Low-Code Development Can Solve the Mobile App Gap

It’s long been known that there’s a serious “app gap” in enterprises, due in large part to the difficulty of finding and hiring developers with mobile skills. After much talk, new technology is becoming a practical solution in enterprises: low-code development can solve the mobile app gap.

The gap is even worse than you think, according to the Gartner report, “Survey Analysis: The Mobile App Development Trends That Will Impact Your Enterprise in 2017,” which found that “More than a quarter of enterprises globally have not built, customized or virtualized any mobile apps in the last 12 months.”

And now comes a possibly even more alarming report from Capgemini and LinkedIn, “The Digital Talent Gap—Are Companies Doing Enough?” It found the digital talent gap is widening, with 54 percent of organizations reporting that “the digital talent gap is hampering their digital transformation programs and that their organization has lost competitive advantage because of a shortage of digital talent.”

It adds that even though the talent gap has been widening, “budgets for training digital talent have remained flat or decreased in more than half (52%) of the organizations, and 50% said they keep talking about the digital talent gap but not doing much to bridge it.”

There’s also bad news for companies that provide digital training. The report found that more than half of those who get company-provided training say the programs aren’t helpful, or staff isn’t given enough time to attend them. And 45 percent say their companies training programs are “useless and boring.”

However, there’s some good news in the report as well — in fact, very good news, because it shows a way for enterprises to solve the mobile app gap. It found that “Soft digital skills such as customer-centricity and a passion for learning are most in demand by organizations.”

Those kinds of “soft” skills are frequently found in abundance in enterprises, but not necessarily in the IT department. Instead, they’re often found in line-of-business staff and domain experts, who are passionate about their jobs, close to the needs of customers and always looking to learn.

Why is that good news for enterprises? Because they can be turned into so-called “citizen developers”, who can solve the app gap with low-code development tools. Low-code app development tools let people with minimal technical training write mobile apps. That way enterprises get the best of both worlds: enterprises get the passion and customer-centricity of those with soft skills, combined with the ability to quickly write mobile apps using a no-code or low-code approach.

The democratization of app development — or the rise of citizen developers –  is a growing trend in enterprises. The new whitepaper “Citizen Developers: The Democratization of Mobile and Web App Development” provides:

• Predictions for how many business apps enterprises will need to build in the coming years.
• Practical examples of line of business domain experts building enterprise apps.
• What your organization must do to empower line of business employees to build apps.
• Important requirements that must be met for line of business development to be successful.

Want to get more apps built with the team you have today? This is the guide for you. Download the whitepaper here.