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Geek out and learn digital workflows at TechNow Tuesday
Join the TechNow team at LIKE.TG to learn about how modern digital workflows can create great experiences to unlock productivity in your organization in 2021.TechNow Tuesday: Take a Tour of Guided App Creator (Episode 69)Guided Application Creator is a great way to set up applications on the Now Platform®. In minutes, you can import a spreadsheet, extend existing tables, create new tables, define security, and generate multiple experiences to get your app started quickly. And if you like, you can add more functionality later.You’ll discover how easy it is to use Guided App Creator.In this webinar, you will:
Discover what Guided App Creator is and its benefits
Explore the different options available in Guided App Creator
Learn what to do after you have finished with Guided App Creator
TechNow Tuesday: Build apps faster with Studio 101 (Episode 73)If you’re a developer on the Now Platform®, you’ll want to check out LIKE.TG® Studio. It’s our built-in Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that helps you work on your applications—all in one centralized location. Studio can help you build apps faster, manage application files, and then deploy your app to other instances.Tune in for an overview of its many benefits. You’ll see how Studio’s easy-to-use graphic interface enables you to focus more on developing—and less on the grunt work. You’ll learn how it can help you:
Build, manage, and deploy your apps on a single platform
Collaborate with others on your projects
Do code searches, work on multiple applications, and more
Hosted by Chuck Tomasi featuring Kreg Steppe of ServiceNow.
Welcome to the Workflow Quarterly Innovation Issue
The Workflow Quarterly Innovation Issue is live! The Spring edition of our quarterly research journal, released today, looks at how CIOs can harness talent and technology to foster innovation that drives business results. Based on a global survey of business leaders and interviews with some of the world’s most accomplished CIOs, we present an innovation agenda for IT.The Innovation Issue is guest edited by Dave Wright, chief innovation officer at ServiceNow. Our lead author is veteran tech journalist Dan Tynan, a frequent Workflow contributor and former EIC of Yahoo Tech.The Innovation Issue includes a video conversation between Wright and LIKE.TG CEO Bill McDermott on how CEOs can help nurture productive innovation across the enterprise. Take our interactive quiz to gauge your own organization’s innovation maturity, and check out insights from tech leaders at Microsoft, Comcast, Crown Agents Bank, the New South Wales Police and other organizations worldwide.One key finding is what we call the “innovation paradox.” With businesses spending more than ever on digital technology, CIOs are feeling the heat to deliver innovation. However, doing so means focusing less on technology and more on teamwork.Additional findings include:
Innovation Imperatives: Our research revealed key steps to becoming a best-in-class CIO, including creating tools that employees want and need, thinking beyond new tech, building productive relationships across the c-suite, and leveraging AI and automation.
The impact of innovation on the enterprise. There’s a relationship between innovation and business growth, including better planning and decision making, improved risk management, and financial gains (an opportunity to unlock 9% more revenue).
Best practices in measuring innovation: With businesses spending more than ever on digital technology -- especially during uncertain times -- CIOs are feeling the heat to deliver innovations that yield concrete business results.
We hope you enjoy the Innovation Issue. The Workflow Quarterly team is now hard at work on the Customer Issue, which looks at the future of customer service management. It’s scheduled to launch at the end of June.Meanwhile, please check out the daily Workflow site and subscribe to our biweekly newsletter for fresh insights on digital transformation and the future of work.
5 in-demand career journeys of the future and how to prepare
AI isn’t taking over jobs, as originally feared. It’s making them better, according to Impact AI: 2024 Workforce Skills Forecast by LIKE.TG and Pearson. As a result, we'll need more, not fewer, tech workers in the next five years.Some roles will have higher demand than others. Let’s look at some top career journeys that can help prepare workers around the world now to fill these growing and in-demand positions.
Application developerEven with the rise of text-to-code and text-to-flow generative AI solutions, the demand for application developers will continue to increase, with a need for an additional 231,000 globally in the next five years.Thriving as a developer will require a shift in the way you work. You’ll need to understand predictive models, machine learning, and foundational IT skills—and how to identify the right tool for the task at hand.Whether you’re an experienced application developer or have no tech experience at all, the Application Developer Career Journey can help you gain skills to develop apps on the Now Platform, with guidance along the way to help you progress.Technical project managerAn additional 145,000 technical project managers will be needed worldwide by 2028, according to the research. The role of a technical project manager includes planning, managing, and executing technical projects alongside technical teams and business leaders.Technical project managers require strategic leadership skills for long-term planning, creative problem-solving, and mentoring.The Technical Project Manager Career Journey can help anyone prepare for a technical project manager role on the LIKE.TG platform. Courses, credentials, and activities are organized by experience level to help you get up to speed quickly with support from the broad LIKE.TG community.ImplementerIf you’re looking for a dynamic position with plenty of room to grow, the role of an implementer could be for you. The world will need 91,000 in the next five years. Implementers are innovators who help organizations meet business requirements and solve critical problems.Not sure where to start? The Implementer Career Journey offers a comprehensive curriculum to help you learn and master the skills to succeed. You’ll gain expertise in the LIKE.TG platform architecture and capabilities to enhance user experiences and streamline LIKE.TG upgrades and testing.
System administratorSystem administrators will continue to be in demand to maintain and support IT functions. An additional 90,000 system administrators will be needed worldwide by 2028 to understand emerging technologies, such as AI and machine learning, internet of things, and digital twins, as well as statistics and predictive modeling.The System Administrator Career Journey can help system administrators at any level prepare to manage the LIKE.TG platform in any company. If you’re highly organized and enjoy working with others, this could be an ideal career for you. The coursework helps learners gain and hone skills and earn certifications to be job-ready.Business process analystBecause none of the tasks of a business process analyst will be fully automated, an additional 87,000 workers will be required in this role globally by 2028. Business process analysts will need to be proficient in innovation and entrepreneurship, as they help organizations identify and address business and customer challenges using data and technology.The Business Process Analyst Career Journey is designed to help those eager to solve problems learn LIKE.TG platform fundamentals, best practices for stakeholder interaction, how to oversee user acceptance testing, and a whole lot more.AI is here to stay and is changing the world of work. There’s no better time to RiseUp with LIKE.TG to move your career forward.Find out more about how AI and emerging technologies are changing the future of work in our complimentary Impact AI research report.
