Low-code no-code: The Key to the Digital Transformation?

Having been a laggard in digital transformation, the insurance industry has much catching up to do. The ever-changing digital landscape is forcing businesses to turn on their “all-things-digital” mode. From transforming its front end to offer its customer the seamless digital experience they are looking for to optimizing its internal processes to be more reactive and more efficient, the demand on IT is growing. While in the past a waiting list of IT project was normal and acceptable, the appearance of more agile technological competitors getting the favour of a growing portion of consumers are forcing carriers to adopt bolder and quicker transformative actions.

To tackle the accumulated backlog, the sector is confronted with two crucial obstacles. The unprecedented scarcity of IT specialized resources and conflicting priorities between perpetuating complex and inflexible legacy systems and innovating. In an attempt to solve or ease these hardships, low-code / no-code solutions and platforms have emerged. But are such solutions the panacea? Are they to be used indifferently across the organization? These are the questions we will here try to shed light on. We will start first by explaining what the concepts of low-code / no-code stand for and explain their benefits. We will go on to demystify a common idea that tends to prevail on the effectiveness of these new solutions, before rounding up on how they ought to be implemented for optimized results.

No-code platforms enable users to develop applications and solutions solely through a visual interface and drag-and-drop functionality, while low-code platforms involve a certain level of coding. Both types of platforms simplify the process of creating software and solutions for users.

With no necessity for coding skills, business users can create their own solutions in what has come to be called no-code citizen app development. The advantage is an increased capacity in two ways. Firstly, users no longer have to wait for extended periods to obtain solutions from the IT department. Secondly, software developers can free up their mental bandwidth to concentrate on more important business-critical tasks.

Overall organizations thus benefit from:

• Saving time and money – building app, processes and products require less coding making the development cycles shorter.
• A faster time to market – not dependent on IT skills, availability and timing, a product or app may be configured and launched faster.
• Empowered citizen developers – software development may be done by a wide population of business specialists.
• Efficient use of IT Resources – Your IT department can concentrate on more complex responsibilities by offloading digital experiences to no-coding resources.
• The advantages of SaaS solutions – no-code / low-code solutions being Software-as-a-Service, whenever your parent software upgrades its tools with security features, bug fixes, and other changes, your apps and tools get it automatically.

While Gartner predicts that by 2025, 70% of new applications developed by organizations will use low-code or no-code technologies, up from less than 25% in 2020[1], they add that there is no such thing as “no-code.” They are convinced that “no code” is more of a marketing term that implies the tools are for non-professional developers. On the other hand, low code suggests using a scripting language in addition to no-code platform capabilities[2].

To leverage the full potential of the low-code paradigm, insurers must carefully select low-code platforms that address their most pressing use cases. No one platform is a panacea; the key lies in the integration and coexistence of low-code enterprise platforms and low-code insurance platforms.

The article discusses the importance of selecting the right low-code platform for insurers to leverage the benefits of the low-code paradigm. No single platform is perfect, so integration and coexistence of low-code enterprise and insurance platforms are crucial. The article identifies the non-low-code nature of legacy platforms as the biggest obstacle to the full potential of low-code. For effective integration with other business IT systems, low-code compliance is necessary, especially in the insurance industry. The future of the insurance industry lies in multi-platform low-code systems that enable faster time to market, increased efficiency, lower costs, and citizen developer empowerment.

The results of configurable tech: more resources for other things

The real question of configurable technology comes down to resources. Would you rather spend more resources on custom from-the-ground-up software – development, staffing, maintenance, and upgrades – or on just about anything else?

The rise of low-code application platforms (LCAPs) is driving the increase of citizen development, and notably the function of business technologists who report outside of IT departments and create technology or analytics capabilities for internal or external business use. From: Gartner Says Cloud Will Be the Centerpiece of New Digital Experiences

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Sources:

[1] In: Gartner Says Cloud Will Be the Centerpiece of New Digital Experiences

[2] In: No-code and low-code platforms in insurance: The future is multi-platform