How to protect low-code from external rogue factors

In the current, unsteady technology landscape, fear of the unexpected and unknown is at the forefront of organisations’ minds. Tech leaders are becoming increasingly determined to find solutions that deliver improved results while minimising risk. The utilisation of low-code solutions will gain organisations a greater competitive edge in the market as its ability to innovate and operate efficiently will be more seamless.

Gartner projects the worldwide market for low-code development technologies will total $26.9 billion in 2023, an increase of 19.6% from 2022, highlighting the growing power and dominance of low-code in the technology sphere. More organisations are embedding the power and strength of low-code into their software systems and providing new opportunities for citizen developers. The introduction of effective safeguards and guardrails make sure organisations are innovating uniquely, and low-code platforms are being used responsibly across all departments of a business.

So, how important is governance in mitigating the risk and challenges of integrating low-code? And what specific factors can assist in the successful progress of an organisation’s low-code journey?

Understanding the benefits of low-code

Enterprises have high expectations when managing sophisticated and highly governed processes and continue to innovate to meet changing customer and industry needs. Meanwhile, those same organisations are balancing overwhelmed IT departments and developer talent shortages while recovering from the pandemic and preparing for an impeding recession. It becomes an overwhelming struggle to get it all done.

This is where low-code comes in, assisting organisations by reducing the amount of hard coding required to make tech updates, while enabling more users of all skill levels to create and automate workflows, rules and app components by using a common visual language. While traditional coding requires developers to spend significant time building applications from scratch, low-code enables organisations to work faster and more efficiently. And in today’s day and age, when time is of the essence and changes — big or small — need to be as close to real time as possible, low-code development makes this feasible.

When low-code technology is adopted and managed correctly, development work can be appropriately shared across teams beyond IT, with governed reusable components, to help relieve pressure on experienced developers. Citizen developers can handle common business-related tasks, freeing up experienced developers to tackle bigger challenges. By reducing the stress and easing the workflow of low-code users of all skill levels, enterprises have the chance to create an innovative, agile work environment that can help a business pivot quickly when needed. The value of successfully implementing low-code and having the ability to maintain it means your solutions will last. Additionally, you will gain greater transparency to all work being done and be ready to easily adapt and evolve as the future demands.

With great power comes great responsibility

Implementing effective governance in low-code is the greatest responsibility for organisations, as it assists in minimising risks and challenges. Governance can help a business define and apply guardrails to help manage current and in-development applications with internal policies and external regulations. Low-code allows businesses to pre-program these guardrails into templates citizen developers can use when building an application. The application provides developers with the freedom to build reusable templates without worrying about creating something that simply can’t be used or something which could be used in the wrong way.

To further reduce the barriers of entry for ‘citizen developers’ and fast track their development, Pega extended its use of AI in its platform with a set of new generative AI capabilities across Pega Infinity. The low-code platform incorporated our AI decisioning and workflow automation capabilities, allowing generative AI to be ‘enterprise ready’ and assist organisations in reaching their business goals faster, such as application development, 1:1 customer engagement and operation insight.

Organisations must be aware of how low-code implementation can create risk regarding who gets to use it and in what capacity. By gaining an understanding of how risk occurs, employers can design strategies that ensure the technology continues to work effectively and progressively into the future. While the benefits of low-code are enticing for organisations eager to adopt the technology, they need to act with a full understanding of how to build a resilient and governed low-code platform. By gaining a greater grasp of the responsibility organisations have in properly incorporating governance, an organisation can reap benefits that will put it miles ahead of the competition.

It is imperative organisations don’t ‘set and forget’ low-code applications. If these applications aren’t appropriately governed, rogue actors taking advantage of low-code will quickly create more problems than low-code could hope to solve. By including active involvement and collaboration, organisations can stop users who, due to being under no governance, would build bad automations or draw inaccurate results. Standardised guardrails will protect organisations from costly mistakes in areas like integration, UX design, workflow layouts, templates, business rules and more. Ultimately, these guardrails help ensure quality builds and once an app goes live, it will be protected from impacts of rogue actors or rogue low-code apps.

Through a proper and continuous implementation of governance and safety guardrails, a mobilised and efficient low-code system can be developed to improve business outcomes. This control is essential for protecting citizen developers and reducing the risk of exterior forces like rogue low-code apps or actors impacting the success of low-code. Advanced technology provides employers and employees with the ability to develop a faster and higher-quality low-code application. Governance will drive innovation to new heights, growing an organisation’s confidence in pushing barriers. A governed and protected low-code system is key to the creation of new opportunities, new advancements and new movements forward.

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