New data shows that in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, 1 in 9 businesses admit they would have failed if they had not adapted technology. Among these changes is the use of low-code technologies. One sector within which low-code has been successfully deployed is within the public sector.
In the U.S., the public sector stand out compared with most of the private sector because it still relies heavily on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets despite the increasingly digital nature of modern society.
Low-code refers to a visual approach to software development. It presents a more straightforward solution for those less experienced with the complexities of coding, helping to abstract and automates each step of the application lifecycle.
These trends have been picked up by Mendix, a Siemens business and a firm that specializes in modern enterprise application development, has announced the results of its “2022 State of Low-Code” survey.
For wider industry, Gartner estimates that, by 2025, 70 percent of applications developed by enterprises will be built with low-code or no-code technologies. This is up from less than 25% in 2020. While the public sector is not as advanced, the patterns is moving in a similar low-code direction.
The report finds that digital transformation in the government sector tends to start with compliance, where 69 percent of respondents from the survey said they plan to apply patches to meet U.S. Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) directives.
Despite the slow take-up of low code, the organizations that have done so within the public sector see clear advantages. Here, 30 percent of organization leaders say low-code reduces security issues. A further advantage is with speeding up the digitization of government services to local communities.
In particular, those low-code solutions that support remote-work function (something that has expanded since the pandemic), such as digital forms and workflow automation, are the most keenly adopted within the state sector.
The survey establishes that low-code benefits are improved, centralized, and standardized citizen identification authentication as well as improving access to services. The adoption has also led to improved planning and management of both financial budgets and physical resources. In keeping with the focus on compliance, it also stands that 67 percent of respondents in the public sector are deploying low-code solutions for compliance purposes.