2021: How Low-Code will be at the Heart of Businesses’ Fight in the Post-Covid World
By: Melanie Bialgues
Tags: Development, Remote Working, Low Code, Forecasting, Covid 19

2021: How Low-Code will be at the Heart of Businesses’ Fight in the Post-Covid World

Forrester Research has published its annual predictions of the impact of technology on business in 2021. This year, Low-code and No-code technologies are in the spotlight. Melanie Bialgues Follow Nov 16, 2020 · 3 min read

Software development is rapidly evolving with Low-code and No-code platforms that allow developers to release new applications quickly and let non-technical employees take care of some processes autonomously. Summary of Forrester’s forecast :

Low-code hyper-growth

According to the firm, the low-code market will experience hyper-growth in 2021 after 10 years of development, with a forecast of 75% adoption among developers shops for software development. This figure includes not only developers but also all those who will use these tools without knowing how to code.

The report identified drivers behind the growing popularity of these technologies:

Large service providers geared up to guide enterprises to effectively embrace these platforms

Enterprises and their partners using low-code platforms to deliver mission-critical applications including modernizing old core apps

The first success stories about big citizen developer programs in enterprises beginning to appear.

Forrester expects Low-code spending to reach $21 billion by 2022, while Gartner predicts that 65% of application development activity will be Low-code based by 2024.

An optimization of work methods

Low-Code and No-Code technologies are also changing the way teams organize themselves:

«Expect to see new hybrid teams emerge, with business users and professional developers building applications together using low-code tools based on native cloud platforms », Jeffrey Hammond, Vice President and Senior Analyst, Forrester Research.

In 2020, “only” 44% of project managers surveyed reported that their company was using or planning to use these platforms. How can we explain this sudden generalization of Low-Code in 2021?

The Covid-19 pandemic has been the occasion for many to integrate new Low-Code tools to create and rapidly deploy new applications to meet unprecedented needs. It appeared that the companies having already adopted these technologies accessible to a greater number of developers benefited from them during the crisis.

In our actual changing world, companies need to modernize their IT stack and business application layers

Shaken by the Covid-19 crisis on social and economic levels, the year 2020 was a special year, creating new work environments and unprecedented demand for digital products. It appeared to Forrester that “enterprises that embraced low-code platforms, digital process automation, and collaborative work management reacted faster and more effectively than firms relying only on traditional development”.

On the other hand, it was found that those who had not already adopted these modern development tools and practices are now bearing the brunt of them. The research firm invites them to reassess their priorities in 2021 in order to avoid suffering an increasingly restrictive technical debt in the face of companies and startups that have been able to modernize their application layers.

Low-Code to the rescue of remote working employees

Demand for digital products has accelerated and will not slow down any time soon, with the widespread adoption of remote working until at least mid-2021. While these conditions are already far from being favorable for good collaboration between development teams, the demand from executives for ever more modern applications (adapted to teleworking) in order to keep up with the frantic pace of the digital transformation is pushing business decision-makers and development managers out of their comfort zone.

According to Forrester, maintaining these practices will not be an obstacle, provided that appropriate management practices are adopted, such as setting up virtual war rooms rather than forcing teams to stay permanently connected via videoconferencing. Some regulated companies may even adopt value chain management practices to optimize processes and improve accessibility.

Forrester’s message is clear: companies need to modernize their tools to ensure not to be left behind. No-code and Low-code have a bright future ahead of them, and Cube will be there to help economic players smooth the transition between inflexible ways of developing and those that will enable them to cope with crises and competition.