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It’s no secret that for years, CIOs and CTOs have stressed about the idea of undergoing digital transformations. After all, the adoption and implementation of new technologies can be stressful, but the timeline to complete this roadmap is often littered with obstacles and delays. Jay Jamison knows this all too well. It was during his time at Hewlett Packard Enterprises that he began wondering if there was a better, more efficient route. Turns out, there was.

“I don’t want to go to a CIO and say [their digital transformations] are going to take three years when it really is going to be five,” Jamison said. “I want to be able to go to a CIO and say ‘We’re going to get you a solution in place that’s going to create value for your business in this quarter.’”

The solution Jay is referring to is the growing use of low-code application platforms. Today, Jay serves as the Chief Product and Technology Officer at Quick Base, a low-code solution that is being deployed by Fortune 500 companies such as Southwest Airlines, Columbia and SiriusXM Satellite radio. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Jay takes us into what that low-code solution looks like, and why it might be the remedy to the stress of digital transformations. 

Main Takeaways

• Mind the Gap: One of the biggest advantages low-code provides is the ability to help companies deploy and iterate applications at a rapid pace. Low-code also helps democratize DevOps, which is allowing non-developers to work on deploying software.
• Operation Agility: When your customers have the ability to be deeply involved in the research and development of applications that they are going to use, it leads to a process known as operational agility. When that happens, your customers will adopt and deploy the application at a quicker pace.
• The Road Less Traveled: Companies often stress about their digital transformation roadmaps — which can take years to implement. Instead, focus on a dual-track solution. Work on changing over your bedrock technologies and allow low-code software to handle your smaller issues. This way you can still pivot and scale applications as needed.

 

For a more in-depth look at this episode, continue to the article below.

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It’s no secret that for year’s CIO and CTO’s have stressed about the idea of undergoing digital transformations. After all, the adoption and implementation of new technologies can be stressful, but the timeline to complete this roadmap is often littered with obstacles and delays. Jay Jamsion knows this all too well. It was during his time at Hewlett Packard Enterprises that he began wondering if there was a better, more efficient route. Turns out, there was.

“I don’t want to go to a CIO and say [their digital transformations] are going to take three years, when it really is going to be five,” Jamison said. “I want to be able to go to a CIO and say ‘We’re going to get you a solution in place that’s going to create value for your business in this quarter.’”

The solution Jamison is referring to is the growing use of low-code application platforms. Today, Jamison serves as the Chief Product and Technology Officer at Quick Base, a low-code solution that is being deployed by Fortune 500 companies such as Southwest Airlines, Columbia and SiriusXM Satellite radio.

Low-code applications simplify the development process for developers and/or non-software developers. The applications allow companies to build business applications quickly that digitize or streamline their workflow. But what makes Quick Base unique as opposed to other platforms? Jamison said it’s how its applications blend the ease of use to match the customer’s desire.

In essence, low-code applications act as their own process language and provide the user with the ability to quickly build, pivot, or scale applications based on their desires or needs. So why is low-code in demand? According to Jamison, the leading driver behind the technology is the lack of talent in the industry. 

With large-scale tech giants such as Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, eating up qualified engineers, there has become a growing need for smaller-scale companies to be able to operate at a high-capacity, while still being nimble with their application development. 

“What’s happened is [lack of talent] has been the driver,” Jamison said. “At the same time low-code platforms like Quick Base and others that have really shown up saying, ‘Hey, we are really powerful, we’re scalable and we’re easy enough to use that you don’t need to go find those developers.’” 

Jamison went on to say that low-code applications are now helping companies bridge the gap of digitizing their businesses while helping to serve customers better. Something that wasn’t previously available to most enterprises unless they grew their development teams.

So what’s the biggest competition facing the adoption of low-code applications? According to Jamison, it’s something as simple as paper-based processes, such as a written form or a lease agreement.

The value of providing a program that utilizes low-code is that companies, like Quick Base, are able to develop specific subject matter that relates to the customers’ needs.

“What we talk about with customers is tell me about the process,” Jamison said. “What’s the problem you’re trying to solve? When you have those people close to the work and they can have a hand in helping to craft that application, you can get it up and running and you can iterate it really quickly.”

This leads to a process that Jamison refers to as operational agility, which occurs when customers feel as if they are deeply involved with the process and those same customers possess a deep understanding of the subject matter, which leads to quicker adoption.

“They’re not being asked by some developers that may not understand the experience, and what they need, they’re actually part of it,” he said. “So when customers see the solution, and they’re getting what they talked about, and they have a hand in building it, they’re participating and it leads to just a much more aligned business solution relative to what it is that user needs.”

Besides the ease of use, the conversation shifted toward the real advantages of low-code applications and it’s a pain point Jamison understands too well. During his prior stints with companies such as Microsoft and Hewlett Packard, Jamison worked with numerous customers on their digital transformations, a process that can be tedious and time-consuming.

“Digital transformations is the number one priority of the bulk of the CEOs we worked with,” he said. “We talk about digital transformation in the context of saying, we believe that organizations need to think of the process in terms of what I call dual-track digital transformation. One set of things are going to be your bedrock efforts, which can take a long time. But the challenge is the business really can’t have customers waiting around for three years for you to get a new network.”

The second part of dual-track transformations is after you identify what your bedrock technologies are, you still have to be able to deploy updates and new technologies at a rapid pace. Something Jamison says refers to the use of low-code technology, where businesses can design and iterate solutions at the edge of the business at a rapid rate.

So how have low-code applications been received amongst industry leaders? According to Jamison, there used to be a lot of apprehension among CIOs and CTOs, especially when it came to the idea of having non-developers building applications.

“There was very low awareness and among CIOs around low-code platforms,” he said. “There was this idea of ‘I’m going to have non-developers that don’t work on IT, building applications without me sort of in charge of it?’ That sounds like shadow IT on steroids.”

Today, as more and more companies adopt the use of low-code technologies, those apprehensions have subsided due to the technology’s power and scalable uses, Jamison said. 

To hear more about how Quick Base is promoting low-code, check out the full episode of IT Visionaries.

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To hear the entire discussion, tune into IT Visionaries here.