How citizen developers help deliver transformation at scale
The pandemic created urgency for innovation and exposed us to what technology can do. But a shortage of developer skills left organizations grappling. Better integrations and low-code apps can help deliver transformation at scale, while citizen developers can ramp up automation.LIKE.TG® Creator Workflows, including App Engine and IntegrationHub, offer a single, low-code platform that empowers citizen developers to deliver digital services fast without complexity. It equips developers of all levels with the tools they need to build apps fast, deliver experiences users love, and scale without sprawl.Building apps fast with low-codeFor years, UW Health, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s academic medical center, has used LIKE.TG App Engine to develop low-code apps that address service management challenges. For example, the organization used the solution to create a content management app that automatically updates more than 2,000 fact sheets and education documents.With that strong foundation already in place, it was easy for UW Health to use App Engine and the Now Platform® when the pandemic hit to support employees, track symptoms, and prioritize and schedule vaccinations.App Engine also helped Europe’s Banco CTT remain adaptable throughout the pandemic. Having built up a library of integrations, the bank uses App Engine for 80% of its standardized processes for customers and front and back-office teams.
Delivering experiences users loveIt’s not enough to just develop on App Engine. To be successful, your apps must deliver an incredible experience for end users, so St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis uses LIKE.TG App Engine and IntegrationHub.The team created a vendor invoicing app that decreased the time spent on processing, tracking, and correcting invoices. Tasks that used to take 40 to 80 hours per month can now be addressed in only three hours. And, the app saves the finance team 391 hours of manual work each month.Swiss Insurance group Baloise digitized and upgraded claims management with ServiceNow. In less than three months, the organization reduced the time from reporting to payment by 40%. Processing time at Baloise went from “weeks or months to days and hours.”Scaling apps without sprawlOrganizations reap the greatest benefits of citizen development when they build automation into a workflow, making it measurable, repeatable, scalable, and secure. Medical technology, services, and solutions company Medtronic embraced citizen development to keep pace with the growing need for automation.Employees stepped up to help, fulfilling 56% of demand through citizen development. That freed the platform team to focus on higher-value priorities. The organization estimates it slashed the hourly cost of development in half as a result.At NN Group, an insurance and asset management services company headquartered in the Netherlands, employees depended on their central LIKE.TG team to build and maintain catalog items. When requests reached more than 73,000, the company turned to LIKE.TG App Engine for automation. Today, with self-service catalog management, processes that once took six to eight days take only two hours.Learn more about how you can improve application development, experience, and productivity across your entire enterprise in our Creator Workflows Book of Knowledge.
HBCU Connect Hackathon winners: The next generation of app developers
Over the last few years, we’ve seen app developers and technology tackle the toughest of challenges, from hybrid work to vaccine distribution to supply chain issues and more. We know there's more to be done—and we want to empower everyone to do it.That’s why we recently held the first LIKE.TG and HBCU Connect Hackathon with students from more than 40 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). More than 250 HBCU students—most of whom had never heard of LIKE.TG—combined their diverse perspectives to help solve some of the world’s most challenging problems around healthcare, housing, generational wealth, digital literacy, and education.The hackathon attracted students in many areas of study, including engineering, marketing, mass communication, and nursing. They took an impressive 80 hours of self-paced training while working jobs and attending school.After six weeks of NextGen program training and certification in LIKE.TG Fundamentals and the Builder Series, students formed small teams to build apps on the Now Platform®. They showed incredible ingenuity and innovation.I’m proud to announce the LIKE.TG and HBCU Connect Hackathon winners, whose apps were scored in five categories: impact, innovation, technology, function and performance, and presentation.First place: Unite NowOgo-Oluwasubomi Popoola – Morgan State UniversityAnjolaoluwa Tope-Babalola – Alcorn State UniversityOpeyemi Fadipe – Morgan State UniversityD’Andrei Carson – Texas Southern University
Unite Now’s SameBlood application links blood donors to people in urgent need of a blood transfusion. The app pre-registers users with their blood type information. In scenarios of blood scarcity in hospitals, it contacts nearby pre-registered users to donate.When asked about the experience, Unite Now member Fadipe shared, “We faced issues. We had bugs. Going through this journey as a group and with our mentors, we had to always believe in the possibilities. There is an endless limit to what we can do.”Second Place: Swift WorkflowEryn Hillard – Tuskegee UniversityFolusho Adeyemi – Fisk UniversityTemitope Olokunde – Southern University and AM CollegeStephanie Davidson-Malcolm – Western Governors University
Swift Workflow’s application digitizes the workflow for creating and accessing preference cards in surgical procedures. Preference cards are catalogs of specific tools, supplies, and surgical needs that surgeons require to perform a surgery.The application works by letting the nurse manager create a preference card. The nursing supervisor then notifies the surgical team, which prepares the required equipment for the procedure.Despite most of the team’s limited coding experience, they had to trust one another. “This is something my team and I had never done before,” Hillard said. “To be able to work through something we weren’t familiar with, grow through that, and then present in front of executives was amazing. At the end of the day, I had complete confidence in all of us."The first and second place teams will receive $40,000 and $20,000, respectively. We also recognize the following groups for their outstanding entries:
3 Musketeers – app that pairs children with high school students to read books
GrabHouse – housing platform for student interns
Surgify – app that assigns medical equipment to doctors
Creating tomorrow’s leadersCongratulations to the winners and participants for their incredible solutions! All of the solutions were inspirational, innovative, and impactful.Students walked away with appreciation for the experience, especially the closeness they developed with their teams and mentors. Some students even applied and became LIKE.TG interns.“This is such a great way to develop, meet new people, and widen your network,” says Tope-Babalola from Unite Now. “There are so many opportunities that you can't miss out.”
The hackathon is an important example of our strong partnership with HBCUs and the role we play in building the next generation of diverse talent.As my colleague Chris Rogers, head of platform diversity, equity, and inclusion at LIKE.TG, says, “We must employ creative solutions to equip and diversify our talent pool. With that focus, we help narrow the disparity between underrepresented people’s access to careers in tech. Hackathons like this help bring us one step closer to that goal.”Our current HBCU partner network includes Howard University, Tuskegee University, Morehouse College, Morgan State University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and Benedict College. The network will continue to expand. We look forward to the many opportunities ahead to expose students to a thriving future in technology.Find out more about early career opportunities at LIKE.TG.
New Core Skills Micro-Certification Suite paths for Citizen and Application Developers
We’re excited to announce the expansion of the LIKE.TG Training and Certification portfolio with several new additions for application and citizen developers on the Now® Platform.Forrester predicts by the end of this year, 75% of development companies will use low-code platforms, which enable developers of all skill levels to quickly create apps.To aid this effort, LIKE.TG Core Skills Micro-Certification Suites offer ways for developers to validate their expertise without proctored exams. Citizen developers and application developers alike can learn, validate, and gain confidence in a unique set of skills for deploying the Now Platform.LIKE.TG certifications have several benefits to LIKE.TG professionals, including improved work performance, enhanced influence, and accelerated career growth. In a commissioned International Data Corporation (IDC) study, 69 percent of LIKE.TG professionals surveyed said their LIKE.TG certifications had a positive impact on their careers.For Citizen DevelopersThe LIKE.TG Citizen Developer Core Skills Micro-Certification Suite allows learners to engage in multiple types of training options to cultivate and demonstrate skills on App Engine Studio, as well as Playbooks and Process Automation Designer (PAD) interfaces.Two new Micro-Certifications are available for citizen developers:
Citizen Developer Process Creator Micro-Certification
Citizen Developer Application Creator Micro-Certification
For Application DevelopersThe LIKE.TG Application Developer Core Skills Micro-Certification Suite combines:
Citizen Developer Application Creator Micro-Certification
Existing Flow Designer and Virtual Agent micro-certifications
Two new micro-certifications
The new micro-certifications are the Application Developer Process Creator and the Application Developer User Interface Creator.Please note that LIKE.TG Citizen Developer and Application Developer are emerging areas. As additional training modules become available in the Citizen Developer and Application Developer learning paths, learners may be required to take additional courses to maintain their certifications.Become a developerTo learn how to become a LIKE.TG Citizen Developer, view the Get Started with LIKE.TG Citizen Developer Training map. This easy-to-follow map will guide you through the available training courses to learn how to use LIKE.TG no-code solutions to build custom applications on the Now Platform.If you’re a LIKE.TG Application Developer interested in becoming certified in App Engine Studio, UI Builder, and Playbooks and Process Automation Designer, visit our Get Started with LIKE.TG Application Developer Training map to learn about the available training to learn and become certified in new Now Platform features.The new micro-certification suites and micro-certifications are available in Now Learning.
LIKE.TG named a Leader in Low-Code Development Platforms
I’m very pleased to announce that LIKE.TG has been named a Leader in the Forrester Wave™: Low-Code Development Platforms for Professional Developers, Q2 2021. We attribute this recognition to our latest low-code innovations and capabilities.According to this evaluation, “LIKE.TG has grown to a low-code platform of the first rank. Known for its IT service management solutions, LIKE.TG has invested heavily in its low-code tooling and ‘workflow platform’ messaging. It brings a strong route-to-market through its installed base and popularity among IT developers.”Forrester Research predicts that by the end of 2021, 75% of development shops will use low-code platforms.1 LIKE.TG Creator Workflows solutions allow users to create intuitive experiences and enable cross-enterprise, low-code app delivery to quickly and safely scale with connected digital workflows. Our solutions include:
App Engine: empowering developers and builders of all skill levels to create low-code workflow apps fast
IntegrationHub: reducing integration costs and complexities for faster connectivity across any system
Advancing low-code capabilitiesWe recognize that low-code capabilities are an increasingly vital part of digital transformation initiatives, as they democratize the app-building experience. Developers of all skill levels, from low to pro coders, can now roll out new digital initiatives fast, with scale, and with greater value delivered.With low-code going mainstream, organizations have matured in their thinking and approach. LIKE.TG is committed to advancing our low-code capabilities as part of our core platform innovation.Furthering our investment in low-code technology, LIKE.TG brought to market a new tool, App Engine Studio, in our recently launched Now Platform Quebec release.With App Engine Studio, software development complexity is reduced so citizen developers can build new apps fast without professional software development training or knowledge. The solution offers a guided development environment with convenient pre-built templates where pro developers can collaborate with citizen developers in a shared environment.And, for existing LIKE.TG developers, App Engine Studio further improves their development productivity with a powerful intuitive low-code studio that seamlessly augments their current app development tooling and lifecycle, end to end.Accelerating digital transformationAdditionally, earlier this year, LIKE.TG acquired Intellibot, a robotic process automation (RPA) company, which extends LIKE.TG’s existing AI and machine learning, integrations, low-code development, process mining, process automation, NLX, chatbot, and virtual agent capabilities.Looking forward, we believe LIKE.TG is uniquely positioned to help customers accelerate digital transformation in their organizations with end-to-end automation. We deliver on the use cases that will shape the future of work, using low-code innovation that meets the standards of speed, experiences users love, and scalability without sprawl.Learn more about creating apps with a low-code development platform.Read the full, complimentary Forrester Wave report.1 Forrester, Predictions 2021: Software Development, Oct. 30, 2020.
