How low code business apps can help companies recover post Covid-19
Last year Forrester forecast that the low-code market will grow 40% annually to $21.2 billion by 2022[i]. As companies look for ways to support their recovery post Covid-19, many are turning to low-code tools to develop business apps, according to Malcolm Carroll, director at BlueFinity International.
Carroll says, “As we move through the pandemic companies want to ensure they have a sound basis for economic recovery. One solution is the creation and timely introduction of innovative business apps. For some companies Covid-19 has accelerated the pace of digitalisation and increased demand for apps, as companies see them as a way of responding to the challenges of the virus and changing consumer and business behaviour.”
According to mobile analytics firm App Annie[ii] the pandemic “has changed consumer behaviour on mobile forever” with their latest statistics highlighting that Covid-19 has driven consumer spending on apps to $50 billion in the first half of 2020, up 10% from the second half of 2019.
Other research from McKinsey[iii] showed that digital interaction with B2B customers is now two times more important than traditional channels—more than a 30 percent jump since before the COVID-19 crisis hit.
Carroll says, “Apps allow businesses to deliver all or part of their services to customers on mobile devices and laptops, as well as traditional desktops. The security and flexibility of an app, in a world where people are working from home, social distancing and changing their routine on a continual basis, can help companies adapt and aid their business recovery.
“However, the key now is that companies need to be able to develop apps quickly and cost-effectively to be competitive. Low code development platforms, which enable companies to use existing staff to build sophisticated business apps without the need for employing outside software developers, are the ideal solution.”
One company that has been using BlueFinity’s low code development platform, Evoke to digitalise a manual ordering system is Classic Groundcovers, a wholesale nursery based in Georgia, USA that sells plants to nurseries, re-wholesalers and landscape contractors, who experienced a surge in sales in the spring of this year.
Spring is always their busiest time. This year orders were exceptional as the pandemic forced people to stay at home and many turned to gardening, increasing demand for plants.
The company had operated a manual order system and when order volumes were high, managing orders took up to 12 hours a day of administration and the situation was unsustainable. Classic Groundcover approached BlueFinity to create an app to automate their order processing, reduce their administration, and ensure they could manage high volumes of orders.
Using Evoke and the support from the BlueFinity team, an app was created and deployed in 90 days. The company said that having the app has been ‘ground-breaking.’ It has automated their order processing; enabling the company to not only managed the surge in orders but grow the business and halve the time spent on administration.
BlueFinity also helped one of Groundcover’s biggest wholesalers to get set up with the Evoke app as well and as a result, Classic Groundcover processed a record number of 3000 orders from that wholesaler alone, during this spring period.
Carroll adds, “We recommend that companies don’t delay decisions to go digital until ‘things get back to normal’ as they could miss a significant opportunity to get their business ready for the post Covid-19 world. The business world has changed and in many instances the changes will become a more permanent part of life.
“Now is the time to not only be responding to the changes but also to be planning for the future. In the world of business and commerce, the introduction of the right apps can provide the point of difference that is so often needed to stay ahead of the competition.”
Evoke allows businesses to design, develop and deploy adaptive business apps across multiple mobile and desktop devices using their existing staff, and in a fraction of the time and cost of traditional methods. It is a develop once, deploy everywhere platform that requires no hand coding.
Evoke is the only mainstream low-code App development platform that provides for complete flexibility in meeting current and future requirements. From the same design you can generate web, hybrid and native apps to run on mobile devices and desktops. All regular devices are supported including the iPad, iPhone and watches; Android and Windows phones, tablets and watches plus Windows, Linux and Apple desktop. Future proofing is guaranteed as Evoke is based on industry standard technologies and provides the development options to create your apps entirely with Evoke, to add unlimited custom and library code or to generate and work with complete Visual Studio and Xamarin projects, all from the same design and code base.