Overview of

LOW-CODE
 Table of Contents
1.Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1
2. What is low-code? ............................................................................................... 2
3. The market overview ............................................................................................ 3
4. Benefits that low-code can bring to your businesses ..................... 8
5. Some challenges you should notice .......................................................... 9
6. Comparison: Low-code development vs. Traditional
development .............................................................................................................. 10
7. Case study from Mendix: PostNL delivers new business models
with Low-code .......................................................................................................... 11
Reference links .............................................................................................................. 12

kyanon.digital
 1. Introduction

At the end of the day, simplicity matters for business users, and they care about a
very straightforward list of things, whilst businesses want to spend less, manage time
efficiently, enhance productivity, and make more profits. There is no need to invest in
expensive training programs for the employees when the apps can be built faster with
minimal training. That is exactly what happens with using low-code development
platforms that enable business users, with little or no coding experience, to build
applications based on IT-approved technologies.
In this whitepaper, let’s explore how low-code/no-code tools are transforming non-
programmers, or probably anybody, by getting them to develop business workflow
applications, at ease. Users can now create solutions that reflect specific data
inquiries and workflow processes and these low-code/no-code-crafted programs
can integrate into the core business processes, effortlessly.

kyanon.digital 1
" 2. What is low-code?
Low-code is a new and happening process that is touted to revolutionize the software
development industry.

Low-code is a visual approach to software development.

Low-code abstracts and automates every step of the
application lifecycle to enable rapid delivery of a variety of
software solutions. It breaks the traditional silos of business
and IT to promote continuous collaboration.

- Mendix

kyanon.digital 2
 3. The market overview
3.1. Present context
Low-code development use cases in specific industries
In the article “5 Industries that leverage low-code for better efficiency” by eLearning
Inside, the 5 industries that are using low-code today were listed, as below:
- Software development: The software development industry is the obvious customer,
using the low code. What intensified this, is the truth is that the low-code concept itself
has originated from the need for accelerating application development.
- E-commerce: E-commerce is another perfect candidate for low-code. Due to the
effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, several industries have converged their needs to
e-commerce. The pandemic has put pressure on brands to quickly adapt to rapidly
changing consumer needs. That’s when the low-code tools become quite handy, by
helping them to quickly create online solutions that are easy to manage, yet,
empowering the interactions between the customers and brands.
- Business: Most new businesses start with low-code first and then look to build out
software as they establish their business models. This is a smart approach because it
saves the start-ups from wasting time on getting to market when the founders haven’t
created the end-product. The pandemic has brought all the existing businesses to
starve for getting digital-ready, and excessively desire to be agile, data-driven, and
the first to market.
- Education: With the governments in several countries urging schools to reopen
under strict COVID-19 guidelines, the educational institutions are facing enormous
pressure to safely coordinate their activity, ensuring the safety of the staff and their
students. Most of these academic organizations are now turning to low-code to build
websites or platforms quickly, so they can assess and keep track of the students’
COVID-19 statuses.
- Banking & Finance: The BFSI industry essentially uses low-code to chip away at bulky
monolithic and difficult-to-break apart systems. For providing a better customer
experience and to meet customer demands, this sector embraces low-code solutions.
Especially, the banks that struggled to keep up with COVID-19 induced changes are
depending on low code platforms to quickly adapt to the long-term effects and future
changes

kyanon.digital 3
 Enterprise leaders in the market
The chart of low-code service providers is divided into four quadrants, namely niche
players, challengers, visionaries, and leaders. By doing so, Gartner evaluated the
strengths and weaknesses of 18 low-code providers that it considers most significant
in the marketplace. Furthermore, it provides readers with the Magic Quadrant graph,
plotting the vendors based on their ability to execute and their completeness of vision.
As per Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, the 5 enterprise low-code platforms positioned as
leaders are Mendix, Microsoft, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and OutSystems.

Source: Gartner (August 2021)

kyanon.digital 4
 3.2. Global low-code development platform
industry segmentation
The low-code development platform market is categorized based on the type of
application (web-based, mobile-based, desktop, and server-based), type of
deployment (on-premises, cloud), size of the organization (SMEs, larger enterprises),
the business vertical of the end-user (BSFI, retail and e-commerce, information
technology, energy & utilities, manufacturing, healthcare, public sector, and defense),
and last but not least, the geography.

