In the past year, low-code and no-code development platforms have continued to grow in popularity. In fact, according to a recent KPMG survey, the number of enterprise executives that have stated that these platforms were their most essential automation investment has tripled.
This is not a surprising trend since traditional development tools have been historically expensive and time-consuming. With these platforms, non-technical individuals can build, design, and launch apps quickly without worrying about scalability requirements or underlying operating systems.
Unfortunately, there are hundreds of apps to choose from, which can be overwhelming for small businesses. Worse, these apps may or may not work with each other, and adopting one can impact the need to integrate the others. As a result, many organizations have a tech stack of multiple applications that they need to connect or integrate at some level for a more seamless process.
Are you wondering if you should adopt low-code and no-code development platforms? In this article, we talk about what you should consider when choosing a solution. You’ll also learn our top 4 no-code and low-code picks for facilitating payments, collaboration, and data tracking.
What Should You Consider When Evaluating Low-Code or No-Code Platforms
Return on Investment
If you are looking to make swift changes to your business, you’ll find that these solutions deliver value faster than traditional software development. Low-code and no-code solutions provide a “building-block” approach that enables quick accomplishments of even the most challenging projects in a few weeks. If you are looking for a metric to review your return on investment for these platforms, the most appropriate one will be “speed to value.”
Costs
Without a doubt, these solutions are cheaper than traditional software development. However, while starting small is advisable, check if your contract has provisions for scalability and be aware of its limitations. Remember that your team can quickly create new applications with low-code or no-code, and you may find that you’ll have dozens of business-critical applications in a short period. Choosing the wrong platform can be an expensive mistake, especially if you need to switch.
Security
If you have an IT department, make sure they’re involved, so the applications are being built securely. If your team is only using these applications internally, they should be. For outward-facing applications for customers, for example, you should take care to deploy the app using industry best practices. Otherwise, you make yourself vulnerable to cyber attacks.
4 Low-Code or No-Code Tools for Your Small Business
No-code tools are helpful for smaller businesses that are looking for an affordable, on-demand option to streamline their operations. Instead of hiring too many in-house IT employees, companies can take advantage of low-code tools to break down data silos to improve business efficiency. Here are some that you should consider:
Zapier
Founded in 2011, Zapier is now one of the go-to automation solutions for many existing apps. You’ll find that it has more than 3,000 apps, such as QuickBooks, SalesForce, Slack, Google Sheets, among others, that you can trigger with a simple “zap.”
For instance, you can make a Salesforce Opportunity a trigger that adds a row to a Google Sheet as the action. This trigger integrates Salesforce to Google and does away with the manual data entries and logins by pulling the latest additions on Salesforce.
Zapier is a solution that allows you to automate business processes without coding. Even better, there’s a free plan that gives you 50 tasks monthly. For a small business, Zapier may be all that you need.
Integromat
Integromat is a robust workflow automation alternative to Zapier. Still, it may be harder to use as it requires a more in-depth understanding of the processes you want to automate. You will need the skill set and mental bandwidth to add layers to your design.
Integromat offers 3000 free templates to help you automate essential tasks, as well as a free plan with 1000 operations. Unlike Zapier, there are probably only a hundred apps within its ecosystem.
Workato
Workato is the perfect app for those who want to create recipes with a drag-and-drop interface. The community has more than 500,000 recipes, and you can always build your own to suit your needs.
Like other apps, you can use the same trigger and action elements to create an automation recipe. Workato also allows you to develop recipes in another application outside of your trigger. These callable recipes link to Rest endpoints through the API Platform feature.
Tray.io
If you need to connect to any SaaS solution, the Tray API automation platform can get you one step closer to long-term success. Tray is an excellent candidate for any business with a need to automate repetitive tasks, as you can use its universal connector to link up with a variety of services and applications. It can expedite Full API access with custom fields and even provides pre-built connectors. If your website or application has API, you can use Tray to connect and build automated workflows.
How LTD Global Can Help Your Business
Automation is no longer just for the big corporations. Automation is for everyone, and it’s the key to success in the future. Right now, your small business may be using several applications that eat up your valuable time. In fact, they may be logging into multiple platforms and reentering data across these solutions right now. The good news? Doing things multiple times is a reason for exploring automation tools, especially if you don’t have coding expertise.
In today’s fast-paced world, your company must focus its resources on value-added tasks to lower labor costs and improve your bottom line. If you prefer to talk to an expert on how your organization can benefit from low-code and no-code platforms, contact us at LTD Global.
Our company has helped many small businesses, non-profits, and government agencies with their day-to-day accounting, HR, and administrative needs for over 20 years. We can’t wait to help you get on top of your business.
Sources:
What is low-code and no-code? A guide to development platforms, ZDNet.com
9 best Zapier alternatives to automate your workflow, JotForm.com