Citizen automation is a concept that is getting a lot of attention in the world of enterprise digital transformation. While the term may sound "strange and familiar," it has already caused quite a stir in the civic development movement. So, what is citizen automation? How is it different from citizen development?
What is civic development?
Civic development has long been something that many companies talk about. It covers all non-technical personnel, and they can quickly create solutions or applications that meet business needs through a no-code development platform, thereby improving work efficiency. In this way, the burden on developers is reduced, and the cost of learning and use is also reduced. It is worth noting that citizen development takes place within the framework set by IT, ensuring that the software being built is compliant with IT requirements.
What about civic automation? It refers to the use of automation technology to empower citizens to develop. Compared with traditional manual development methods, automation technology can speed up the development process and improve the quality and reliability of applications. At the same time, citizen automation can also help enterprises achieve larger digital transformation in response to rapidly changing market demands. Citizen automation is a new trend in the digital transformation of enterprises and is expected to play a huge role in the future development.
What is Citizen Automation?
While citizen development refers to individuals building applications for smaller use cases and department-specific needs, citizen automation is more focused on automating organization-wide. Often a more complex technology stack is required and a deeper technical review is required, as the impact is long-term and directly related to the future direction of the digital transformation of the enterprise.
Citizen automation is the process of empowering more people with technology, enabling non-technical and non-IT employees without technical expertise to learn and build advanced software systems using robotic process automation (RPA), data science, and artificial intelligence.
Whether it is citizen development or citizen automation, they all aim to build enterprise business systems more efficiently to meet market demands. In addition, this approach can also reduce development costs and improve resource utilization efficiency, thereby bringing competitive advantages to enterprises. Therefore, both civic development and civic automation are feasible and efficient options for enterprises to build business systems.
How citizen automation can benefit businesses
The benefits that citizen automation brings to business are not limited to short-term gains, but also long-term impact and hard-to-measure intangible value. Here are the key benefits of citizen automation:
Improve software life cycle efficiency
Citizen automation can benefit organizations by enabling business analysts and users to autonomously build software that fits their needs. In the process, they can sharpen their skills by becoming acquainted with the latest technologies to shape the company's future.
Improve business and IT collaboration
Many organizations face the problem of shadow IT, that is, the use of technology that has not been approved by IT. The main reason is that the IT team is overburdened or there are communication barriers in the IT process. A company-wide citizen automation plan approved by the IT department not only eliminates shadow IT but also improves the time to rollout of automation software.
Cost savings - technical and operational costs
Citizen Automation solves the IT talent shortage by empowering non-technical people to build world-class software. This not only reduces the burden on the IT team, but also reduces the working capital expenditure required to recruit developers.
Taken together, citizen automation brings multiple benefits to businesses. It increases the efficiency of software development and delivery, improves business-IT collaboration, and saves costs. By building internal workforce skills and engagement, Citizen Automation provides organizations with greater flexibility and innovation, enabling them to better respond to changing business environments.
The Heart of Civic Automation – A No-Code Platform
Citizen automation initiatives in large enterprises cannot do without a no-code platform, which offers a variety of features and benefits. So, what is a no-code platform?
No-code is a graphical build-based approach to application development that bypasses the bottlenecks that typically accompany software development while providing guided scripting to bridge software development skills gaps.
No-code platforms have several advantages in citizen automation:
Protect privacy and security
The no-code platform complies with the latest global security and privacy regulations, keeping data safe and reducing the risk of non-compliance before it can materially impact your company.
No backend configuration required
The no-code platform is based on the cloud and does not require back-end configuration. The provider has already set up an integrated IDE and server on its end, making integration a one-click process. Also, these platforms are scalable and can run on a variety of devices and platforms.
short learning curve
The visual build environments provided by no-code platforms use drag-and-drop capabilities to make software development more accessible and up to speed for citizen developers.
Support the latest technology
Low-code and no-code platforms are equipped with the latest technologies such as robotic process automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning models, augmented reality, etc., and offer a range of built-in features that support localization.
Cloud Watch Platform – The No-Code Citizen Automation Platform of Choice
The cloud watch platform is a "one-stop" no-code development platform that enables developers of all skill levels, from citizen developers to professional code experts, to build business solutions of all sizes. As an efficient solution building tool, the cloud table platform has robotic process automation, artificial intelligence-based functions and business process management tools, and has become the first choice for enterprises and organizations.