The decision to determine the right approach to develop software for a need has always been complicated. Some of the key choices to be made usually were:
Build vs Buy
If Build - Nearshore vs Offshore vs Hybrid
If Buy - SaaS or In-premise
What Stack - (Java/ J2EE, .NET/ Azure, IBM, Oracle..)
If Cloud which option (AWS, Azure, GCP..)
Now there is another option which is gaining a lot of traction. Technically it's called #LowCode/ NoCode, but from a business perspective we should call it 'Assembly'. What LowCode/ No Code promises is truly transformatory, since it reduces the effort involved in developing applications drastically. When code is automatically developed, one needs only minimal coding effort - and with that comes the benefits of better quality, lower risk, higher probability of success, reduced costs and a lot more. #RapidApplicationDevelopment becomes a reality.
The buy vs build debate was moving heavily in the direction of 'buy' in the last decade. With SaaS, 'buy' became even more popular since it combined best practices, intuitive UI, quick implementation and avoidance of capital costs. For generic areas like accounting, payroll and sales CRM buying was clearly a 'no-brainer'.
The only problem however was in the case of unique needs especially in industry specific situations where 'buy' did not fit, and 'build' was the only option. Custom building of complex applications today is too expensive, too risky, complicated and labor intensive. Low code changes that equation positively for 'build', especially for unique situations. What does it translate in terms of costs?.
Let us consider a situation where the need is a unique situation (e.g. a Vendor Portal or some other application area which is not very generic) where the standard product or SaaS product has to be configured a lot before it meets the needs. The costs therefore will be:
If Product : License, AMC, Implementation, Customization, Infrastructure
If SaaS : Subscription, Implementation, Configuration/ Extensions
If Custom : Onsite Development, Offsite Development, Implementation, maintenance costs plus delay time to build the application
Offshore development reduced the development and maintenance costs to some extent if custom.
What Low Code does for each case is the following:
No license/ subscription for the Application
Far lower development costs (which could be done offshore)
Reduced customization/ extension costs
On has to pay a subscription fee for the low code platform though
Low Code ends up being a clear winner in most 'unique' development cases. Our experience in delivering solutions on Stragiliti (our low code platform www.Stragiliti.net) is that low code/ no code will shave off between 30 to 50% off the budget compared to custom development, and would be have lots of valuable additional benefits like go-to market faster, lower risk, end user satisfaction, lower costs through the life cycle and many more. In many cases the low code option is also better than the buy option also.
Clearly, the low code business case is compelling and mandatory to evaluate, especially in situations which are unique, because it is most likely to win if objectively evaluated.
Note:- If you would like to have a sample calculation of the investment difference (or anything else on Low Code), do indicate your mail id in the comments section below and we will send it to you, or update our contact us form in the website www.Stragiliti.net - and we will get back to you.