Super dry goods! ! The full text is 5000+ words, and an article will take you to fully grasp the origin of low-code and the overall planning and talent construction of digital transformation . This article has no nonsense, and the whole process is high-energy.
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The following text begins:
There are always ups and downs in the IT circle, but only when the tide subsides and survives can it be a product with real social value.
Putting this rule on the "low code" track is the same.
I personally think that low code will be one of the essential elements in the digital transformation of enterprises in the future.
Speaking of low code, we can talk about its origin first.
1. Germination
In the early days, low-code was not actually the opposite of traditional coding mode (coding), and even complemented and promoted jointly with traditional coding. In fact, in any coding language, the framework and modularization of code writing have always been the direction of language development. Various IDE tools such as: Pycharm, Visual Studio Code, etc., in fact, you can also understand it as a form of low-code existence.
To put it simply [low code], it can be understood as how to use more efficient programming methods to develop business systems.
Broadly speaking, the following concepts can be classified as low-code categories:
1. AI: artificial intelligence
2. BI: Business Intelligence
3. RPA: process automation
4. BPM: Business Process Management
It can also be found that [low code] is actually more about extracting a general-purpose module of a certain vertical category through the accumulation of experience in a large number of scenarios, and turning fragmentary code programming into a product with component functions for this specific scenario. Through this product, users can realize the development of specific requirements with very high efficiency. Thereby reducing time and manpower input.
2. Forming
However, for a long period of time, manufacturers did not call their products low-code, and preferred to use a more specific name to name the field of their products. Until 2014, the well-known research institution Forrester Research The concept of "low code/zero code" was formally proposed. At this time, the characteristics of low code are more solidified.
- Weaken the IDE code programming interface
- More graphical and visual development
- Equipped with mature and perfect plug-in services
Subsequent low-code platforms generated according to this definition began to attract everyone's attention in the global market in an instant. Foreign countries include OutSystems, Mendix, Kony, Salesforce, App Maker (Google), PowerApps (Microsoft), etc. Yita, iVX, Qingliu, Mingdaoyun and so on.
3. Reappearance
As Salesforce started as a CRM-based company, through the active integration of low-code capabilities, it has achieved a unicorn enterprise covering marketing management services in various industries around the world. Low code has taken a very important step in business practice. In the Chinese market, domestic low-code companies ushered in the first wave of investment in 2015. Manufacturers such as Qingliu, Mingdao Cloud, and Partner Cloud have formally transformed their original digital businesses into the low-code field. But at this stage, the boost of capital has not achieved the expected effect. Issues such as immature products, poor user acceptance, and weak corporate digital concepts lead to low user acceptance of low-code products. The entire market subsequently fell into a downturn.
At the beginning of 2021, with the launch of DingTalk 6.0, the concept of "low code" was proposed again, and a new wave of low code wave was set off again. In the week after the press conference, the popularity of the keyword "low code" in the Baidu Index directly increased by 2,000 times. It has reached a new high, which also allows both established low-code manufacturers and new players to wait for a new wave of market opportunities.
4. Precipitation
However, the new round of storms did not last long. In March 2022, Hei Payun announced the suspension of service. The popularity of low-code has returned to flat again. Many manufacturers and users have encountered common problems.
An easy-to-operate platform cannot produce complex products and cannot be put into practical application.
Platforms with high barriers to entry are often aimed at IT personnel, but IT personnel are currently not optimistic about this series of products, thinking that their capability boundaries and usability are not as good as traditional coding.
Therefore, many people think that "low code" is actually just a toy created by asset speculation, and it cannot have real usability.
But there are also some platforms that have survived the storm. Through countless projects to prove its own value and positioning. There is a leader here, weaving letter low code.
The real meaning of low code for enterprises:
Since enterprises want to use low-code, we must be clear about what value low-code can bring to enterprises.
1. Cost reduction and efficiency increase
According to statistics, the efficiency of low-code development in the application of enterprise internal informationization is about 67%, which is equivalent to one person being able to exert the human efficiency of 2-3 people. After the development is completed, the cycle of testing and optimization will be greatly shortened accordingly. Therefore, it may take 3 months for the same project to be done through traditional coding methods, but low-code is expected to be completed in about 1 month. Whether it is manpower occupation or time cost, low code has absolute advantages in reducing costs and increasing efficiency.
2. Step by step
You don't need to do a lot of preparation work to start coding like code development in the past. Through low-code WYSIWYG, rapid development features. Many business practices or optimizations can be developed in a few minutes and get feedback on the results. This will directly change the original corporate digitalization strategy plan. Make the overall planning process of digitization more calm. Don't worry about the problem that once you start developing a lot of things, you can't modify it and you can't go back. The modular development model will make the entire business more flexible and better able to match market changes.