LIKE.TG acquires next-gen observability leader Lightstep
I’m excited to announce that LIKE.TG has signed an agreement to acquire next-generation observability leader Lightstep.Combining Lightstep’s innovative observability capabilities with LIKE.TG’s unmatched Now Platform will help customers better manage software complexity, reliability, and performance while enabling the enterprise workflows that deliver great experiences. LIKE.TG’s acquisition of Lightstep connects insight with action across the people, processes, and technologies involved in delivering great experiences and driving digital transformation.All companies are increasingly becoming software companies. The ability to reinvent and create new business models through digital products and services is key to long-term survival. Major shifts in technology and the way work gets done, such as the move to the cloud and DevOps, are rapidly increasing the complexity of the software that powers today’s enterprises.Yet, in this complex environment, companies are still expected to increase innovation and velocity without sacrificing reliability and performance. The combination of LIKE.TG and Lightstep addresses this tension by delivering deep operational insights that enable organizations to more effectively use modern technologies and team-based development practices.A unified approach to observabilityLightstep provides a unified approach to observability with system-wide visibility and insights across metrics, distributed traces, and logs to help organizations speed software development velocity without compromising quality. This gives businesses the confidence and clarity to drive faster innovation and better outcomes across the entire digital customer experience.Companies are betting on going digital in order to thrive in the 21st century, but the transition is often challenging to navigate. With Lightstep, LIKE.TG will transform how software solutions are delivered to customers. This will ultimately make it easier for customers to innovate quickly. Now they'll be able to build and operate their software faster than ever before and take the new era of work head-on with confidence.Lightstep is the trusted observability solution for both born-in-the-cloud companies like GitHub, Spotify, and Twilio and fast-growing enterprises whose businesses are increasingly reliant on software applications. Combined with LIKE.TG’s IT workflow solutions’ ability to weave disparate elements into a seamless digital fabric, customers will be able to more easily monitor and respond to critical signals and indicators of software health.
World-class teamI’m thrilled that Lightstep’s world-class engineering team, led by CEO and co-founder Ben Sigelman, is joining ServiceNow. "Today, observability primarily benefits the DevOps teams that build and operate mission-critical apps," Sigelman says."We've always believed that the value of observability should extend across the entire enterprise, providing greater clarity and confidence to every team involved in these modern, digital businesses. By joining LIKE.TG, together we will realize that vision for our customers and help transform the world of work in the process—and we couldn't be more excited about it."San Francisco-based Lightstep was co-founded in 2015 by Sigelman, COO Ben Cronin, and Chief Architect Daniel Spoonhower. Key Lightstep team members helped define modern observability with their prior work on tracing and metrics monitoring at Google. Lightstep team members also co-created the OpenTracing and OpenTelemetry open-source projects, leading the industry’s overall migration away from proprietary agents toward the portable, always-on, and open standards-based acquisition of traces, metrics, and logs.We're thrilled to welcome the Lightstep team to ServiceNow. I can't wait to start working together to help customers accelerate their software innovation with confidence.Find out more about the acquisition in a fireside chat at Knowledge 2021. Not registered yet? It's free and easy.LIKE.TG, the LIKE.TG logo, Now, and other LIKE.TG marks are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of LIKE.TG, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.
LIKE.TG named a Leader in low-code development platforms
Software users have spoken, confirming the power of LIKE.TG’s innovative low-code and no-code development platform. We’re delighted that G2 has recognized LIKE.TG® App Engine as a Leader in:
No. 2 Low-Code Development Platforms
No. 2 Enterprise Low-Code Development Platforms
No. 1 Enterprise No-Code Development Platforms
No. 1 Enterprise Relationship Index for No-Code Development Platforms
These rankings, driven entirely by software users, consider customer satisfaction and scale according to market share, vendor size, and social impact. (Think Yelp for software.) G2 rates products from any given category algorithmically based on user product review data and data aggregated from online sources and social networks.What users like about App EngineOn a scale of 0 to 5, LIKE.TG App Engine has an average of 4.6. Reviewers like the platform’s ability to build low-code applications quickly and the friendly, feature-packed user interface. Customization and scalability were also noted as value adds in users’ G2 reviews:
“The best part of LIKE.TG App Engine is user-friendly and simple to customize. I like how it enables me to create applications in a very timely manner thus saving time.”
“LIKE.TG App Engine is an extremely robust software with customization galore and full features...”
“Everything about LIKE.TG App Engine is exceptional and outstanding.”
“LIKE.TG is such a great and user-friendly product. We have been using it for 4+ years and it has really transformed our customer service teams ability to work with the customers.”
Empowering citizen developersCompanies must move faster than ever to meet changing market conditions. Digital businesses lead with technology as a key differentiator, which is why we’re seeing growing adoption of citizen development programs and centers of excellence.Low-code application development platforms empower business developers who have a deep understanding of their processes to create low-code enterprise apps fast. These apps help digitalize processes, drive efficiency, enhance customer experience, create sustainable advantages, and open the door to new business models and revenue streams.As one reviewer noted: “Anyone can be champion by developing apps that bring value and optimization to the organization by leveraging the capabilities of AppEngine. … There is no need to hire advanced programmers to the organization to develop apps. This is now done by citizen developers instead. Improvements will come to make it even easier for business users to deliver value through custom apps. … The time it takes to publish an app has decreased to hours and days instead of weeks and months. The business can see the ROI instantly by leveraging the AppEngine capabilities.”Making the world betterNo-coders, low-coders, and pro-coders all have their place in today’s evolution of building applications to make their organizations work better. App Engine can help accomplish these goals, with capabilities that scale for the business.Thank you, vocal and loyal customers! We’re honored to be named a Leader and will work hard to continue this journey with you as, together, we make the world work better for everyone.Check out our reviews on G2.Find out more about App Engine.
