Trend ICT 2022 and Technical Debt: Low-Code is the solution
Tech Trend 2022
The 12 trends of 2022 predicted by Gartner[1] show technologies, such as Hyperautomation, Composable Applications, Distributed Enterprises and Cloud-Native Platforms, that will become strategic in improving efficiency, simplicity of remote work, security and effectiveness of business decisions thanks to the guidance provided by data analysis.
In fact, according to Forrester[2], next year’s spending on process automation will increase by 33% for RPA solutions and 13% for DPA solutions.
The drivers of this continuous increase in importance of companies' digital technologies and automations are defined in the IDC[3] report as such: the pandemic, including the consequent economic and social changes, has led to an accelerated transformation of processes that is visible at glance, and companies have had to reorganize and review the architecture of their information systems in order to meet the new needs of mobility, speed and security required by customers. In fact, IDC predicts that by 2024, 55% of ICT global investments will be linked to digital transformation.
The need for resilient business[4] and process models[5] is emerging, in which agility, scalability, integration and information pervasiveness are necessary tools to ensure a holistic vision and operational speed suitable for seizing every opportunity of increasingly changing and globalized markets, with growing expectations of offer’s completeness and customization of by customers.
Technical Debt
In this frame of reference, the problem of technical debt[6] arises, which is the cost of correcting software systems that in the long term prove to be problematic due to the poor quality of code. In other words, when speed is preferred over development quality for short-term needs, companies may later find themselves having to spend a considerable amount of resources to rewrite the code and make the software scalable, flexible and robust.
In this period of digital acceleration, release deadlines are getting closer and closer, and the danger of creating software that will give you a technical debt in only 2 or 3 years is an economic risk that few companies can take. A McKinsey survey[7] reports that up to 20% of CIOs' budgets is used to repay the technical debt of legacy systems and that the debt has increased for 60% of respondents over the past 3 years.
Measure the Tech Debt
Spending 20% a year for the technical debt of a software, compared to what was spent to develop it initially, means that it would be like having developed two in 5 years. So, isn’t it convenient to make a new one that reduces maintenance costs and lasts longer? This is the question underlying the technical debt ratio[8] or the measure of the actual cost of technical debt calculated as the ratio between modification costs and development costs.
Obviously, the company must consider development costs, as well as those of adopting the software, which include the period of testing and user training for the correct use. Nevertheless, spending 20% of the budget for legacy information systems is certainly a significant debt that is not sustainable for companies.
How Low-Code can decrease Technical Debt
Technical debt arises from the lack of attention to various aspects of planning, design and development, which can be easily resolved with the use of Low-Code technology:
Analysis, Design and Architecture
The visual and modular approach of Low-Code simplifies the vision and management of software architecture, considerably accelerating development and thus leaving more time for the initial analysis and design phase.
Quality and understandability of the code
The code generated automatically by a Low-Code environment, such as WebRatio Platform, is standard, avoiding the possibility of manual errors and misunderstanding in case of handover between developers.
The vendor is responsible for updating the technologies
Developers and IT managers do not have to worry about time and budget used to adapt the code to new web/mobile technological requirements because the activity is delegated to the company that provides the Low-Code platform.
UX and UI
Low-Code tools such as the UI Designer simplify the development of interfaces and features to improve the User eXperience, speeding up the implementation process while also providing the ability to customize down to the smallest detail.
Understanding between Business and IT
If a business application does not require the addition of many features after development, it means that it meets all of the initial business requirements, so the understanding between LoB and IT was successful. This is the principle of using a Low-Code Suite like WebRatio Platform: to have a tool that simplifies the link between the two company functions, using technologies, such as BPA, to provide a language that is understandable to both and to simplify the transformation of business ideas in digital functionalities.
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Sources
[1] https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/insights/top-technology-trends
[3] https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=US48312921
[4] https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/create-a-resilient-business-model-in-the-face-of-covid-19
[5] https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insights/strategy/resilient-operating-model
[6] https://www.techopedia.com/definition/27913/technical-debt
[8] https://medium.com/the-andela-way/what-technical-debt-is-and-how-its-measured-ff41603005e3