3. Full participation
Different from the situation where IT personnel must participate in traditional coding, for some basic changes or development work, the low-code platform no longer requires IT personnel to "hands-on". Business personnel can also configure the platform according to their own needs. In companies with shortage of IT resources, this model will greatly increase the enthusiasm of employees to participate in information construction, and better promote the implementation of enterprise digitalization.
What are the characteristics of an enterprise-level platform:
1. Enterprise level
The most important significance of the enterprise level is that it must be able to become an important "pillar" of informatization that supports the development of various departments and businesses of the enterprise. The digital application scenarios of enterprises usually include data information management, business approval, various report analysis and Other business; according to the business department, it can be divided into personnel administration, project, sales, research and development, production, etc.; according to the current software category, it can be divided into ERP, CRM, OA, PLM, MES, etc., and there are other industries in various industries definition standard.
Therefore, if you want to purchase a low-code platform, whether it can support the above-mentioned scenarios to complete system development tasks will be the most critical factor for all companies to purchase platforms. Nobody wants to buy a toolbox that only solves one problem.
2. Ease of use and maintainability
Many low-code development platforms often only emphasize the business development process, but ignore the subsequent operation and maintenance management. To know a normal and operational system, the completion of development is only the beginning, and there will be continuous optimization and development in the future. So who will develop, who can develop, and how to manage and maintain the version. Large-scale information systems require strict R&D management processes. Otherwise, if the operation is careless, it may lead to the loss of important business data of the enterprise and the paralysis of the business. This piece of low code cannot "sing against" traditional code development.
Enterprise-level low-code can remain the same as traditional code development in this area. In terms of operation and maintenance:
- Support rights management for developers to achieve module and function restrictions;
- Support to view the running status of the application, and monitor the occupied resources and times of automated transactions in the running process;
- Support version management of the application system, can synchronize git, and realize branch pull and upload;
- Support the application modification-release mechanism, and support the development and update process of "UAT-grayscale-production environment".
3. Embrace new technology
In addition to being able to support the development of conventional information systems, with the needs of market development, the integration of new technologies can produce different chemical reactions with low code. For example, with the sudden emergence of the AIGC concept, the low-code platform also responded positively, taking the lead in connecting with ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion.
Through the docking with ChatGPT, the AI intelligent development of the business system is realized, and the development efficiency is further improved.
As an important model in the field of AI images, Stable Diffusion is integrated into the low-code platform, and the platform can quickly call the needs of AI-generated graphs and graph-generated graphs in relevant image business scenarios. Serving e-commerce, design, advertising and other fields, it has greatly improved business productivity.
Let's talk about the case:
We once served a 20-year-old industrial enterprise to achieve overall digital upgrade.
"The customer needs to purchase more than a dozen software systems in succession around the office, production workshop manufacturing R&D, supply chain upstream and downstream, procurement, warehousing, transportation and dealer management. However, due to different suppliers, these software systems often do not have mutual The ability to connect. In the future, suppliers need to be required to develop the docking interface, and the secondary development cost may exceed the original procurement cost, and even the original factory of some systems is no longer available, and no one can be found to maintain it.”
In response to the above problems, the low-code platform can take advantage of flexible configuration and treat it as a universal interface. Without the need for large-scale adjustments to the original system, the application of the low-code platform can actively adapt to the original system, and all data Pull it to the platform, so that we can easily perform secondary processing on these data.
Subsequently, the platform assisted the client to complete the construction of large-scale systems such as resource management and control (ERP), production management (MES), and (PLM). The digital strategy that originally planned to invest millions of dollars in three years was completed in less than a year through Zhixin's low-code platform, and the manpower and development costs were also greatly reduced.
So how should enterprises do a good job in digital transformation route design?
1. How to correctly evaluate the cost of digital investment
For most enterprises, the operators cannot grasp the pricing power of the digital strategy. How much to pay for the effect is basically like opening a blind box in terms of digitalization, and no one has a clear idea. At this time, the clients we have done generally have a relatively simple and crude valuation method, which is about 10% of the annual profit. More than this amount, business operators are often more willing to use the money to make more practical investments, such as adding factories, purchasing equipment, and expanding the marketing team, rather than spending on invisible and intangible software systems.
