When I first started working on theĀ Mail & Guardianā€™sĀ website, the first news site in Africa, I had to learn to codeĀ . HyperText Markup Language is the glue that holds the internet together ā€“ and makes those underlined blue links click through to another page.

It was 1998 and internet publishing was in its infancy. Things like content management systems (CMS) for creating a database of stories and publishing them automatically were still in the future. WordĀ鶹Ō­““ ā€“ the most widely used publishing system ā€“ was still years away.

Everything we did was manual. We wrote the stories and then used an HTML editor app to build the page. Then we had to use a file transfer protocol (FTP) app to upload that file to our servers. Any images had to be separately uploaded. It was necessary technical admin because the software that is widely used now didnā€™t exist yet.

Coding is something that happens in the background, especially using WordĀ鶹Ō­““, which most of us have never seen nor understand.

Nor should we. As trite as it is, I have compared tech to driving a car when explaining why itā€™s too complicated. Everyone understands how cars work. You use the key to unlock and then drive them. How many people know or understand how an internal combustion engine works? Nor should they.

A low-code future opens doors for small businesses

In the last 30 years, as computers and then smartphones have become mainstream, people have been forced to learn a lot of technical stuff they donā€™t need to. Itā€™s been one of my ongoing bugbears with the consumer technology industry: it has tried to entice buyers of shiny gadgets by impressing them with the billions of transistors on a computer chip, or how many megapixels the camera has. Most of us donā€™t need to see, nor understand the complexity of, whatā€™s under the hood of our cars or our phones. This ease of use is coming to other parts of the tech universe ā€“ most notably in using services.

Often called ā€œlow-codeā€ or ā€œno-codeā€ this is a way of using payment services, online shops and web publishing for anyone who has a small amount of tech understanding. Want to start an e-commerce store? UseĀ Ā to help you build it. Need payments? Plug in one of the many such services. If you run a yoga or pilates studio,Ā Ā does it all for the instructor and lets people (literally) book their own time slot and pay for it. Small businesses, that are unable to afford to build software from scratch, have taken to ā€˜low-codeā€™ with glee.

Software giant Ā鶹Ō­““ is the latest big firm to adopt this methodology. Using drag-and-drop to create your own apps and services allows the average user ā€“ and not an expensive developer ā€“ to build their own software. Instead of bringing in a mechanic, the actual drivers can choose what they want. With a global shortage of software developers expected in the next few years, it also frees up a business from yet another business congestion.

Itā€™s one of the ways small businesses are leading the world.

This article first appeared in theĀ .

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The event ran concurrently with the companyā€™s business innovation days for media in San Francisco.

Low code platforms provide business users with little to no technical knowledge the ability to build apps to supplement their enterprise solutions.

Ā鶹Ō­““ customers can build an app, an automated process or a website using a drag-and-drop function without coding knowledge. This allows system integration without moving data to an external system.

Julia White, the chief marketing and solutions officer at Ā鶹Ō­““, says every company is now a technology company. ā€œThereā€™s not a single industry, a single discipline that doesnā€™t have technology at its core. As a result of this, the competition for professional developers is intense. Every industry is competing for this finite talent.ā€

The next wave of transformation is going to be powered by people who create business value such as the finance analyst, supply chain operator, procurement specialist and marketers, says White. ā€œAnd today, their expertise is untapped by the companies that need to drive digital transformation forward.ā€

Ā鶹Ō­““ Build will provide the tools to remove unhelpful repetitive tasks, says White, so processes can be automated to be more efficient and users can innovate in areas that have unmet needs.

ā€œBy doing this, we address that shortage of professional developers to unlock digital experiences, and we tap into the expertise of those business users.ā€

Juergen Mueller, the chief technology officer at Ā鶹Ō­““, says clients who put the low-code build product to test have achieved a 30% faster time to market because development time was reduced.

ā€œIf you can use Excel or PowerPoint, you can use Ā鶹Ō­““ Build. Itā€™s all about collaboration and invitation between business users and IT working together.

ā€œĀ鶹Ō­““ build connects previously disconnected solutions through a unified development environment. The back-end requires a little technical knowledge but we created a common project repository so you can have one project using all of these capabilities.ā€

Mueller adds that the Ā鶹Ō­““ business technology platform can connect to Ā鶹Ō­““ and non-Ā鶹Ō­““ systems, and it has more than 1Ā 300 ready to use automated workflows and use-case specific workflows.

Ā鶹Ō­““ Build is a visual experience, with a new visual cloud functionality that lets users create in a simple way, says Mueller. ā€œYou donā€™t need to know anything about databases, coding, security or networks.ā€

According to the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC)ā€™s research VP of software development, Arnal Dayaratna, the demand for contemporary digital solutions is greater than the ability of professional developers to supply them thus business professionals will become increasingly involved in initiatives to create digital solutions to solve pressing business problems.

ā€œWorldwide, IDC expects more than 100Ā million business professionals will become involved in the production of digital solutions over the next 10 years. Ā鶹Ō­““ Buildā€™s low-code development solutions empower business users to harness their domain expertise to rapidly build and iterate on digital solutions at scale.ā€

Low-code development is not new, but these visual tools help businesses optimise their software development processes at speed. Similar services exist through Microsoft Power Apps, Google AppSheet, Salesforce Lightning, Zoho Creator, OutSystems, and Quickbase. According toĀ , the global low-code platform market revenue was valued at $19bn in 2021 and is forecast to reach $69bn in 2026.

Technology research and consulting firm Garter says 80% of technology products and services will be built by professionals outside of IT by 2024. It predicts that low-code development will account for more than 65% of app development by the end of 2024.

VP of research at Gartner,Rajesh Kandaswamy says, ā€œDigital business is treated as a team sport by CEOs and no longer the sole domain of the IT department. Growth in digital data, low-code development tools and artificial intelligence assisted development are among the many factors that enable the democratisation of technology development beyond IT professionals.ā€

Upskill 2 million by 2025

Max Wessel, the chief learning officer at Ā鶹Ō­““ says, ā€œYou canā€™t change business if you donā€™t change the systems underneath that process.ā€

ā€œThe pandemic accelerated our shift to a digital economy; coming back into a hybrid world, we are changing business processes again, and all of that requires us to think about how we drive innovation quickly, flexibly.ā€

The only way to solve the talent gap is to increase the number of people who are getting scaled up, and that is where we need to step in,ā€ says Wessel, who recognises that science, technology, engineering and maths jobs have historically been inaccessible to underrepresented minorities.

Ā鶹Ō­““ has pledged to upskill two million people worldwide by 2025. The initiative will include tripling the free learning offering through the Ā鶹Ō­““ LearningĀ Ā and a partnership with online platform Coursera.

The new free entry-level professional certification onĀ Ā is called the Ā鶹Ō­““ Technology Consultant Professional Certificate that requires no prerequisites, minimising the barrier to entry.

The company will also offer free role-based learning resources to women and other underrepresented groups in the tech sector through relevant training and certification. The self-paced courses will let participants develop skills for roles like developers, data analysts, and technology consultants.

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