Sometimes the key to achieving greater momentum lies in removing obstacles. Empowering your team by eliminating the barriers that slow them down, and freeing them up to use more of their talents for higher and better purposes. Reduced friction for your team translates into more traction for your business.
That may be why one of the most important trends for enterprises right now is the adoption of low-code/no-code platforms and applications — and taking advantage of the tremendous benefits they unlock for users and businesses.
If you need confirmation of that, look no further than the explosive growth of the Microsoft Power Platform over the last year. As of 2022, it's now a $2 billion annual business, and Microsoft confirmed earlier this year that revenue was up 72% over the previous year.
Here are a few more key numbers for context:
In fact, Gartner has predicted that by 2023, more than 50% of medium-to-large companies will adopt a low-code application platform.
So, what are the benefits of low-code/no-code apps and platforms, and why are they so transformative? Let's explore.
The Power of Low-Code Software
Put simply, low-code/no-code is an approach to software development that puts the emphasis on visual interfaces and allows work to proceed with little or no hand coding. The combination of drag-and-drop functionality and graphical user interfaces helps bypass the need for advanced coding knowledge.
That effectively democratizes the workspace, enabling users without deep coding skills to accomplish tasks that might previously have been limited to highly skilled programmers. Less technically skilled team members are empowered to make new kinds of contributions, boosting their productivity and taking their capabilities to new levels.
The low-code approach also helps streamline workflows and takes advantage of the need for automated and remote processes that have become especially important since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Power Payoff: Building Skills and Boosting Confidence
One of the greatest payoffs of the low-code/no-code approach is what it does for your team members' morale. By freeing them up to accomplish more every day, it puts them in a positive frame of mind that lets them fulfill more of your company's goals.
According to a study by Microsoft, low-code/no-code environments substantially increase employee satisfaction. Some specifics:
That in turn can lead to both easier recruitment and improved employee retention, since 71% of potential users say they're more doubtful of their future with a company that doesn't invest in upskilling their technical abilities.
Given the well-documented challenges of attracting and retaining the best employees in the post-pandemic job market, that's a benefit that can make low-code/no-code platforms worth the investment all by itself.
How Power Platform Delivers
Microsoft Power Platform stands out among other low-code/no-code solutions by offering some particularly powerful benefits:
An Overview of Power Platform Tools
Let's look at the four major components that comprise Power Platform and what they can do for you.
√ Success Story: Toyota Motors North America has team members who travel around the globe to visit Toyota business locations, dealers and suppliers. So Toyota used Power BI to build a dashboard that gave its executive team awareness of the location and status of all traveling employees — leading to faster approvals and safer travel.
2. Power Apps make it possible to quickly build professional-grade apps, create automated workflows, connect to diverse data sources and embed dashboards into your apps.
√ Success Story: T-Mobile uses Power Apps and Microsoft Power Platform to manage complex, companywide initiatives — resulting in a single source of truth where all data is centralized. The company also gained the ability to scale easily along with flexible low-code systems that are easy to change.
3. Power Automate helps you accelerate productivity by making it easier to automate tasks, using robotic process automation (RPA) and digital process automation (DPA) across all your Power Platform projects.
√ Success Story: G&J Pepsi-Cola Bottlers put Power Automate to work to help them cut costs and build more rapidly. After scratching the surface of Microsoft Power Platform, they expanded to Power Automate to transform outdated processes into intelligent workflows.
4. Power Virtual Agents helps you increase productivity by easily building intelligent chatbots that engage conversationally with your customers and employees. No coding or AI expertise necessary!
√ Success Story: San Diego Workforce Partnership used Microsoft Teams and Power Virtual Agents to increase remote employee collaboration during COVID-19 so they could engage with more people in need of support throughout the community.
Ready to tap into the power of low-code platforms to empower your teams and take productivity to a new level? Columbus can help. Get in touch with us today.