The report “Low-Code Development Platform Market” composed by

Marketsandmarkets stated:
By region, North America to account for the highest market share during the
forecast period
North America has several remarkable market players delivering low-code
development platforms and services to all end-users across the entire region. Both US
and Canada have strong economic conditions and are expected to be key
contributing markets for the low-code development platforms. The geographical
presence, significant R&D activities, partnerships, mergers & acquisitions serve as the
critical factors for deploying low-code development services and platforms. Big
corporations including Salesforce, Microsoft, Appian, and Pegasystems, are offering
enhanced low-code development platforms and services to cater to the needs of a
wide range of customers. This is helping to the growth of the global market in North
America.

kyanon.digital 5
 Among all the industries, BFSI will grow with the highest CAGR during the
forecast period
For the BFSI industry, it’s essential to market their products and services and at the
same time, manage large-scale platforms given the massive volume of information
generated by these organizations. So, by implementing low-code built platforms and
services, they can improve the automation across the critical business functions
especially customer service, as it primarily determines customer acquisition and
retention in the BFSI industry. The new and improved BFSI products and services are
launched from time to time, to expand the reach and enhance the business
operations. This makes it highly attractive for the low-code development platform
providers to offer more advanced solutions to the BFSI industry.
By application type, the web-based segment to grow at the highest CAGR
during the forecast period
Web applications serve as the face of an organization and by employing low-code
development platforms, organizations can roll out user-defined web-based
applications at speed. Rather than spending hours coding web-based applications
using programming languages, employees with lesser programming expertise can
build sophisticated applications. For those with a programming background, these
platforms will ease out the daily work chores and could even simply enable them to
create more custom web-based applications, by integrating the existing digital
ecosystems.

kyanon.digital 6
 3.3. What do Analysts say on the future
forecast of low-code development platforms
Gartner: By 2024, over 65% of all application development activity will be low-
code based
Forrester: 84% of enterprises have adapted to low-code as it helps to reduce
strain on IT resources and will increase the speed-to-market, by involving the
business in digital asset development.
IDC: Over 500 million apps will be created, between 2018 and 2023, a total that’s
more than what has been developed in the previous 40 years, combined.
CastSoftware: Technical debt costs $3.61 for each line of code for companies,
and it sums up to $1,083,000. for an average-size application of 300,000 lines of
code (LOC).

kyanon.digital 7
 4. Benefits that low-code can bring to
your businesses
According to a study conducted by Research India Publications on “Low-code
platform for application development”, there are several benefits low-code
platforms can bring to your business.
Greater productivity
Since the time to develop an app reduces, more apps can be built in less time
leading to greater productivity. Low-code development platforms have brought
swiftness to the application building process and have also helped in ensuring that
time is no longer a hurdle in the process.
Decreased costs
Time is money! As the time required to build apps is reduced, the cost decreases.
These platforms significantly reduce the hiring costs because the number of
developers required is less.
Easy maintenance
Low-code platforms allow quick changes to be made to the applications that are
developed and being used. Thus making the maintenance easier. Whenever required,
changes can be done easily without complex coding.
Involvement of business profiles
The gap between IT and business teams is bridged by a low-code platform. Both the
teams can solve issues readily leading to higher productivity. These platforms provide
an easy-to-use interface for application development and thus even business users
who will be the final users of the app can contribute to the app development process.
Cross-platform accessibility
Low-code development allows cross-platform accessibility that allows users to build
applications that can be accessed and run on all platforms and devices making it
easy to work on any issues. This will also improve the overall consumer experience.

kyanon.digital 8
 5. Some challenges you should notice
According to the article “Characteristics and Challenges of Low-Code Development:
The Practitioners' Perspective” on ACM Digital Library, there are some challenges of
low-code platforms.
High pricing
If you choose large vendors, or want to
use these platforms by yourselves, then
this approach may seem expensive.
Because the charges are per user and
you may have to buy the license for a
minimum of 50 to 100 users.
Lack of customization
Not all platforms allow full-length
customizations. Many of them are
restrictive customization on designs
and layouts.
Learning curve
Since it’s a UI-based tool, developers
might need to learn about how a tool
works, despite having a coding
background. Hence it will take some
time for any user to use the platform
efficiently.
Slow loading and publishing
A few platforms may have lower
loading speeds especially during
remote working conditions that can, in
turn, affect the productivity of the
developer.
kyanon.digital
Less powerful than programming
A full-fledged programming language
will always have more power than a “no-
code/low-code” solution.
High complexity
Many platforms may often seem too
convoluted to use, especially if there are
many options available.
No access to source code
The absence of source code means that
you can not take the code and use it
elsewhere.
Vendor lock-in
If you build using a no-code tool, and the
vendor raises their prices or shuts down
support, you will have to re-build the
application, costing time and effort. There
is also the risk of losing data as well.
9
 6. Comparison: Low-code development
vs. Traditional development

