The pressure to innovate and personalize business processes is clashing with the availability of skilled developers. This new reality is driving heightened interest and attention in low-code and no-code (LCNC) tools that even the most conservative analysts and executives consider a path to bridge the talent gap.
By empowering employees with little to no development skills to play a key role in their organization’s success, businesses can tap a fresh community of innovators to personalize workflows, automate processes, and create new applications. And while increasing their organizational capacity to innovate, they are joining a LCNC movement that will likely produce 65% of new applications by 2024, according to Gartner.
Giving Everyone the Power to Reimagine Everything
When organizations first consider letting employees participate in innovation without IT intervention, questions about the difference between low-code and no-code inevitably arise. The main difference between the two approaches lies in how much coding knowledge is needed.
Low-code development allows users to develop and integrate complex applications with intuitive graphical tools and embedded functionalities, requiring only some basic coding skills. On the other hand, no-code development methods apply the same user experience without any need for coding and programming knowledge.
There are countless LCNC tools available that promise to deliver on those capabilities with easy-to-use interfaces. However, most of them can only be used for very well-defined use case scenarios, such as the development of mobile apps, machine learning applications, or workflow automation.
With the low-code and no-code tools available through SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), SAP partners and customers do not need to worry about such restrictions. Instead, they can access a combination of LCNC tools on one platform, along with intelligent processes and technologies, to build critical solutions quickly and profitably.
Accelerating the Pace of Meaningful Innovation
Many SAP partners are taking this opportunity to “innovate big” by tackling challenges that, when solved, can significantly improve their customers’ business opportunities and operating models. They are setting new bars for a variety of industries, despite the increasingly fast-paced, dynamic nature of today’s markets.
For example, an SAP partner created a fashion rental solution that integrates with e-commerce platforms and core SAP solutions, such as SAP S/4HANA, SAP Commerce Cloud, and the SAP Customer Experience portfolio. The partner’s solution enables retailers and their manufacturers to create and operate under a business model that reduces waste and preserves resources – improving sales, driving sustainable operations, and helping preserve our planet’s future.
By leveraging LCNC services available through SAP BTP, the partner underpinned the solution’s processes with intelligent technologies. It included: 1) machine learning to improve decision-making and quality checks and 2) artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled image recognition to identify damages, support the returns process, and provide accurate billing. The SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation services are also leveraged to help accelerate transaction processing and automate return cycles and other back-office operations, enabling orders to be booked or returns to be processed within seconds.
Integrating the cloud solution with automated store pickup, return, and billing capabilities makes the fashion rental model simple enough to manage from beginning to end transparently, efficiently, and profitably. Best of all, the user experience – for employees and customers alike – is meaningful and productive, an industry benchmark for efficiency and sustainability.
Turning Business Challenges into Long-Term Opportunities
As the hype about LCNC tools intensifies, organizations can get lost in the excitement. So rather than choosing a platform that can expand their innovation potential, hasty decisions can result in platforms that pigeonhole use case scenarios and open potential issues down the line.
SAP partners can play a critical role in leveraging LCNC technologies in ways that go beyond accelerating innovation. They are also helping customers fulfill their potential by improving operational performance, service quality, and revenue growth while addressing their resource challenges. And when you think about it, that influence is incredibly powerful as it empowers employees, regardless of their skill, to deliver personalized experiences that build long-term business success.
To learn more about how SAP partners help businesses transition to the cloud with a unified technology platform, explore these articles:
- “Turning the Cloud into a High-Powered Innovation Engine”
- “Business Planning and Analytics: The Difference Between Surviving and Thriving”
- “Turn Business Process Intelligence into the Next Frontier for Growth”
If you’re interested in software partnership opportunities with SAP, check out SAP PartnerEdge, Build. If you’re already a partner, check out these exciting initiatives: Hack2Build and SAP Co-Innovation Lab.
Tom Le is global vice president of Partner Solution Advisory at SAP.