In an increasingly digital and innovative world, you will only survive if your business is at the cutting-edge. You need to provide exceptional customer experiences, highly efficient processes and clever products. This will enable you to outshine the competition and meet rising expectations.
Apps can help you to evolve your processes and products to meet these criteria. They can be used to offer increased functionality to customers, while streamlining internal processes for productivity.
But app development can be time-expensive and costly, with intense technical skills required. This can limit businesses, severely delaying or preventing their app creation.
However, low-code app development makes it more accessible. It reduces the requirements associated with app building, enabling teams to speed up development.
We explore what low-code app development is in more detail, including the benefits and platforms that help.
What is low-code app development?
Low-code app development is a way to build software applications without needing to write extensive or complicated code.
Traditionally, building apps has required detailed coding, which can be time-consuming and complex. It places app development exclusively in the hands of experienced and skilled developers. But low code makes it accessible to more people.
Typically, you’ll use a low-code platform which focuses on visual creation. Drag-and-drop features and pre-built templates make it easier to create apps, even for those with limited coding experience.
By using less code, businesses can build apps to meet specific needs, even if they don’t have the resource of a programmer on hand. Professional developers can benefit too, as it enables apps to be built faster and customised as required.
The benefits of low-code_
Low-code options offer significant advantages to businesses looking to develop apps.
We’ve listed the key benefits:
- Faster development: By reducing the need for extensive coding, low code fuels faster app development. Businesses can get their apps up and running quicker, leading to immediate rewards and return-on-investment. It also severely reduces the barriers to innovation.
- Increased productivity: Low code empowers citizen developers to build apps. If you have professional developers in-house, it frees up their time for more complex tasks. It also streamlines development workflows, giving you a much shorter turnaround time.
- Reduced costs: Low-code development is often more cost-effective than traditional coding methods. This is because it requires less time and resources to build apps, reducing development costs. There’s also no need to outsource to or hire expensive programmers, which can drastically reduce costs.
- Greater agility: Low-code development allows businesses to adapt their applications more easily to changing needs. Since changes can be made quicker with low-code, businesses can be more agile and responsive to market demands.
- Solve issues promptly: In some cases, the apps you create are designed to solve internal business problems or improve customer experiences. Low-code enables you to design solutions swiftly and minimise any negative impact.
The role of low-code app development platforms_
Low-code app development is dependent on digital platforms that enable it to be done simply, with a user-friendly experience, visual interface and pre-built components.
By using a low-code platform, you can simplify app creation. While building apps previously required extensive coding expertise, low-code platforms allows users with no coding experience to create basic apps. This empowers people across the business to design solutions specific to their needs, fostering innovation from the ground up.
Low-code platforms can also facilitate collaboration. The visual tools provided make it easier for both technical and non-technical users to understand. This fosters better communication and collaboration between business stakeholders and IT teams. And improved communication leads to apps that are better targeted to business needs.
Plus, many low-code platforms offer built-in security features that can help safeguard applications from cyberattacks. This is a major benefit for businesses that prioritise data security.
Fortunately, there are now several low-code app development platforms on the market, making app creation accessible to all.
Power Apps: the leader in low-code app development_
Microsoft Power Apps is an industry-leading low-code development platforms. It’s designed to simplify the creation of business apps with a rapid development environment.
Power Apps enables businesses of different shapes and sizes to:
- Build custom apps for diverse needs: Power Apps allows users to address specific workflows, data management requirements or user experiences with custom apps. These can be mobile apps, web apps or even embedded within Microsoft Teams.
- Empower non-developers: With its intuitive interface and drag-and-drop functionality, Power Apps allows those with little to no coding experience to build simple apps. There’s no longer a need for highly skilled developers.
- Increase productivity and efficiency: Power Apps can streamline processes by automating repetitive tasks, collecting and displaying data efficiently, and improving communication and collaboration. This can lead to significant productivity gains.
- Integrate with existing Microsoft products: Power Apps integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft products like SharePoint, OneDrive, and Excel, allowing you to leverage existing data and workflows. This can save time and streamline development.
- Improve cost-efficiencies: Power Apps can potentially reduce development costs by minimising the need for extensive coding and professional developer resources. With quicker development, you can also access return on investment sooner.
- Scalable solutions: Power Apps can be used to build both simple and complex applications. As your needs grow, the platform can adapt to accommodate your evolving needs.
Due to its ease of use, compatibility with your existing Microsoft solutions and customisation options, Power Apps is a worthy choice for your in-house app development.
Start building your own low-code apps_
If you’re ready to simplify app creation within your organisation, low code is an ideal solution. With a low-code app development platform like Power Apps, you are empowered to create innovative solutions and evolve your business on minimal effort, cost and time commitment.
Infinity Group are experts in navigating, building and training end-users on Power Apps. We work closely with our clients to understand their organisations and ensure that we build cost-effective business applications that will transform their daily processes.
We can also connect your disparate systems and third-party applications with custom-built Power Apps that will provide you with a robust and scalable digital ecosystem.
Get in touch today to find out how we can support you in the deployment of Power Apps.