

Calculate time-to-market value
Measure your application velocity
Gauge IT productivity

Ready to talk low code value? Schedule a call with us today.
Watch low-code value in action in this video series.
See how other Mendix customers are creating value anddriving results.

Lead the charge on a new way of working

Like Jackie and her InterTech IT team, there are countless IT departments that want tofocus on the opportunities of tomorrow but are stuck doing yesterday’s work. Solutions
are taking too long to build; stakeholders don’t like how IT is handling their requests. The
result is that businesses aren’t addressing challenges fast enough. The potential value isthere, but it takes too long to find it.
When it comes to development, the value of low code is clear: You increase IT
productivity by getting more solutions to market faster.
Not only that, you also impact the way your organization functions. People’s jobs areeasier. Processes run smoother. Customers are happier with the modern experiences
you’re providing.
It’s up to you. You know you can create value.
Now you can prove it.
Go make it.

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39Low Code Value Handbook“Digital Disconnect: A Study of Business and IT Alignment
in 2019”, Dimensional Research, 9/2019. https://www.mendix.
com/resources/digital-disconnect-a-study-of-business-and-italignment-in-2019/
1

2

ibid

“Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application
Platforms”, Gartner, 8/8/2019. https://www.gartner.com/en/
documents/3956079/magic-quadrant-for-enterprise-low-codeapplication-platf
3“Gartner Predicts by 2021, CIOs Will Be as Responsible forCulture Change as Chief HR Officers.” Gartner Predicts by 2021,
CIOs Will Be as Responsible for Culture Change as Chief HR
Officers, February 11, 2019. https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-02-11-gartner-predicts-by-2021--cios-willbe-as-responsible.
4

Berhausen, Nico, and Eric Hannon. “McKinsey & Company.”
McKinsey & Company (blog), March 2018. https://www.mckinsey.
com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/managing-changeand-release.
5

Sacolick, Isaac. “CIO.” CIO, June 2018. https://www.cio.com/
article/3284288/3-ways-cios-can-change-the-ceos-perception-ofit-from-cost-center-to-strategic.html.
6

Levine, Harvey. Practical Project Management. Hoboken, NJ:
Wiley, 2002.
7

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