One year after launching NoCode into beta

March 2019 when we launched DronaHQ No-Code platform for beta access, we kept a simple target — build 50 serious production-grade apps for customers on the platform. In alignment with our goal, we focused our sales team and account team to go for use cases and get customers to sign up for apps built on the platform.

1000+ signups, 30+ serious apps for mid & large enterprises and government in prod and running. Let’s get into some useful insights to answer questions like:

1. What is the limitation of No-Code?
2. How far can I go with No-Code?
3. What if we hit the ceiling?
4. Lock-in?
5. What are apt use cases for No-Code?

Before I begin, some clarity on DronaHQ positioning & market operators: It plays in the enterprise business application market. This market is dominated by COTS, SaaS, and BeSpoke service providers. (COTS — Oracle, SAP; SaaS — SalesForce, Workday, Successfactors; BeSpoke — Accenture, TCS, Wipro) Fair to assume Low-Code & No-Code are two new players in this market. Its share is ~2% of the 270bnUSD market.

With the background, let’s dive into the learnings from our humble beginning. In the context of enterprise business applications — No-Code has no limitations in terms of building applications.

Below is a Top-10 built on the platform:

a. Vendor receivable’s — over 2000+ vendors to checks status of PO, invoices ,etc to get clarity.

b. Material management — a construction company building a 2bn USD+ worth sea bridge enabling material managers to collaborate with site managers for supply chain of material and its timely procurement

c. 360-degree feedback — a large bank built and conducted a custom 360 feedback this appraisal season along with custom reports

d. Inspection tool — a small boutique firm switched from iAuditor to build a tool to enable their inspectors to record their observations and create reports

e. Innovation management — ideas from over 10k managerial executives in an organization to be managed. The idea to funding cycle fully covered with complex business rules.

f. Scrap management — a large company producing e-waste and other kinds of waste built an app to manage scrap to resell cycle.

g. Timesheet — Different customers; different agreements; different logic to link up timesheets to financial systems.

h. Retail store inspection — Large CPG company’s checklist and reporting app for inspecting a store to certifying a store — for their sales reps and 3rd party contractors

i. System for 100 Mn$ govt program management — A system for the govt to manage the spending & create a system of records with the right workflow & process built-in.

j. Online Assessment — amidst COVID19, visa processing company’s L&D team got their assessment center go online

Fact:

All of them are department apps, the business needed it, NoCode made it possible. Nothing SaaS or COTS could work. Bespoke would have meant 6+ months to go live.

Limitations?

I don’t see any! Give me a case and I will give you a solution. I have worked on a travelling salesman to Dijkstra and put our NoCode to work. Of course, AI/ML/NLP is not a part of the scope of this app — but it can always be integrated with any of those engines!

Hitting a ceiling somewhere?

Yes of course. We give 4 options to tackle them:

1) Write code and introduce in the platform

2) DronaHQ Designer to build custom UI

3) Write a web service and consume it in the app

4) Export frontend code & take it from there!

Lock-in?

No. NoCode players are working on interoperability as yet! Imagine if you are using an excel spreadsheet in ’90s and no alternative if you had to jump out.

Apt use cases:

Anything that falls in the umbrella of enterprise business application — think CRM, HRMS. Think plumbing workflows to existing systems or build new interfaces for legacy systems. Capabilities exist!

Learnings:

So here emerges a new powerful option for all business application buyers, in addition, to Build or Buy, CONFIGURE. NoCode allows creating apps at lightning speed by putting the blocks together and configuring it right!

However to do it right —

1. You need an enterprise architect level thinking to get the data structure and process right.
2. There is a learning curve to master this new tool with high configurability and there is no shortcut
3. NoCode tool + a team mix of NoCode experts + fast learners = Magical speed of digitization tailored to your business needs!

What’s Beyond:

No-Code tools in the coming decade will see a large adoption for being the platform of choice for running digital programs! I wouldn’t be surprised to see a market share of the No-Code tool alone jumping above 25% in the enterprise business applications space!

Originally published at https://medium.com/ on March 19, 2020.