Eight Ways Companies Are Using No-Code Apps to Improve Efficiency

No-code software development, also known as citizen development, has returned as a real trend. According to Forrester, the low-code market will reach $15 billion by 2020. Modern workers—whether at small businesses or large enterprises—are going a step further, turning to completely no-code platforms to quickly build custom business applications, increase productivity and improve their daily jobs, all with IT’s approval and governance. Quick Base, one of the first no-code development platforms, hosted its third-annual user conference, EMPOWER2017, in Boston recently. There, hundreds of app builders and IT leaders discussed how no-code development is helping their organizations create a culture of problem-solving and accelerate innovation without compromising governance. In this eWEEK slide show, we highlight eight organizations using no-code development and why they’re doing it.

The Spur Group, a fast-growing consulting firm helping enterprises such as Microsoft, VMware and Google achieve revenue acceleration, uses applications built with no-code to rapidly scale and streamline new employee onboarding. This has been crucial as the company has grown from two to 100 employees since its founding in 2004. No-code helped the company seamlessly manage the 20 to 25 steps associated with each new employee’s onboarding in just one click.

SME financier Interface Financial supports its entire business on no-code applications, allowing the firm to scale without hiring additional IT staff, and expedite new product development and testing. While other companies rely on large groups of professional developers, Interface Financial has been more efficient—it uses 17 no-code applications to manage the company’s loan processes and quickly make decisions on new products.

Global nonprofit Verité, which aims to eliminate human rights abuses in global supply chains, minimizes a host of internal processes, including client expensing, down to a single click with no-code. This has made manager approvals for complicated expense reports much more efficient, saving the team one to two business days of work.

Over the past several years, Sage Payroll Services has acquired 17 payroll companies. It uses no-code to effectively combine the companies into a single operation and create a universal system of record. By doing so, the company can spend more time communicating with customers—there has been a 90 percent decrease in the number of payrolls requiring manual editing since no-code applications were introduced.

Apex Imaging, a nationwide rebranding and reimaging contractor, uses no-code to eliminate spreadsheet duplication and confusion. With no-code applications, managers don’t have to sift through spreadsheets to determine when and where teams are working on projects at any given time—they get a holistic, all-in-one view through their no-code applications.

Dana Farber Cancer Institute’s Information Services (IS) organization has used no-code during the past decade to develop a project management application (IS Project Portfolio). It acts as a singular resource to find and track progress on all projects taking place at the organization. This has significantly reduced errors associated with spreadsheets and has kept long-term projects running more efficiently.

Texas A&M’s School of Public Health launched a no-code application built in two days to track scholastic engagement activities for more than 100 students. The result is better visibility into which students are doing outstanding work, allowing the school to more easily recognize them.

The Washington, D.C.’s Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) developed a no-code application called Stormwater Database to improve data quality for its storm water management programs, as well as the city’s participation in those programs. The DOEE can now better anticipate how these programs can restore the district’s water bodies, ultimately helping to improve water quality in the nation’s capital.