Low code and no code: digitalization bringing new opportunities for companies

The digital transformation in B2B sales demands more speed, flexibility and autonomy. Low code and no code functions offer exactly that: business units can create their own apps, optimize processes and realize ideas directly — all without long development cycles. What used to take months, now only takes a few days.

These approaches are especially powerful with CRM and CPQ processes. Configurations, price rules and workflows can all be changed quickly and continually developed. They represent a useful addition to existing sytems, all while creating space for strategic further development.

Using clear structures and responsibilities, potential risks can also be managed effectively. In this post you will learn how low code and no code can be used effectively, how you can accelerate processes while maintaining control — and how CAS solutions with functions such as the AppDesigner, Scripting and the Business Process Automation Assistant already offer options for low code and no code.

What to expect in this article

Why low code and no code are relevant for companies

Benefits of low code and no code for companies

Low code and no code in practice

Challenges and limitations of low code and no code

Selecting a suitable platform

Low code and no code: A look at modern CPQ and CRM strategies

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

Low code and no code as catalysts of the digital transformation

Why low code and no code are relevant for companies

Increasing digitalization is driving software demands in companies, but the necessary developers are missing. Currently, in Germany alone according to statistics from Bitkom, the industry association there are about 109, 000 vacant IT specialist jobs. Simultaneously, customers, partners and internal departments expect digital solutions to be delivered with increasing speed. This is where low code and no code solutions offer a way out of this difficult situation: Instead of programming applications line by line, users rely on a visual building block system using drag and drop interfaces and ready-made modules.

The statistics clearly show how hungry the market is for these types of solutions: the global market volume of low code and no code solutions is supposed to increase from almost 29 billion US-Dollars in 2026 to more than 264 billion US-Dollars in 2030.

Benefits of low code and no code for companies

With low code or no code, functional applications can be created in a matter of days or weeks instead of in months. Companies benefit from being able to act with much more speed and agility to new market requirements or regulatory changes.

Less programming effort means that companies can reduce their development costs. There are additional savings in maintenance and operational costs due to platform providers adopting hosting, updates and scaling.

The broad availability of development options in business units is a specific advantage. Employees from sales, marketing, human resources or operations can create their own digtial solutions using low code and no code. Those who know the processes the best, should be the ones who design any suitable tools. This reduces any loss of information that typically occurs when transferring specialist requirements to IT departments. Solutions such as the CAS AppDesigner demonstrate, by way of example, how business units can design their own views, forms and analyses without any programming knowledge.

And finally, this will ease the pressure on IT and developer teams, which are often the bottleneck in any company. When business units build their own tools and workflows, IT teams can concentrate more fully on complex system architectures, security issues and strategic projects.

Low code and no code in practice

In the area of B2B, several areas of application have emereged in which low code and no code are particularly effective:

• Workflow automation: approval loops, onboarding processes or expense reports can be visually modelled and automated. Both turnaround times and error rates decrease. The CAS Business Process and Automation assistant is a practical example of how such processes can be modelled and automatied using drag and drop.
• Customer- and supplier portals: companies can create portals quickly, via which business partners can track orders, create service tickets or upload documents.
• Modernizing old systems: instead of completely replacing mature systems, companies can layer modern, cloud-based interfaces over existing databases. The data remains synchronized thanks to APIs.
• Dashboards and reporting: data from ERP, CRM and marketing tools all flows into interactive real-time dashboards, which business units can build without needing any deep technical knowledge. Here too, you can see how using tools such as the CAS AppDesigner, individual analyses can be created without needing any deep programming knowledge.

Challenges and limitations of low code and no code

Given all of the potential advantage, we should not lose sight of the possible risks and limitations of low code and no code. This is especially true when considering any company’s security and compliance issues.

When business units create their own applications without communicating with their IT team, there is a very real risk of data fragmentation and data islands as well as inconsistent processes. This is exactly why clear governance rules are essential.

Every app created by specialist users which accesses sensitive data must conform to security standards just as any professionally developed software would. For example, the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), specifically recommends measures such as authentication procedures and restrictive rights concepts, especially when it comes to the financial sector. Platforms with integrated rights concepts and governance functions such as those, for example, that the CAS solutions offer, can also create additional security at this point.

Low-code platforms are ideal for standardized workflows and data-entry user interfaces. However, when it comes to highly complex algorithms, very large data sets or specific rights models, visual development environments reach their limits. This is shown by an analysis conducted at Campana & Schott to help decide between low-code and high-code.

Other issues such as vendor lock-in should be avoided. Anyone who implements core processes on a proprietary platform becomes dependent on the provider. Changing later can be difficult and costly. Companies should therefore check early to determine what their export and migration options are.

Selecting a suitable platform

Any decision for a low-code or no-code platform should be structured. Analyst reports from Gartner, Forrester, and IDC provide a good overview of the maturity levels of various solutions. In addition, the Fraunhofer Institute recommends systematically evaluating four dimensions:

• Human: how intuitive is the user interface? How much training time will non-programmers realistically need?
• Technology: which connectors and APIs are already available? How well can the platform be integrated into the existing IT landscape.
• Organization: does the platform support agile working practices? Does it offer governance functionality to guarantee quality and security?
• Task: does the platform's level of complexity match the planned use case? Tools will change depending on the complexity, for example, simple formulas will require different tools than complex integrations.

Additionally, it is well worth defining the target group of users as exactly as possible. Non-technical users benefit from no-code solutions with clear guidelines, while development teams should work with low-code platforms that provide access to the code level.

Roles in sales digitalization

B2B sales is complex: long sales cycles, lots of decision-makers and often products which require intensive consultation. Classic CRM standard software often does not model this reality adequately. Low-code approaches can be helpful here, because sales management in the form of, for example, dashboards, lead management tools and pipeline overviews can all be adapted independently without having to involve the IT team every time a change is required.

Particularly in the area of CPQ (Configure Price Quote) solutions, low-code approaches can express their full utility, for example, in conjunction with the CAS Merlin CPQ solution. In industries such as mechanical and plant engineering or in telecommunications, customer quotes involve hundreds of product combinations with technical dependencies and dynamic price modelling. Rule-based cofiguration engines guide sales staff faultlessly through all possible options and check configurations in real-time. Product managers can manage rule sets, discounts and release workflows visually, without having to access the code itself. Using built-in low-code/no-code scripting features, tech-savvy users can add additional logic as needed without having to leave the platform — an example of how low-code and high-code approaches can work together in a single solution.

Classic ERP and CRM solutions form the stable spine of a company’s IT. At the same time, individual requirements have to be realized quickly and efficiently. A discussion paper by the Bitkom association concludes that low-code and no-code solutions do not replace standard ERP or CRM software, but rather complement it. 

In practice, this results in a layered model: the standard system remains untouched and can be updated. Sitting on top of this is the low-code layer, this is where specific requirements can be realized, such as custom release processes for discounts or an app for the recording of trade fair leads. Preconfigured APIs ensure data exchanges in real time.

It is precisely in this context that some providers are turning to platform-based approaches that allow for flexible customization of CRM and sales processes, for example. One example is the app-based solution SmartWe, which helps companies digitally map CRM processes and create their own views in the form of apps using an integrated app designer. With the Business Process Automation feature integrated into SmartWe, you can use drag and drop to turn recurring tasks into a comprehensive process with just a few clicks. 

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions