4 Reasons IT Departments Need to Embrace No-Code

Your entire organization has software needs and IT departments end up burning the candle at both ends to meet demands. On one side, they’re focused on scaling the business with new technologies. While on the other, they’re putting out software and process related fires for all your other departments.

Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in a day and our favorite tech-wizards do eventually need to unplug. When it comes down to it, IT has to decide where to invest its valuable time to deliver the biggest impact. In most cases that means working on the ‘big picture’ projects.

The no-code solution

But what if business users could contribute to the whole software ecosystem? Or even help take on IT’s own backlog? That’s where no-code platforms come in. Where the current development process places the burden of digital transformation squarely on your IT department’s shoulders, no-code enables everyone to participate. By removing the need for hand-coding, you could find the most innovative minds from around your business and turn them into a driving force new applications.

It’s not just business users who stand to benefit though. Here’s 4 reasons why your IT department can benefit from no-code too!

1. Shorten time to market

People have problems that they wish to solve, and patience isn’t a virtue of our modern world. Embracing a no-code platform opens up new opportunities to not only make their own lives easier but maybe even take some of the pressure off.

• Citizen Development: Your business users are experts when it comes to their daily processes. That also means they understand their needs better than anyone else in the organization. So why not allow them to become their own problem solvers? Using a no-code platform, you could enable Citizen Developers throughout your entire organization who are capable of building applications without any programming knowledge.
• Drag-and-drop interface: In the hands of an experienced developer, no-code platforms shine as time-saving tools. Nobody is saying that your programmers CAN’T create user interfaces or data models from scratch… It’s just that their time can be better spent on other projects. Using a drag-and-drop interface means your developers can create the foundations for an application in minutes instead of hours.
• Re-usable modules: Efficiency is a core value of any developer, part of that means re-using what’s already been built. Why do the work twice, right? In the Betty Blocks platform, your development team can save completed functions, pages or even whole applications in a personal block store. That means these features are always available in their fully functional state to all future projects. Since they’re not set in stone, your team can always make minor adjustments if they’re needed.

2. The freedom of choice

Citizen Developers aren’t the only ones who can use no-code platforms. When you get to the heart of it, no-code is simply another way to develop applications. With experienced developers behind the wheel, they’re capable of creating enterprise-grade applications without hand-coding to slow them down. Even complex integrations like API’s and web services are available with just a few clicks.

Think of it like being a professional chef (Yep, metaphors incoming!). Every dish you prepare is well presented, delicious, and rewarding. When you get home though, sometimes you just don’t want to cook a full meal. This is where you have a few choices:

• Fast-food (third-party solutions): Third party solutions are quick and dirty. In almost every case they provide a blanket solution which isn’t tailored to your company doesn’t fully resolve your issue. So you need another, and another, and another to get the result you want… You get the picture. So what initially looked cheap ends up being a costly web of not too great, disconnected applications which nobody really likes using.
• Meal delivery (low-code tools): Low-code options are convenient in the sense that they provide you with all the ‘ingredients’ for application development up front. However, the bulk of the work still has to be done by you. It also means that the task of development still falls to an IT professional (I mean chef…).
• À la carte (No-code tools): Using a no-code tool gives you access to absolutely everything you need to create enterprise-grade applications up front. What’s best is that everything is pre-built by professionals, so it’s accessible to everyone in your organization. Why is that a benefit? It means your Citizen Developers can build everything they need in a secure cloud-based environment using high-quality code (without even knowing it).

3. Take on Passion Projects

Think about the people behind your IT department. They’re tech-savvy individuals who actively immerse themselves in innovation. If anyone you want to know what the future has in store, these are the people to talk to. Problem is that their time is spent completely focused on business-driven tasks.

Without being given the time to experiment with new technologies or pursuing passion projects, your IT department is trapped in a box. Maybe a team member is desperate to create your next breakthrough application or has a half-complete AI just waiting to be connected.

4. Programming isn’t going anywhere

Time to address the elephant in the room. Nobody thinks that no-code is out to replace programming or developers (or that it could). Every language and tool is ideal in different scenarios and enables different development options. Your IT department has the final say in choosing the most efficient and best solutions for your business.

There’s no reason for the choice to be exclusive either. Perhaps your business users want to kickstart projects with no-code? Or a talented designer wants to take charge of your user interface? With Betty Blocks, these projects can be easily connected to existing systems or larger projects.