The Low-Code Solution Way to Escape Technical Debt

Per McKinsey survey, “CIOs of 50 financial companies estimated that tech debt amounts to 20 to 40 percent of the value of their entire technology estate before depreciation.”

The definition of technical debt in software development is the cost of increased rework incurred because of choosing a quick fix or shortcut over a more time-consuming solution. A good ‘debt metaphor’ might be, technical debt is like financial debt. If technical debt is not paid off or a clean-up is not done, it will accrue “interest,” just like financial debt. This makes it more challenging to execute modifications or add new features to the software and ultimately wary development teams and stakeholders.

As organizations keep adding point applications to tackle isolated challenges, they end up creating a complex web of siloed technologies that the organization cannot do without, nor can they make changes to software systems or upgrade with changing business requirements. It is a significant roadblock that impedes  agility and competitiveness.

The Cause and Effect Relationship Between Technical Debt and Productivity

Many causes can be attributed to the creation of technical debt that leads to dwindling productivity. It can arise from

• Business team: Business teams increase delivery pressure to meet a timeline, underestimates the importance of suggestions made by the technical team, resulting in an incomplete and inadequate briefing
• Changing requirement: Change in business context and technology leads to previous requirements becoming irrelevant
• Software development process: Poor design, code quality concerns, and inadequate performance testing of the software product creates all types of technical debt
• IT team: Resource crunch or staffing mismatch decreases productivity

How Low-Code Platforms Can Help Tackle Technical Debt

Low-code platforms can help address all three technical or design debt components – design, code, and infrastructure. It reduces manual coding and time to market and brings agility to the development and deployment cycles.

By leveraging low-code platforms, enterprises can:

Modernize Legacy System

Changing business environments demand agility in the development and deployment of business applications. Organizations can leverage low code platforms to extend the life of existing legacy systems that show inefficient code or legacy code and the potential need for refactoring. A low-code platform will enhance their functionality to help quickly launch products and services.

Choose a Platform Approach

Multiple point solutions lead to the accumulation of technical debt over time. On the other hand, a platform approach with a low-code solution has a single technology stack that reduces the technology burden and aids innovation by rapidly developing applications. This helps in deploying tailored solutions and allows quick adaptability to changing market scenarios, with fewer integrations and low implementation and maintenance costs.

Reduce IT Dependency

It brings business users and developers to the same platform. In addition, the platform’s point-and-click configurability empowers business users to become citizen-developers and reduce the dependency on high skilled IT professionals.

Make Your IT More Efficient

Many IT teams and CTOs today spend significant time in IT hygiene maintenance activities, including security certifications, continuous upgrades, performance measurements, and compliance checks. Needless to say, it hampers productivity. The technical debt that organizations accrue is a significant contributor to the increasing technical burden. IT overheads can be deftly done away with low code platforms and enable developers to rapidly build applications that can bring in higher business value.

Improve IT Governance

Low-code offer a standard modeling environment that promotes IT governance and do away with data, process, and security vulnerabilities. Also, the reduced dependency on quick-fix third-party applications and collaborative work environment helps prevent shadow IT.

To Conclude

There are metrics and tradeoffs to consider when dealing with the backlog of code debt. IT team members must consider short-term business needs against long-term methodologies when managing technical debt. The capital spent on technology modernization, updates, and repairs needed are the sophisticated terms given to technical debt. And these monies can almost always be reallocated into other areas when technical debt is managed correctly.

Almost every enterprise has some amount of technical debt or bad code. Therefore, it is crucial to realize, recognize, and remove it before it gets too late by investing in a robust low code automation platform.

Read this whitepaper to know more about low-code platforms and how it is instrumental in removing enterprise technical debt.