However, this kind of subjective judgment often leads to enterprises looking at money to buy vegetables when purchasing systems, and cannot really buy an information system that suits them. Therefore, based on more than ten years of industry implementation experience, we provide you with The cost of some digital constructions is for reference only.
2. Neglected "Overall Planning"
Many enterprises have unclear transformation paths and lack long-term strategic planning. The main reason is that business operators lack experience in digital transformation, so they usually buy one and try it out with the attitude of giving it a try. However, the implementation of the information system is not simply an addition. The procurement of subsequent systems often needs to consider whether the previously purchased systems are compatible, whether the business processes can be aligned, and whether the data models can be consistent. And to solve these problems, whether it involves the transformation of old systems, data interface docking, business process reorganization, etc., these additional costs cannot be estimated at the initial stage of the project.
Therefore, the neglected "overall planning" is actually necessary to be done in the front.
The platform usually adopts a 4-step strategy in the process of helping enterprises sort out digital business.
(1) Establish a digital committee
Since the company's digital transformation is a multi-step, long-term work, it is difficult to achieve consistency from top to bottom. Therefore, it is necessary to set up a special "team" to actively promote the implementation of digitalization.
The digitalization committee can be composed of key members of the company, and the core roles include:
- The chairman of the committee is generally the head of the core department or the person in charge of the company that has the greatest impact on digitalization. Mainly responsible for the promotion and supervision of the overall digitalization;
- Consultant, a member with a certain IT background, is responsible for assessing the supplier's ability and coordinating the follow-up docking work;
- Members, heads of various departments, are responsible for assisting in promoting the implementation of the company's overall digitalization in the department and clearing internal obstacles.
(2) Determine business boundaries
In the past extensive management, the business boundaries of various departments were often blurred. For example, the follow-up of order payment, the role of finance and business, and the actions to be performed, often each company has its own statement. These vague work items need to be clarified in the process of digital establishment. A specific job will be carried out in a specific position and will be supervised by the system. Therefore, we need to re-examine our own business boundaries, determine the job responsibilities and work content of each position, and solidify them into the digital system.
(3) Clear business process
Due to the lack of digital support, the processes in traditional business often lack formal implementation. The phenomenon of verbal transmission and leapfrog transmission of work information occurs frequently. In a digital system, any process requires the system to set nodes, process people, and process actions. For companies that have no experience in sorting out business processes, the platform can provide product managers with senior industry knowledge to provide support.
(4) Master data combing
For example, BOM in ERP, departments and ranks in personnel management are master data modules that run through the entire business process system. In many enterprises that are not yet mature in digitalization, there are often situations where a product has multiple names, which will cause huge troubles for subsequent business flow and data statistics. The establishment of a unified and standardized master data system is the foundation of digitalization.
3. How to start talent development?
Most small and medium-sized enterprises have not yet established a digital talent training system, and lack the supply of digital talents in production, operation, marketing, management and other links, resulting in insufficient digital transformation capabilities of enterprises. According to the survey, the average proportion of digital-related talents in small and medium-sized enterprises is only 20%, and only 15% of enterprises have established a digital talent training system.
We recommend that enterprises pay attention to the following points when building digital talents:
(1) Introduce business talents with IT related background
In foreign countries, in large enterprises, there is a high probability that the personnel in charge of business may have a certain IT professional background. If an enterprise does not understand IT at all, it is easy to lose its way in the process of digital transformation. It has no product thinking and software awareness. Whether it is leading the development by itself or finding cooperation with suppliers, it lacks personnel who can cooperate with it.
(2) Strengthen the digital training and summary of business personnel to enhance the sense of identity
In the process of promoting digitalization, enterprises not only inform employees to use new systems or tools, but also need to systematically train employees on how to switch working modes, data migration, and business adjustments, and encourage them to actively accept digital training or A summary of employees who utilize digital tools for their work practices. Promote the effectiveness of digitalization at the company level to enhance the overall employee's sense of identity with digital transformation.
(3) Realize the transfer of low-code capabilities
Take advantage of low-code platforms. Digital transformation is not a simple informatization or IT transformation, but a systematic reform project involving the entire business and cross functions of an enterprise. Give corporate culture a new digital connotation, and through low-code efficiency and high-visibility methods, business personnel will be able to raise requirements, and technical personnel will quickly make requirements. Using numbers to advance business low-code can maximize the release of value by solving digital dead ends and connecting systems in series.
The brand-new low-code construction model has already given innovative companies a taste of the sweetness. Fewer personnel and shorter time lead to better digital results. This will also change the cooperation model between enterprises and digital suppliers in the future. Enterprises can better grasp the initiative of digital development.