Citizen Developers: The Driving Force Behind Digital Transformation

PRESS RELEASE
Published March 7, 2023

Digital transformation has impacted every industry and changed business processes for good.

87 percent of companies implement digital transformation strategies to boost productivity, efficiency, and agility while reducing costs. But not all digital transformation strategies succeed. According to McKinsey, 70 percent of all digital transformation projects fail. Digital transformation strategies fail because companies don’t stay within budget and don’t achieve critical objectives. Some companies pursue digital transformation to look visionary, futuristic, and optimistic —and end up ditching the project after it fails.

For digital transformation to succeed, it can’t be solely driven by IT. IT professionals are overwhelmed because they must keep up with ever-changing technology, meet the rising demand for enterprise apps, handle daily business infrastructure, and prepare for the company’s future technology needs. This is where citizen developers come in. They are crucial to realizing your digital transformation goals.

Successful digital transformation combines innovation at the business process level and the enterprise level. Citizen development can accelerate digital transformation. IT professionals work closely with business users to build solutions much faster. These projects are much easier to map out, so there’s no scope creep. Citizen development can impact your entire organization and prepare it for rapid digital change.

What is Digital Transformation?

Digital transformation means fundamentally leveraging digital technologies to change business operations and customer interactions. An organization that transforms digitally embraces digital technologies to improve operations, enhance customer experiences, and drive growth. It may integrate technologies such as cloud computing into its core operations and adopt new ways of working, such as agile development methodologies.

A company can reduce costs, improve operational efficiency, and increase productivity by undergoing a digital transformation. It can create new revenue streams by using data to identify new opportunities and produce digital products and services. Digitally transformed companies are agile and quickly respond to changing market conditions and consumer demands. They remain competitive and succeed in the digital age.

What is Citizen Development?

Citizen development is a business process that empowers business users, analysts, or subject matter experts (non-IT employees) to become software developers. They use IT-sanctioned low-code/no-code platforms to create enterprise applications, tools, and services.

Citizen developers build apps without coding using low-code or no-code platforms. These platforms feature drag-and-drop interfaces, pre-built components, and templates that let users build applications quickly and easily without writing code. Citizen developers are individuals with subject matter expertise who can identify business problems or opportunities and build software solutions.

Citizen development prevents shadow IT and bridges the gap between IT and business. Non-technical users have a greater responsibility in driving digital transformation and innovation. They develop custom applications that meet their specific needs instead of waiting for IT or using off-the-shelf software that doesn’t fully address their requirements.

The Connection Between Citizen Developers and Digital Transformation

Digital transformation has become a priority for many companies since the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the business landscape. The pandemic accelerated the need for change. It also revealed the massive global shortage of skilled software developers—the key people needed to actualize the transformation. In the US, there’ll be a shortage of four million developers by 2025.

Citizen development was introduced to accelerate digital transformation. The business process does away with the complexity of coding and empowers subject matter experts to design, develop, and deploy applications just like experienced coders. Citizen developers use low-code/no-code (LC/NC) platforms to build enterprise apps that enhance business operations. Non-technical users and line-of-business managers eliminate inefficient processes and spend more time innovating and creating solutions.

How Citizen Developers Speed Up Digital Transformation

Burden Off IT

IT professionals are so overwhelmed that 82 percent of them have experienced burnout. They have too much on their plate, affecting the business output. Security threats fall through the cracks, and solutions aren’t built on time. Citizen developers take the pressure off IT by creating apps without relying on IT.

IT focuses on business-critical projects and reduces the requests they have to manage. With citizen development, apps are built in days instead of weeks. Forrester Research reports that citizen development is up to 10x faster than traditional development. Non-technical developers help organizations adapt quickly to marketplace changes without straining IT.

No Shadow IT

Shadow IT means using unapproved technology to complete work. Most employees turn to shadow IT because IT takes too long to solve their problems. But shadow IT can create security risks and make an organization lose control of critical data and assets. And as employees use third-party apps without approval, IT’s frustration grows and productivity and collaboration drop.

Citizen development eliminates shadow IT and allows employees to build the solutions they need fast. They build the apps they need on IT-approved tools and don’t have to wait for IT to vet and approve new tools.

More Innovation

Low-code and no-code tools inspire business users to innovate and create new apps and tools. Innovative employees are more digitally agile and can solve technological problems independently instead of relying on IT. They rethink workflows and processes to create better ways of working.

For instance, an HR professional can build a simple workflow and automate onboarding. They can customize the workflow to fit their needs and do away with manual data entry. Automating onboarding greatly reduces the risk of errors (like giving new employees access to critical company information), as many error-prone tasks are automated.

Extra Resources

Citizen development eliminates the need to build expensive, custom applications. It maximizes resource sharing and decreases application maintenance costs. There’s no need to hire professional developers for app development. An organization can invest the resources it saves back into digital transformation.

Low-code and no-code platforms allow citizen developers to create apps in less time and with a lower budget. More work is done in-house using existing resources and staff. An organization doesn’t outsource work, hire more developers, or buy third-party apps.

Empower Your Citizen Developers with a No-Code Platform

Citizen development democratizes app development and empowers business users to develop applications with low-code and no-code tools. Organizations can quickly build the digital solutions they need to grow without burning through resources. Gartner reports that 80 percent of technology products will be built by non-tech professionals by 2024. Empower your citizen developers with a low-code/no-code platform and fast-track digital transformation.

Press Release Distributed by The Express Wire

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