Time-to-market

One of the top pros of low-code is that it

Compatibility options
Low-code platforms are inherently multi-
device compatible. That means, apps
developed using low-code can be used
on all platforms, such as web, mobile, and
cloud, and on all devices. While in
traditional development different apps
need to be developed for each such
platform.
Scalability
is much faster than traditional
development. Many times low cost may
save you weeks or even months of
development time.
Tech debt
Low-code is less prone to less cost of
additional rework, because the modules
are pre-coded and designed to fit in with
each other. On the other hand, Custom
dev generates more tech debt because
we have to rely on skilled developers for
any rework.

Low-code and cloud-native app

development are a lot more scalable and
much easier to maintain. While a
traditionally developed app has scope to
be scaled, it is a complex process.
Intuitive option
Investment required
To build low-code-based apps all you
need is to pay for the platform, while the
cost of hiring a developer is less.
Traditional development does not incur a
platform cost, but the overall cost is a lot
more because the time to develop an
app from scratch is long, it is more error-
prone, causing delays and hidden costs.

For a developer, both low-code and

traditional development are collaborative.
But for a non-developer, low-code is easy
to use and can collaborate with
developers. With traditional dev, one
needs coding skills to collaborate.

kyanon.digital 10
 7. Case study from Mendix: PostNL
delivers new business models with
Low-code

PostNL is the national postal carrier of the Netherlands. It serves 17 million customers
overall. It delivers 8.1 million letters and 1.1 million parcels on an average each day.

Anticipating a massive increase in demand for parcel deliveries due to the growth of
e-Commerce, the IT team at PostNL sought to replace it’s legacy order management
system that was developed to handle a maximum of 600,000 parcels per day.

Working through a two-year backlog in just two quarters, PostNL and Mendix partner
Cape Groep developed an order management system for the 64 microservices. It
guides every parcel through sorting centers, and can process about 1.1 million parcels
per day, serving 4.5 million customers.

kyanon.digital 11
 Reference links:
Elearning Inside. 5 Industries that leverage low-code for better efficiency.

Mendix. Low-code guide.

Mendix. 2021 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application

Platforms.

Mendix. The Logistics of Digital Transformation.

Near Partner. Low-code vs traditional development: what’s the difference?

Gartner. Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms.

Research India Publications . Low-Code Platform for Application Development.

ACM Digital Library. Characteristics and Challenges of Low-Code Development: The

Practitioners’ Perspective.

Marketsandmarkets. Low-Code Development Platform Market - Global Forecast to

2025.

kyanon.digital 12
 About
Kyanon Digital
Kyanon Digital is a Vietnam-based tech powerhouse, providing world-class digital
solutions using agile processes. At Kyanon Digital, we create endless value for our
clients by leveraging our expertise and recommending the most suitable solutions.
Our global teams ensure continuous support round the clock!
Kyanon Digital is also a partner solution with Mendix - the global leader in enterprise
low-code and Zudy - a visionary software company that has developed a no-code
platform, which means Kyanon Digital has fully adopted these two platforms as ours to
develop our clients and partners’ solutions, to provide them with a rapid digital
transformation process, and to allow them to enhance their business performance, go
live faster, engage experiences, and achieve more success.

For more information about low-code solution, please contact us

HERE or scan the QR code.

contact@kyanon.digital

Our offices:
SINGAPORE
7 Straits View, Marina One East Tower, #05-01,
Singapore 018936
VIETNAM
(+84) 283 5171 080
Office 01: 294-296 Truong Sa, Ward 2, Phu Nhuan District, HCMC
Office 02: 09 Hoa Cau, Ward 7, Phu Nhuan District, HCMC

Thank you