Why Application Leaders Invest in Low-Code

Application Leaders oversee all stages of the Enterprise Applications lifecycle, from budget management to functional roadmap definition, vendor selection, technology and architecture choices, development, and modernization. 

Also known as Application Managers or Software Engineer Managers, they are responsible for ensuring the seamless operation of digital systems across the organization. The larger and more structured the organization, the more complex their task of managing and coordinating software to ensure efficiency, interoperability, and alignment with business objectives.  

According to Gartner®^[1] Organizations’ Top Three Business Goals for 2024 are to Improve operational efficiency (as per 65% of respondents), Generate new revenue (as per 59% of respondents), and Reduce operating costs (as per 51% of respondents). 

To reach these goals, we believe that Application Leaders must align application strategy with business objectives and this need requires the modernization of legacy enterprise applications and the choice of technologies both to modernize and build new applications.  

The Challenge of Continuous modernization

The rapid pace of technological advancement and the increasing demand for new features in applications in recent years have significantly expanded the backlog of Application Leaders' tasks. This has also led to a rise in technical debt, compounded by a shortage of development skills and resources. As a result, the gap between actual enterprise applications capacity and business demands continues to widen, reducing operational efficiency and increasing misalignment between business and IT.

"The 2023 Gartner Legacy Modernization Survey results show that more than half (56%) of organizations are running 60% to 80% of their workloads in core systems (i.e., systems of record providing core capabilities)."^[2] In our view, Application Leaders must adopt the right technologies to face this need for continuous modernization and to build modern applications avoiding actual legacy systems issues.

Among the top technologies there is Low-Code. According to Gartner^[3], approximately 10% to 15% of business capabilities or business requirements are allocated to Building custom apps via LCAP or pro-code.  

The Low-Code Solution

Investment in Low-Code platforms has grown by an average of 25%^[4] annually in recent years, with projections indicating further acceleration ^[5]. The primary reasons behind Low-Code adoption increase are productivity and the ability to implement an Agile development approach, though the benefits go beyond these.

Enhanced productivity reduces the resources required and minimizes development backlog, while iterative development improves implementation effectiveness, business alignment, and stakeholder satisfaction. Requirements do not need to be fully defined upfront but can be refined through testing at the end of each development sprint. 

Automatically generated, standardized, and error-free code helps eliminate technical debt and frees developers from focusing on code quality, allowing them to concentrate on functionality and design. Additionally, developers do not need specialized programming expertise, as they can build applications using visual design tools and configuration settings instead of traditional coding. 

The ability to develop with modules—leveraging microservices connected to customized front-ends—lets build applications incrementally, starting with core functionalities and expanding over time.  

This approach is beneficial for modernizing or extending legacy systems, enabling gradual replacement, integration, or extension of functionalities instead of creating a new monolithic system requiring months of development. 

Low-Code platforms provide Application Leaders with a solution to the challenges of continuous modernization and growing business demands for new enterprise applications. Visual languages and tools eliminate the need to focus on evolving technologies, addressing agility, resource reduction, skill gaps, technical debt, and enterprise application alignment with business strategy. 

This shift makes customer experience and innovation top priorities, enabling applications to reach their full potential and continuously align with market trends—or even create new ones.

Discover the fourfold impact of Low-Code on modernization >

Sources

[1] Gartner, Innovation Insight: Autonomous Workload Optimization, By Pankaj Prasad, Hassan Ennaciri, Manjunath Bhat, 19 August 2024. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

[2] Gartner, “Strategies for Enterprise Applications Modernization Success, By Enterprise Applications Research Team, 25 November 2024.

[3] Gartner, Build vs. Buy Strategy: Top Principles for Enterprise Applications, By Tad Travis, Denis Torii, Anne Thomas, Akis Sklavounakis, 17 February 2025.

[4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1226179/low-code-development-platform-market-revenue-global/

[5] https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/report/low-code-development-platform-global-market-report