For the longest time, ‘digital’ meant coding and ‘digital transformation’ meant having the resources to manage a large army of coders and solution architects. This allowed organizations with the means and access to capital to leap ahead of those with a better customer service proposition. Many a time, access to capital meant creating digital products without a perceivable or sound business model while business models with the potential to scale and be commercially sound were left behind. No-code became the great equalizer between those who have the capital and those who have the domain expertise. Additionally, it’s a great equalizer between those with business knowledge and those with the ability to code as well. No-code platforms ushered in an era of democratization of technology that hasn’t been seen before. While the financial services industry has been leading this evolution to no-code platforms, other sectors including supervisory technology, e-governance, mobility, manufacturing and healthcare are soon catching up to this new wave of digitalization.

What really is no-code and how has it started levelling the playing field in the financial services industry?
No-code is essentially a method of communicating with machines through symbols, flow charts and pre-created artefacts. Its as if one is communicating with a machine using sign language. The machine then interprets these interactions and converts them into software having workflows, user interfaces and compute algorithms. This software is enterprise grade, quickly developed, and modified and built at a low cost - but most importantly, without the need for someone who understands coding i.e., the traditional way in which humans communicated with machines to build software.
Founders and newly minted entrepreneurs in the financial services sector having years of domain expertise are using no-code platforms to convert their knowledge into new generation software that is replacing traditional vendor software and clunky computation software used for risk management. Banks and insurance companies are using no-code platforms to speeden up the customer engagement initiatives and replace legacy software. The successes in the financial services space led to regulators to start closely looking at no-code platform for supervisory technology, surveillance, and digital engagement with market participants.

Making the Transition to No-code is still not a Cakewalk
For existing players, transitioning to no-code means a careful evaluation of the sunset period of legacy software. It also means a cultural transformation with silos between technology, business analysts, and business teams are replaced by small collaborative teams working on specific use cases. The mindset of using traditional coding frameworks, SDLC-based approaches and considering every release cycle to be

weeks if not months apart is hard to replace. The acceptance that software can be built and deployed in weeks, sometimes days, and can keep getting improved on a daily basis is sometimes difficult for people to fathom.

For new players, startups and entrepreneurs, while no-code provides a great opportunity, there is still a learning curve in terms of learning the equivalent of sign language to communicate with the machine. There is also a need to appreciate that different artefacts in a no-code platform can be used in different ways to achieve the end use-case. Refining the methods in which these artefacts are used to optimize speed is important. More importantly, working on the user experience and user interface requires an approach that is single page application oriented, as opposed to the traditional workflow oriented. Adapting to these methods and thought processes is critical to achieving success with no-code platforms.

No-code platforms are also expected to start using artificial intelligence in a meaningful way first to assist users on app development through suggestions but will eventually start autonomously improving and optimizing user experience, and generating workflows based on the user engagement with the application

Trends in the No-code World
As no-code platforms come of age, gimmicking for the purpose of marketing is becoming apparent. Players claiming to be no-code purely to keep in line with trends are being increasingly found out and investments are moving towards genuine no-code platforms. Two areas with focus on no-code capability is taking precedence are compute and complex workflow management. Early stage no-code platforms focused on being prototyping tools or platforms for simplistic software. The current generation of no-code platforms are focused on pre-built compute algorithms and high-speed compute capability. They are also focused on being able to deliver complex workflows and scenarios that go beyond simplistic apps.

Natural Language Interactions and Autonomous App Development will Soon be Here
While no-code platforms largely eliminated the need for coders and solution architects, they have put a greater emphasis on business analysts. This interpretation layer of business analysts has become necessary since all end-users may not be willing to learn what is effectively sign language to engage with the machine. No-code platforms are expected to increasingly become natural language based over the next few years thereby reducing the dependence on business analysts to build software. No-code platforms are also expected to start using artificial intelligence in a meaningful way first to assist users on app development through suggestions but will eventually start autonomously improving and optimizing user experience, and generating workflows based on the user engagement with the application. The future of no-code is natural language and autonomous.