Accelerating Digital Transformation with Rapid App Development in Low-Code Environments

Mobile technology adoption is accelerating across the Asia Pacific. In The Mobile Economy Asia Pacific 2020 report, GSMA estimates that the total number of mobile internet users in the region will grow to around 2.7 billion by 2025 (that’s 61% of the population).

Mobile apps, in particular, are immensely popular in the Asia Pacific. Today, apps like Grab and Shopee are an indispensable part of everyday life for many people. The bottom line? Businesses need to harness the power of mobile apps if they want to stay engaged with their customers and employees.

The good news is that, unlike a few years ago when mobile app development was the domain of IT teams, today low-code app development platforms have made launching digital marketplace and workplace app solutions easier and more inclusive. 

Here’s how you can benefit from mobile app development in a low-code environment:

Low-code app development with clicks, not code

The accelerated pace of digital transformation demands rapid development of business applications, which is possible in a low-code environment. 

Out-of-the-box PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) solutions allow organisations to build functional business apps with just a few clicks, without the need for an extensive IT team. These solutions are cost-effective and considerably reduce the time taken to build and deploy apps by using customisable templates, drag and drop tools, and other app building components.

Solutions like the Salesforce Lightning App Builder can help you build customised business apps by integrating ready-made components such as API services, data integration services, authentication, event log framework, analytics, and collaboration. 

Rapidly test and deploy apps

Performance and vulnerability testing are essential even for low-code apps and need an environment that can support such rapid development. 

Testing spaces like Sandbox and Scratch.org allow developers to test apps and make any changes in a secure, isolated environment. They also ensure there is no business disruption during the app testing or while making any changes.

Enable business-critical customisations in-house

There is a growing demand for digital skills across the region. For example, in Singapore, 91% of managers believe that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for digital skills in their organisation.

But hiring expert talent on a budget is also a challenge. Empowering the existing team to become citizen developers can address this issue. Even business admins, managers, and team leads can build apps that can extend Salesforce’s out-of-the-box functionalities to deliver critical customisations. These stakeholders can, among other things:

• Automate complicated business processes into seamless workflows
• Set triggers for alerts and notifications (for instance, when a new or big sales opportunity arrives)
• Set security levels and access permissions based on role and hierarchy in the team
• Build custom validations for data entry to ensure compliance with business rules (for example making certain fields mandatory or setting rules on password strength, etc)

Prepare your workplace for successful remote working

With the shift to remote work environments over the past year, your employees have also become the consumers of your remote working setup. This includes file sharing and transfer, remote collaboration, 24/7 access to data, etc. Hence, there is a need to focus on improving the overall digital experience for employees as well. Low-code app development platforms help organisations champion this internal mandate too.

Using Salesforce Platform, you can easily build productivity-driving enterprise mobile applications for your employees. Integrate these with back-end systems to give employees access to all critical data anytime, anywhere. The apps can be fully customised to support a team or employee’s unique line of work and responsibilities. You can also update these apps using simple click-and-point and drag-and-drop tools that let you try-test-launch easy and fast.

Low-code app development will rise to prominence in the new normal, as ‘digital first’ becomes the modus operandi of every business. According to Gartner, low-code application building will consolidate more than 65% of all app development functions by 2024.

Organisations can leverage the benefits of Salesforce Platform to create powerful, intuitive, and engaging mobile apps in no time with easy-to-use components like no-code builders.

This post originally appeared on the I.N.-version of the Salesforce blog.