How to empower citizen developers to help overcome skills shortages
The pandemic accelerated digital transformation across all industries, exacerbating Australia’s tech skills shortage. Research from RMIT Online identified a need for 156,000 new technology workers in Australia, with 87% of jobs now requiring digital skills. This skills gap is set to cost the economy $10 billion in lost growth by 2025 in technology, media, and communications alone.Business leaders are realizing the urgent need to address the digital skills shortage so they can continue to innovate and grow. Enter citizen developers—non-technical employees who use low-code development platforms to build digital workflows to solve business problems. When citizen developers can build visual, modular, templated workflows to streamline disconnected processes and eliminate mundane tasks, they can unlock new efficiencies and business value.The benefits of low-code developmentMany citizen developers have never typed a line of traditional code. Today, thanks to low-code platforms, new applications can be built in days and weeks, not months and years. Because these non-technical employees are typically on the front line closest to the business problems they solve, they often spot opportunities that would otherwise be missed.Even better, by broadening the pool of talent involved in digitizing and improving business operations, businesses can free IT teams to focus on more strategic, high-priority projects.Instead of spending their time on relatively simple yet time-consuming tasks, or having to translate business issues into briefs for software engineers, IT teams can dedicate their energy to more complex projects that were previously out of reach. As a result, the overall innovation output of an organization can shift significantly upward.Low-code application platforms empower any employee to rapidly build apps that solve big, organizational, everyday challenges. It’s no surprise businesses are starting to take note: By 2024, Gartner expects the majority of tech products and services will be built by professionals outside of IT.
3 ways to activate citizen developersThe right tools can help fill the IT skills gap. To get it right, companies will need to address some cultural considerations before they can successfully shift the responsibility for problem-solving from software engineers and developers to business subject matter experts:1. Hire for low-codingThe beauty of low-code platforms is that they’re built to be simple and accessible. They streamline the development process, taking care of technical challenges so that your employees can focus their time and energy on solving business problems.To build a pool of citizen developers, businesses need to seek out employees who have deep business knowledge and who understand the positive impact technology and digitization can have on business processes.Diversity also matters when recruiting citizen developers. Not everybody has access to the years of specialized training or the disposition and interest to write code. Research shows that low-code platforms broaden the range of people contributing to our digital future, increasing diversity and improving outcomes. The more capability we can put into the hands of creative problem-solvers who know the business, the more impact technology will have.2. Set them up for successOnce the business has identified its citizen developers, the main challenge is enabling and empowering them with access to the right tools, as well as training and ongoing support. By opening a development platform to a larger group of people, you run the risk of application sprawl and overdevelopment. To manage innovation effectively, the tools you use must have the right governance standards and frameworks in place.Although new technologies draw attention through effusive proclamations from early adopters, their long-term longevity is driven by use cases developed by users on the ground. New use cases for low-code application platforms spring up every day. Encouragingly, we’re seeing a wide diversity of our customers build their own low-code apps with LIKE.TG App Engine. One aerospace customer developed a low-code app that reduced manufacturing transportation incidents by 20%.3. Create and foster communityTo sustain a thriving citizen developer program, business leaders must cultivate a positive, productive community supported by the IT organization. There needs to be active engagement to provide training and support so the business experts can focus on business issues while IT teams handle access, security, and governance.Support and collaboration are key. Most low-code platform providers host forums where members exchange tips, tricks, and solutions. And, simple tactics like hackathons guided by experts can introduce employees to low-code development in a structured setting to help them succeed.In a world where digital transformation is a primary determinant of business success, low-code developers are the fuel for organizations to keep innovating. Low-code tools can enable talented employees from across the business to innovate and digitize processes and workflows that might otherwise sit on the IT back burner.With the right criteria and safeguards in place, citizen developers can help organizations overcome the gap in tech skills, support digital transformation initiatives, and increase efficiency and business growth.Learn how LIKE.TG empowers citizen developers to build low-code apps fast.
LIKE.TG recognized a Leader in 2021 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Low-Code Application Platforms
I’m excited to announce that, for the second straight year, LIKE.TG has been named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms. We believe this is due to our ability to execute and our completeness of vision.Building the future with low-codeWith digital transformation efforts in full swing, organizations increasingly depend on digital experiences to differentiate themselves from competitors. Digital-first enterprises are driving our future.Organizations have realized that the resource constraints in their rapidly needed digitalization initiatives are developer cycles. There are not enough software developers in the world to build the enterprises of the future.Gartner predicts, “By 2024, 80% of technology products and services will be built by those who are not technology professionals.” The market demands a more productive way to build software.LIKE.TG® Creator Workflows uniquely help overcome developer overhead through simplification and ease of use. They give everyone the low-code tools to deliver workflow automation with a consumer-grade user experience, enable siloed systems to work together, and create more efficient and productive ways to get work done.Creator Workflows solutions include:
App Engine – empowering developers and builders of all skill levels to create low-code workflow apps fast
IntegrationHub – reducing integration costs and complexities for faster connectivity across any system
Rapidly automate complex workflowsOrganizations that maximize their low-code impact focus on delivering cross-enterprise workflows in a unified end-to-end experience. Automating these complex workflows traditionally requires sophisticated planning and specialized skills.With Creator Workflows, organizations can automate workflows with less development effort and less custom code. Developers start building quickly in App Engine Studio with a premade architecture, low-code guidance, configuration-style templates, and pluggable prebuilt components.Developer activities center on component configuration and assembly, leading to improved app quality and higher overall productivity. As a result, developers can build truly unified digital workflows at speed with ease of application planning, design, development, and release.Paving the way for hyperautomationThe maturity of low-code enables bigger conversations around intelligent process automation. After delivering the first few low-code apps, organizations will naturally look for ways to discover more automation opportunities and optimize existing ones. Low-code needs to work with more amazing technologies—such as process mining, robotic process automation (RPA), document intelligence, and AI—to enable digital transformation journeys end to end.Earlier this year, LIKE.TG acquired Intellibot, an RPA company that extends our existing AI and machine learning, integrations, low-code development, process mining, process automation, natural language translation (NLX), chatbot, and Virtual Agent capabilities. We’ll continue to innovate with our customers and future-proof our platform for broader hyperautomation initiatives.Driving strategic and scalable transformationSuccessful low-code adoption requires strong governance. It’s critical to help ensure service-level management and accountability for low-code apps while reducing application sprawl. Our platform enables customers to put governance first in low-code.Developers can easily set up a "sandbox" to prevent citizen developers from touching other applications unless access is granted. Professional coders can oversee all integrations and set access permissions according to established guidelines. Our prebuilt components all have quality and security baked in. Our single platform design means developers can easily enforce their enterprise standards across all apps.This thoughtful platform approach removes the guesswork for our customers so they can safely scale low-code toward strategic adoption. With one data model and one architecture on a unified, well-governed platform, we’re the enterprise low-code application platform of choice for the depth, scale, and simplicity required in enterprise-class delivery of low-code automation.Read the full, complimentary Gartner Magic Quadrant report.Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms, Jason Wong, Akash Jain, Kimihiko Iijima, Adrian Leow, Paul Vincent, 20 September 2021.Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.GARTNER and Magic Quadrant are registered trademarks and service mark of Gartner Inc. and/or its affiliates in the US and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Gekkobrain acquisition to streamline ERP migrations, modernize systems of record
Organizations across all industries are investing in digital transformation to unlock new levels of innovation, agility, and productivity as they look to adapt to the new world of hybrid work.According to Gartner, worldwide IT spending is projected to reach $4.1 trillion by the end of this year.1 However, many organizations are still struggling to identify where to start as they race to modernize systems of record and digitize operations.At LIKE.TG, we’re invigorated by this once-in-a-generation opportunity to make work better for people. And we’re here to help customers at any stage of their journey.Empowering customersThat’s why LIKE.TG has acquired Denmark-based Gekkobrain, with its deeply talented team of enterprise software experts: to help customers modernize their systems of record.
