June 17, 2020 Global Crisis Accelerating Digital Transformation

Disruption in businesses caused due to the COVID-19 is accelerating businesses towards digital transformation.

Here for the long haul

COVID-19 has showcased the importance of an organization’s digital infrastructure and the need to quickly adapt to advances and reliable solutions to hold ground in the market over the competitors.

Organizations are looking towards rapid application development platforms to create critical business applications to ensure business continuity. Instead of writing scripts in some programming languages, business applications can be created by domain experts while easily integrating with the existing internal systems of the organisation.

Time is of the essence

The outbreak of coronavirus left no time for the businesses to build solutions for business continuity. The spread of the new coronavirus has grown rapidly into a global health crisis. Businesses realize that they need to act faster to tackle the situation regarding business continuity in COVID-19 emergency. Instead of developing applications with a group of programmers, long app life cycle, and longer time-to-market, they chose to build their apps using “no-code” platforms for faster roll-out, quick & easy iterations, easy adoption by end-users and right security measures offered.

Why these organisations are looking towards No-Code Platforms?

Modern software development requires more speed and agility than ever before, and how we’ve always done it simply won’t cut it longer. We need to completely change the approach for software development.

No code Platform empowers businesses with the quick development of applications for continuity of their business processes.

According to an article by Forbes, “Those companies able to use technology well to keep going and rethink their business model for the future by fast-tracking digital transformation will be ones ahead of their competition.”

To meet the business requirements organizations are looking for platforms to make enterprise-grade mobile applications that can be delivered and deployed in a few days/weeks. No code applications require only a few days for employees to get trained on.

No-code platforms slash IT costs by doing application development work. These platforms require little or no coding experience to create apps. Even a business analyst without coding experience could be able to create apps by selecting modules by visual drag and drop builder, integrating using no-code connectors, easily setting automation and workflows, deploying, and hosting on the fly.

No-Code features that appeal to organizations

1. Drag-and-drop Builder

In the time of the pandemic, it is not feasible for an organization to develop the software application with its IT team as traditionally it takes a lot of time to get delivered. With the drag and drop builder, applications could be made quickly by selecting the relevant modules and arranging them together. The workflow could be automated with just a few clicks to ensure business continuity.

2. Security and Scalability

Organizations are looking for platforms that follow best practices of security and privacy. No organization wants to risk their sensitive data. Organizations are looking for enterprise-grade security platforms that have all security certifications in place. Scalability emerges as an essential feature of the no-code platform which allows organizations to integrate additional features as their business grows.

3. Mobile and Offline capabilities

Organizations want their enterprise software applications to run on desktop and mobile devices or both with the offline capabilities so that the employee need not connect to an active internet connection all the time. Data will get sync when they connect to the network. Organizations are choosing platforms that include these offline capabilities.

4. Integration with other major platforms

Organizations are looking for platforms that allow them to integrate their existing business platforms with the new application so that a smooth flow of information could be done across major business platforms.

What digital transformation, the pandemic is forcing businesses to address?

1. Process automation

In the time of pandemic when fewer human resources are available, organizations are finding ways to adopt new technologies to automate their business processes. which in the past was a long procedure that included no. of meetings, chalking out strategies, and finally an implementation plan. Now organizations are embracing SaaS platforms to automate many Finance, HR, Marketing, and Logistic functions that are critical to their businesses.

The automation is no longer a buzzword. As every business, whether large or small, is adopting technologies to automate their workflow. After the COVID-19 what organizations will embrace is the new way of doing work which is often termed as the digital transformation of businesses.

2. Staff Onboarding

Pandemic has forced the organization’s recruitment strategy to shift to virtual platforms. Hiring managers are moving forward with recruitment plans and will likely onboard new employees virtually. Organizations are looking for platforms that allow them to take virtual interviews – telephonic or video calls, access the employee qualifications, and maintain a remote database.

3. Remote Learning

The COVID-19 has resulted in organizations shut all across the globe. Businesses are finding ways to impart online training to their employees. Organizations like schools, universities, and corporate businesses are switching to virtual learning options. Many companies have set up their virtual assessment center to train and monitor the progress of their employees.

Corporates are embracing online training to its employees as it provides them with more control, they can analyze the skill gap and track the employee learning and development curve.

4. Agile Thinking

Pandemic has changed the way organizations do work. They are now adopting the iterative nature of agile with autonomy and collaboration thus making it a perfect methodology to follow for all organizations in the time of the pandemic.

Organizations are adopting agile mind-sets to their IT framework and emphasizing to deliver solutions to support their business. Solutions for business continuity and models can be built quickly and errors are identified in early stages so that the smooth flow of business is ensured.

What does this mean?

Organizations around the globe are taking proactive steps now to maintain as much operational continuity as possible. 

Sandy Shen, Senior Director Analyst, Gartner says “This is a wake-up call for organizations that have placed too much focus on daily operational needs at the expense of investing in digital business and long-term resilience. Businesses that can shift technology capacity and investments on digital platforms will mitigate the impact of the outbreak and keep their companies running smoothly now, and over the long term.”

While no one can comment with certainty upon how long these circumstances will prevail, businesses, big or small, can accelerate their rapid response initiatives with no-code technology. The pandemic, although a challenge, has presented itself as an opportunity for businesses to thrive upon a strategy that is fully digital and contactless. The time is now to aim at all-round digital transformation driven by business realities that the pandemic has shown.

DronaHQ is a No-code App development SaaS platform for building business apps (Mobile & Web) and automating business process operations for SMB, Enterprises, and Business Units & IT Depts.

Write to us with your requirements and get free 1-month access to our platform.

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