The Use and Benefits of Low-Code No-Code Development in Business Intelligence (BI) and Predictive Analytics Solutions

Data Creation vs. Data Consumption–When a team member or business user is presented with self-serve analytics, the user will often see the new tool as less of an opportunity and more of a burden. By providing augmented analytics with LCNC-enabled features, the team can easily incorporate useful tools into day-to-day tasks. They can create, share and collaborate and the value of analytics will become clear to them, thereby enabling user adoption. Your team will advance beyond consuming data created by IT staff to conceiving, creating and sharing data and making the transition to Citizen Data Scientists, thereby reducing dependency on the IT team and freeing IT to focus on more strategic issues.

Fact-Based Decision-Making and Data literacy– LCNC-enabled analytics and BI tools creates an intuitive data exploration environment that is accessible and easy to navigate, so the team can create real-time insights, collaborate, present information to management teams and work in an agile environment, incorporating analytics within day-to-day workflow to make data-driven decisions.

Empowering Users– The low code, no-code analytics approach enables team members with tools that allow for data visualization, data preparation, predictive modeling, and the use of analytics to create reports, dashboards and data visualization. Data is presented in a way that is meaningful to each user, no matter their business function or their technology experience. Users can quickly respond to customer needs, market changes, and management directives and goals without the assistance of IT team members, thereby freeing the team to adapt and address issues quickly, and optimizing the IT team and resources. The user is empowered to use data in a way that allows them to leverage domain, industry and business functional knowledge, making them more independent and encouraging them to become power users. Analytics with LCNC platforms allows users to leverage dashboards and reports and dashboards that incorporate data integrated from disparate systems, without complex data preparation and coding.

Personalization and Customization– Low-code, no-code supports an intuitive drag and drop environment with pre-built components, so the organization and its users can create custom views, visualizations and tools to support the needs of a team, a business function, or a particular user, so users are not limited to restrictive reports, dashboards, visualization and tools. Because every business and every user is different, the ability to personalize and customize workflow to support user needs is key to user adoption and to successful use of data, and meaningful interpretation of data.

User Adoption– When an enterprise invests in business intelligence and analytics, it must ensure user adoption in order to make the most of its investment and its analytics strategy. By employing LCNC-enabled analytics, the organization ensures that users will WANT to use the selected solution to complete tasks and follow business processes and workflow to complete approval processes, present data, and increase the value of each team member’s knowledge and skill for the organization.

Enable Citizen Data Scientists– Create an environment where business users can thrive and become Citizen Data Scientists with solutions that are easy-to-use, intuitive and can quickly produce results and data insight that will enhance the team value to the organization.

Improved Return on Investment and Total Cost of Ownership– The deployment of analytics and BI tools with LCNC components improves Return on Investment (ROI) and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by increasing user adoption, improving productivity and decreasing the time it takes to make a decision, and by leveraging the skills and knowledge of your team, as well as optimizing the time of your IT team and data scientists by redirecting their attention to more strategic issues.

Responsive to Changing Workflow and Technology Environs– LCNC analytics enhances workflow and automates business processes across systems and data repositories to improve process uniformity, user and management communication, efficiency and productivity. It improves team collaboration, so the business can make the most of its technology and human resources. LCNC is flexible and agile and can help the enterprise to respond to changes in technology and changes within the business environment.

Scalability and Governance– Governance, security and scalability are all important aspects of technology management. To protect its interests, mitigate risk and establish best practices, the enterprise can use the capabilities and backend components of its analytics solution to build appropriate frameworks, create policies and best practices, and build an integration strategy to support LCNC analytics within existing systems.

Cost vs. Productivity– When the enterprise chooses LCNC analytics and BI tools it can leverage low-code/no-code platforms to reduce reliance on programmers and developers and allocate those resources to more strategic projects. By encouraging collaboration among users and with IT and Data Scientists the business can leverage business, technical and other specialized knowledge and encourage innovation, data democracy and data literacy to drive enterprise efficiency and growth.

Data Integration and Embedded BI– LCNC analytics allows for ease of data integration among data resources, with APIs and pre-built connectors so the enterprise can easily integrate data from ERP, CRM, HRM, finance, SCM and other systems with no complex coding required. LCNC components allow for ease of data integration visual tools to map and transform data from disparate sources and systems so the organization has a comprehensive view of data and can gain valuable data insight. Embedded BI and analytics components can further enhance user adoption and enterprise ROI and TCO by integrating analytics within familiar and popular business applications.