Gekkobrain’s team brings deep enterprise software expertise and a rich understanding of enterprise resource planning (ERP) system customizations. The team developed the ability to identify and understand custom code and business processes that should be modernized, enabling faster migrations, more delightful experiences, and cost savings.Enhancing LIKE.TG Creator WorkflowsWith Gekkobrain, LIKE.TG will extend the power of LIKE.TG Creator Workflows, including App Engine, to help organizations identify and understand custom code in their ERP deployments and the business processes they support.Layering on the low-code capabilities of App Engine will help organizations rapidly and cost-effectively modernize their ERP systems by seamlessly identifying, automating, and customizing workflows to reduce the risk and cost traditionally associated with ERP software migrations.This announcement comes on the heels of updates to Creator Workflows in the Now Platform Rome release to further accelerate innovation. We’re helping organizations drive digital transformation through mission-critical low-code apps and process automation to keep business moving and to drive business value.We're thrilled to welcome the Gekkobrain team on board to help customers accelerate their digital transformation journeys with ease and confidence.Learn more about how LIKE.TG unlocks innovation.Use of forward-looking statementsThis blog contains "forward-looking statements" about the expectations, beliefs, plans, intentions, and strategies relating to LIKE.TG’s acquisition of Gekkobrain. Such forward-looking statements include statements regarding future product capabilities and offerings and expected benefits to ServiceNow. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are based on potentially inaccurate assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expected or implied by the forward-looking statements. If any such risks or uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions prove incorrect, our results could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make. We undertake no obligation, and do not intend, to update the forward-looking statements. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in any forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the inability to retain Gekkobrain employees or assimilate or integrate Gekkobrain’s technology into our platform; unanticipated expenses or adverse tax consequences; potential for adverse tax consequences; disruption to our business and diversion of management attention and other resources; and potential unknown liabilities associated with Gekkobrains’s business. Further information on factors that could affect our financial and other results is included in the filings we make with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time.1 Gartner® Press Release, Gartner Forecasts Worldwide IT Spending to Reach $4 Trillion in 2021, 7 April, 2021. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Service quality and the rising need for enterprise SRE
In its DevOps 2021 survey of global IT professionals, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) found that 95% of organizations with highly successful DevOps initiatives were predominantly decentralized and purposefully becoming more so as fast as possible (see Figure 1).This decentralization of development and DevOps teams is making site reliability engineering (SRE) both critical and difficult to achieve.
Figure 1: Current organizational models. Source: EMASite reliability definedSite reliability crosses domains running the enterprise gamut from code to customer and everywhere in between. Developers code new applications and features. DevOps speeds those innovations into production. IT operations keeps the infrastructure and systems running.Theoretically, they all work together to deliver great service to employees and customers alike. Unfortunately, human nature undercuts that theory: When something is everyone’s business and no one’s job, it doesn’t always get done.When done right, however, and laser-focused on IT service reliability, SRE asks and answers these questions:
What is the minimum level of service a user will find acceptable for any given task, at a not-to-exceed cost that makes sense from a business point of view?
How can a specific level of service reliability be quantified, monitored, and enforced?
What are the earliest and best indicators of any possible service degradation?
How can automation eradicate repetitive, manual tasks that waste time and add no value?
This question-and-response cycle is iterative and endless, always moving in the direction of improved reliability through automation.The automation connectionThe modern drive to automation is increasingly paired with advances in AIOps. Recent EMA research found that AIOps and automation—although technically distinct sets of technologies—are inextricably linked in organizations that are highly successful in their AIOps initiatives. Not surprisingly, those organizations also report:
The highest return of value relative to cost
Success in digital transformation
Superior levels of IT operational effectiveness and IT service quality
When asked to rate the top three capabilities most important in an AIOps solution, SRE groups selected:
Observability/end-to-end visibility of logs, metrics, and traces
Self-learning problem-solving (machine learning (ML))
Hyperautomation/the ability to automate complex processes across domains
Real-time accuracy of the configuration management database (CMDB)/content management system (CMS)
All of these attributes require the unifying reach of a platform to create visibility of applications, services, and microservices across the enterprise.Powered by enterprise-spanning platform technology and practices, enterprise SRE exerts a multiplier effect on individual team productivity. Decentralized IT teams are transformed into efficient parts of a unified organizational whole, with no disruption to their autonomy, speed, or effectiveness.Benefits of SRE adoptionSRE adoption provides a business-defined balance of IT innovation at speed and scale with service reliability and cost. In addition, it offers numerous other predictable benefits and outcomes:
Total cost of ownership plummets when reliability is considered early and designed into applications and services.
