In 2022, IDC predicted that organisations would have to create around 750 million cloud-native applications by 2025. This surge in application development is powered by the radical digital shift ignited by the pandemic – companies have turned digital, turned to digital, and now they need the apps to ensure they achieve their strategic objectives across revenue generation, customer delight and growth. It is, as the firm describes, the drive to create ‘digital innovation value engines’ to ensure innovation is sustainable and digital transformation remains relevant.
However, this pivot to the app has put immense pressure on internal development teams. How are they supposed to meet this surge in demand when they were already under immense pressure to begin with? How can organisations optimise the performance of development teams without the hefty cost burden that comes with creating mammoth teams – and wooing the right talent?
The answer lies in low-code platforms.
Low-code, according to the Microsoft Low-Code Signals 2023 survey, is perceived by nearly 90% of CIOs and IT pros as an effective way of increasing efficiency and closing the gap between the demand for apps and development team capacity. It also helps companies bridge the skills gap that remains significant – according to a recent Couchbase survey, 86% of managers are struggling to find talent, 43% of respondents are finding that the lack of developers is having a significant impact on productivity, and nine out of ten developers are at or over capacity.
Low-code allows for development teams to speed up app development using tools that are essentially designed to make app development as easy and accessible as possible. The Microsoft Power Platform and Microsoft Azure for Corporate IT study taken by Forrester in 2021 found that low-code platforms increase developer efficiencies at an average of 62% over three years – the gains are incremental and consistent.
Another study undertaken by Forrester in 2022 ‘The Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Power Platform Premium Capabilities’ looked at how the Microsoft Power Platform could help organisations slice the cost problem, and this also found that the solution delivered immense value to the business. The study found that using Power Platform, an organisation could potentially experience a 140% return on investment and a 45% drop in application development costs.
These are impressive gains. Microsoft Power Platform includes an array of tools that allow for teams to clamber over their application development mountain. Comprising Power BI, Power Apps, Power Pages, Power Automate and Power Virtual Agents, Power Platform offers your business the ability to drive rapid innovation with simplified build capabilities and empowers your developers with smart functionality and exceptional capabilities.
With the streamlined building and customisation features embedded within Power Platform, your teams can respond to application development demands at speed, and in real time. They can create innovative applications that fill very real and immediate business needs without compromising on quality or on their existing workloads. The recent addition of Copilot in the Power App suite adds an artificial intelligence (AI) support nodule that helps to streamline development even further. As the Microsoft survey highlighted – 87% of CIOs and IT professionals believe that AI can potentially help them better use products and platforms that provide low-code capabilities – AI is another key to unlocking cost and developer time optimisation.
Mint has extensive expertise with Power Platform, and with the Microsoft ecosystem. We can help you connect your low-code expectations and requirements to the reality of your business by connecting your Microsoft Azure, Dynamics 365, Office 365 and Power Platform tools into one end-to-end business solution that will save you money and increase your returns.