Low-Code Development: A threat to IT people?
Recent years have seen a steady rise in the use of Low-Code Development. Some of the major contributors to this rise are digitization, cloud computing, automation, and lockdown in several countries due to COVID 19. These have driven the need for speeding the new application development process.
Many enterprises have opted for low-code development as they see it as a quick and easy option. Low-code development is a rapidly growing market. In 2021, the market share was around $13 billion and is expected to reach $27 billion in 2022.
It is perceived to be a threat to IT professionals.
What is the threat?
Enterprises are increasingly using low-code development platforms to create applications. Individuals with no IT or technical backgrounds can create applications using these platforms. Each process of code development is marked visually with the help of a graphic interface.
Anyone with little or no training can drag and drop these into the applications they are creating. It removes a lot of workflow requests. There is no need for IT support requests. The entire process is quick, easy, and low-cost.
Traditional IT professionals work in a more defined process of planning the application, designing the build, writing codes as per the application requirements, testing the codes, and repeating the process till the application is perfected. This process is time-consuming, challenging, and costs more.
The shift to low-code development is seen as replacing IT professionals and taking away their jobs.
Is low-code development a threat?
Though low-code development holds a lot of promises of making application development easy, quick, and low cost, a lot of factors go against it. Due to these, many Enterprises have backed out and switched to traditional coding by IT professionals. Some of the factors are:
- There is a lack of visibility of what an employee creates. This becomes a challenge in the management of the application.
- Enterprises using low-code development platforms have no access to the vendor’s system. There is no way to audit the codes. If there is an error in the application, the Enterprise cannot identify the incorrect codes or correct them.
- Enterprises have faced issues as vendors give no or low control to them. Hence, managing data is difficult.
- Vendors who provide the platforms for low-code development tend to analyze the data from the application. This can lead to the possibility of data leaks.
- Since the codes are common to any process, it is good for general applications. However, there is no opportunity to customize if the Enterprise needs to.
- Vendors create complex codes in the applications to make sure that the application can be maintained only on the platform. This bounds the Enterprise to that platform and cannot switch to another platform that provides an improvement.
- Though low-code development platforms are compliant with security policies, they are seldom integrated into the applications. This poses a security threat to Companies that use these platforms.
Conclusion
For now, considering the disadvantages, there is no threat to IT professionals. It can be, however, perceived as a valuable tool that can help the application development process. IT professionals can use low-code to their advantage, especially in dealing with low complexity actions.
