In an interaction with CIOTechOutlook, Rahul Murthi, Director at Acies shares his view on how the adoption of no-code platforms has been oriented more towards building work-flow oriented applications, the intended promise of no-code platforms generating faster implementation at a lower cost of ownership is beginning to be realized by enterprises and more.

With over 15 years of professional experience, Rahul has worked with large asset managers, and multi-national financial institutions and conglomerates on a range of strategic and operational advisory and automation initiatives. Currently, he is responsible for Acies’ firm-wide marketing and communication initiatives.

The adoption of no-code platforms has burst onto the enterprise scene and become mainstream in the technology adoption space, captivating the attention of both front-line business users and business analysts. The intended promise of no-code platforms generating faster implementation at a lower cost of ownership is beginning to be realized by enterprises.

So far, the adoption of no-code platforms has been oriented more towards building workflow-oriented applications either used internally or extended for the customers of an enterprise and also connecting to different applications and databases using application programming interfaces (APIs). Complex business applications or applications that are core to the functioning of an enterprise are yet untouched by no-code platforms; however, with the rapid release of features to achieve the most complex of business activities by no-code platforms, adoption is not far away.

As this new way of building software becomes mainstream, it is important to understand what no-code really is. It is also important to understand the concept of ‘citizen development’, a term that has recently become mainstream in the software development space.

Who is a citizen developer?

As defined by Gartner, a citizen developer is “an employee who creates application capabilities for consumption by themselves or others, using tools that are not actively forbidden by IT or business units. A citizen developer is a persona, not a title or targeted role. They report to a business unit or function other than IT.” However, in the no-code world, citizen developers can also include individuals who are not part of any organization and seek to build their own no-code-powered applications for monetization purposes.

No-code platforms tend to also feature as citizen automation development platforms (CADP) – and as stated by Gartner, this is one of the fastest growth areas in the low-code/ no-code space in 2023. Typical use cases for citizen development include workflow automation, web-based forms, data collection and collation from multiple applications, and reporting and data visualizations.

Have Indian enterprises adopted citizen development?

Yes, the BFSI sector, specifically banks, has started establishing in-house citizen developers within their enterprise. The present areas of citizen development with limited support from no-code platform vendors are focused on workflow automation and data collection and collation. Current use cases include digital approval management, digital onboarding and customer ID validation, vendor onboarding and profiling, and customer complaints management, respectively.

Banks initially established citizen development through their digital transformation teams, and with the tangible benefits being realized on no-code adoption, are now moving towards including domain experts from their business and operations teams as citizen developers.

In conclusion, no-code platforms have ushered in a new era of democratizing application development and soon enterprises will begin to maintain citizen developers within each business and operating department across their organization