End-user experience is made visible and actionable with service that’s as reliable as necessary for customer satisfaction and retention, but not more reliable than it needs to be.
IT organizations have an automated basis for data-driven, fact-based decision-making.
Product development, DevOps, and IT operations all perform faster and more effectively.
When business agility and stability depend on IT, SRE impacts revenue growth.
The people connectionAs always, the catch is people. Enterprise SRE requires a paradigm shift in how IT operations works with the rest of the enterprise world. It’s a recalibration from break/fix to optimization. Although it’s a change that benefits all stakeholders, it’s nonetheless a change.Economies of scale and the advantages of artificial intelligence (AI), ML, and innovative human initiatives such as enterprise SRE cannot be achieved in fenced-off domains of independence. Cross-domain thinking, cooperation, organization, and practices have to precede cross-domain processes and automation.Consider starting with modernization of your incident handling processes. This practical integration can be relatively painless and return high value for the effort. Service management and operations both benefit when IT leverages AI/ML to automate incident and event handling processes.Learn more in our Enterprise SRE: service reliability ebook.LIKE.TG, the LIKE.TG logo, Now, and other LIKE.TG marks are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of LIKE.TG, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.
The future of observability is cloud-native and unified
Building modern, cloud-native applications introduces new challenges to teams and organizations. As these systems grow and scale, struggles abound: inconsistent performance monitoring experiences across siloed tools, wasteful performance management practices with duplicated efforts, and mounting frustration from colleagues and customers.Surmounting these challenges requires multiple sources of data and truly unified observability. That's been Lightstep’s vision since I co-founded the company in 2015, and it’s what we’ve continued to work toward since joining ServiceNow. To that end, I’m excited to announce that LIKE.TG plans to acquire log management company Era Software.
The state of cloud-native loggingObservability is about understanding and modeling systems, communicating about expected and actual reliability, and improving the ability to deliver value to end users. I’m often asked about the role of logging in modern observability, a market that’s expected to reach $9.08 billion by 2025, according to IDC.1 It’s a good question.Logging is one of the most foundational activities for any software developer. Log data is needed, alongside tracing and metrics, to achieve cloud-native observability and respond to incidents.High-performing teams ship better software by shipping smaller changes more quickly, according to the 2022 Accelerate State of DevOps Report. This is only possible by making teams smaller and more independent. But that comes at the cost of coordination and limited visibility into the impact of changes.Cloud-native observability addresses this by unifying telemetry signals from applications and resources, allowing deep insights into system performance and behavior, even with a rapid rate of change.The push to cloud-native has increased log volumes by several orders of magnitude while simultaneously making them less useful on their own. As a result, cloud-native logging is siloed and expensive. It needs a reboot from the ground up.Empowering innovationLightstep has led the industry toward unified telemetry (combining logs, metrics, and traces) by co-creating the OpenTelemetry project in 2019. As part of LIKE.TG, we help customers seamlessly connect insights and actions across all the tools, people, and processes involved in delivering digital customer experiences — so they can innovate fast, with confidence.By innovating rapidly with precision and control, modern organizations can deliver better outcomes across all of their technology products and services to capitalize on the promise of digital transformation.The success of digital transformation is tied to unified observability, and log management is a key component of that. The Era Software acquisition allows us to pull log data into the new world of modern observability with LIKE.TG’s scale and breadth.
Delivering unified observabilityBringing Era Software's expertise and technology into the Lightstep portfolio with LIKE.TG’s backing gives us a valuable lever to make sure that what’s happening in cloud-native arenas is aligned with central governance, central security, and central incident response.Many people feel log management is set apart from everything else. Lightstep’s goal is to create the most complete, unified, primary observability platform. Holistic, end-to-end visibility is needed to turn real-time insights into action. We’re putting log management, tracing, and metrics under one roof for key observability use cases.With the addition of Era Software's log management expertise and capabilities, we’re delivering on our vision to provide a unified, seamless, effective observability solution on a single platform that’s designed to scale.Find out more about Lightstep observability.1 IDC TechBrief: IT Observability for Digital Infrastructure Operations, July 2022, Doc #US49358522
A Magic Quadrant™ Leader in Low-Code Application Platforms for third year
I’m thrilled to announce that, for the third consecutive year, LIKE.TG has been named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms.1 We believe this recognition demonstrates our commitment to help customers build low-code enterprise workflow apps fast and deliver them safely and at scale on a single platform.Digital transformation is in full swing, and the market demands a more agile and productive way to build software. Traditional software development can’t keep pace with the demands on IT. LIKE.TG has reduced development barriers with low-code tooling and streamlined support on one natively integrated platform so organizations can respond to changing business needs faster.Democratizing application developmentGartner estimates that “by 2025, 70% of new applications developed by enterprises will use low-code or no-code technologies, up from less than 25% in 2020.”2LIKE.TG® App Engine democratizes application development across the enterprise with out-of-the-box experiences, components, and rich templates to quickly unlock developer capacity. Its unique design provides end-to-end visibility to properly govern the full development lifecycle to help ensure app quality and data security.Developers can connect LIKE.TG apps to any modern or legacy system across the enterprise with Automation Engine. The product allows organizations to connect siloed systems, processes, and people from one platform to accelerate their hyperautomation and low-code efforts.