Preparing for the Future– The future of no-code and low-code within BI tools and analytics solutions is promising. Current and future development in Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) will enable further expansion of LCNC capabilities. As these tools become more intuitive and adaptive, the enterprise will see more advantages. Users and businesses will enjoy a more personalized experience, more seamless contextual awareness and more responsive user interfaces for data preparation, predictive analytics, data visualization, and clear, concise dashboards and reports. The business will enjoy more personalized guidance, more refined data insight and more targeted data analytics to support the future of the enterprise.

Is the Solution Truly LCNC?

In this article, we have defined low-code and no-code development and how it fits within the business intelligence (BI) and augmented analytics environment. But it is important to remember that the low-code/no-code market of platforms and how this technology is integrated within analytics solutions will vary greatly. While some business intelligence (BI) and augmented analytics solutions do incorporate LCNC concepts, features and tools, not every solution or application can truly be called low code/no code. In short, some solutions have a minimal LCNC component and will require the skills of a programmer or developer to leverage their features and functionality. If you plan to roll out LCNC-enabled analytics to provide your business users and Citizen Data Scientists with tools, be sure that the analytics and BI tools you choose are truly LCNC-enabled with features that will allow your team to work on their own and use the solution on a daily basis to create, collaborate and make decisions. Avoid complex and highly-customized projects that will take time and money to complete and will require costly updates and upgrades when you wish to make a change.

Choose a Solution That Meets the Skills and Needs of Users and the Enterprise

By incorporating LCNC within analytics and BI tools, you can enjoy many benefits, but it is important to understand that low-code platforms are not suitable for all types of applications for analytics and BI or for business use cases. Depending on how you plan to use analytics within the organization, and on the use cases you develop to test solution capability, you may find that some solutions will not meet the needs. Low-Code components are not suitable for extremely complex or highly-customized analytics or BI projects and, depending on the solution and vendor, the solution may not be able to handle certain volumes or types of data or workflow i.e., big data or large-scale analytics. Standard low-code platforms are not always secure, because the generated code may lack the robust security controls and features normally seen in code written by a professional programmer or developer. Be sure that the solution you choose meets your needs for security, privacy and standards. Be sure that the solution you select leverages LCNC in a way that is appropriate for analytics and BI tools and applications.

Vendor Understanding of LCNC

As with all software programs, tools, techniques, platforms and frameworks, the capabilities of and features and functionality of a particular technology cannot be fully leveraged if the development team does not understand the full potential, restrictions and opportunities inherent in the technology. When you choose an LCNC-enabled analytics solution be sure you understand the skills, experience and capabilities of the development team responsible for designing, creating and maintaining the analytics solution. We often refer to LCNC as a drag and drop technology, but that does not mean that its incorporation and integration into a complex analytics solution should be taken lightly. There is much to be done to ensure that the technology is used appropriately and that the vendor has planned for the future with flexible, scalable solutions that will serve you well.

Solution Integrity

Is the business intelligence, augmented analytics solution built on a solid foundation of sophisticated analytics tools and techniques? LCNC should be used to enhance a solid product, not to mimic a robust solution. Be sure that the product and vendor have references and a history of providing analytics and business intelligence and that the solution you are selecting is not just a good looking front-end that has very little capability. Does the solution provide rich functionality and features with self-serve tools to leverage sophisticated algorithms and analytical techniques or is it a simple data gathering and reporting tool?

Roadmap for the Future

When a vendor incorporates new technology within its existing products, it must have an idea of where the product is going – a product roadmap that takes into consideration the new technology, how it may change in the future and how the product can and should be upgraded to take advantage of what is happening in a rapidly changing technology environment.

The future of LCNC will include expanded and enhanced artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. For example, the concept of Unified Commerce Business Optimization System (UCBOS), a zero-code approach that is designed to enable digital transformation throughout the enterprise by connecting all systems, data and workflow. The technology world of the future will allow programmers to use natural language to describe what they need and their requirements for an app, and then translate that into functional applications, allowing developers to program using natural dialogue to create and upgrade software. While we are few years away from this future, it easy to see how application development, and the skills required of an app development team will have to change, and how the evolution of software and applications will involve a different process than it does today, employing human skills, creativity, and artificial intelligence to take on more routine tasks and processes. Be sure your vendor has a vision for the future of the analytics product and will continue to leverage LCNC, AI and other technologies and tools as they become available and as they are deemed appropriate and practical for business intelligence and analytics solutions.