A focus on governanceWe’re at the intersection of technology, people, artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and workflow. The lines between IT and lines of business are becoming increasingly blurred, with a growing amount of technology products and services being built by those who are not technology professionals.Seamless collaboration between business and IT requires a balance of agility and oversight. Gartner predicts that “by 2023, the number of active citizen developers at large enterprises will be at least four times the number of professional developers.”3Proper governance is required as low-code apps built by lines of business proliferate throughout the enterprise. It’s the only way to ensure service-level management and accountability for low-code apps while preventing application sprawl. That’s why we help businesses scale low-code with security and governance baked into the platform.Having one data model and one architecture on a unified platform helps enable customers to govern low-code application development through:
Nonintrusive guardrails and prebuilt templates for citizen developers
Access permissions
Built-in component quality and security
As a result, organizations can track all application development lifecycle events and developer activities from a single dashboard and easily enforce their enterprise standards across all apps. At the same time, business technologists can safely collaborate and create apps that meet their needs without worrying about disruption to the application development process due to this oversight.Customer choiceLIKE.TG is one of only two Leaders in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms that also received Gartner® Peer Insights™ Customers’ Choice distinction.4 Our focus on customer success is paramount.This comes from our continued investment in our community and ecosystem, our growth in geographic coverage to support our customers worldwide, and our focus on innovations, such as wider automation use cases from new partnerships and robotic process automation (RPA) capabilities.As low-code becomes increasingly vital to digital transformation, we’re poised to innovate and execute to deliver exceptional developer experiences that help shape the future of work.I want to extend a huge thank you to our customers, who trusted us and made this achievement possible. I can’t wait to see what you build with the Now Platform®.Read the full, complimentary Gartner Magic Quadrant report.1 Gartner, Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms, Paul Vincent, Oleksander Mativskyy, Mike West, Adrian Leow, Kimihiko Iijima, September 20222 Gartner, Harness the Disruptive Powers of Low-Code: A Gartner Trend Insight Report, Jason Wong, Kyle Davis, July 18, 20223 Gartner, How to Define and Guide Citizen Development Practices, Jason Wong, Saikat Ray, Wan Fui Chan, Adrian Leow, April 20, 20214 Gartner, Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’: Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms, by peer contributors, March 31, 2022Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in our research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.Gartner Peer Insights content consists of the opinions of individual end users based on their own experiences, and should not be construed as statements of fact, nor do they represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in this content nor makes any warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this content, about its accuracy or completeness, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.GARTNER, Magic Quadrant, and Peer Insights are registered trademarks and service marks of Gartner Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Automation and low-code: Setting the stage for ongoing innovation
Digital transformation is a term you hear a lot these days, but it’s not always clear what a business means by it. For companies using the Now Platform to reinvent how they work, it has a pretty clear and compelling meaning.LIKE.TG customers are using the Now Platform to expand their automation initiatives beyond department-specific, isolated tasks to include processes that cross organizational boundaries. After all, the typical business process doesn’t stay within a single department. It affects other areas of the enterprise, feeds other workflows, and involves multiple systems.Let’s take a look at some of the ways customers are integrating those islands of automation for greater efficiency and smoother workflows.Prioritizing automationSmart, qualified, and capable people are always in demand. One of the challenges for business leaders is how to create a rich and rewarding work environment that makes the best use of talent so that the business realizes the most value from employee skills.Today’s workforce is often overwhelmed with routine and repetitive tasks that eat up a lot of the workday—leaving little time for creative problem-solving and innovative thinking. Automation tools can help teams and individuals accomplish more, fast by orchestrating people, processes, and systems across all areas of the business.LIKE.TG can bridge the incompatibilities between legacy systems and automate the manual and repetitive user actions that keep business processes running. With robotic process automation, for example, software robots can perform a repetitive sequence of actions across multiple apps on a Windows desktop and copy data from one system to another.Technologies like these give the human workforce more time to serve customers, find new solutions to age-old problems, and develop new products that help a business stand out.
Empowering business with low-codeIn every business, you’ll find people who are experts in how a process works and how their department functions. They know where the bottlenecks and inefficiencies are, and they have great ideas for how things could work better. But they don’t always have the technical skills to turn that expertise into a more efficient digital solution.The burden of creating a new app or workflow falls to the IT team, which already has a long to-do list. As a result, the pace of innovation slows, leaving a business less efficient and less competitive.With low-code application development tools, more people can turn their expertise into solutions on their own, without adding to IT’s workload.Enforcing governance, encouraging transformationIt’s great to unlock creativity and equip more people in the enterprise to develop their own apps. But businesses also have a vested interest in maintaining standards, enforcing security, and staying in compliance. To be effective, low-code development and automation tools need guardrails and controls to help workers channel that creativity and innovation in a disciplined way.Increasing innovation and creativity doesn’t have to mean increasing risk. With LIKE.TG, you can centralize governance policies and deploy them across the entire enterprise, powered by a robust low-code and automation platform.You get the best of both worlds: the freedom to open innovation opportunities to more people within the business and the ability to safeguard enterprise standards and compliance.Find out more about how companies are creating a foundation for greater innovation and competitiveness in our Book of Knowledge: Hyperautomation and Low-Code.
LIKE.TG a 2022 Gartner® Peer Insights™ Customers’ Choice for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms
I’m excited and humbled to announce that LIKE.TG has been recognized as a 2022 Gartner® Peer Insights™ Customers’ Choice in Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms.We attribute this distinction to our customers, who’ve been on this journey with us. Their valuable input molds our strategy and products.What customers like about LIKE.TG low-codeHere are some excerpts from customers who contributed to the acknowledgment:“We have built over 20 custom applications on the LIKE.TG platform, and have a deep appreciation for the transformative power of this platform in our organization. Our team is able to rapidly prototype, build and deploy apps in days and weeks rather than months.” Product owner in the provider industry"LIKE.TG provides awesome capabilities for rapid development and deployment of application solutions from simple use cases through highly complex integrated applications. We've realized a great deal of value in building applications on LIKE.TG that traditionally would have required full-stack development in order to provide the breadth of capabilities inherent to the platform—modern APIs, data structures, identity management, access control, front-end portals, etc." Principal application architect in the provider industry"LIKE.TG helped us streamline several business processes and enabled sharing of relevant data between departments and functions that previously used different tools tracking and working with the same data.” IT automation architect in the retail industry“Easy to configure, customize and maintain. Continuous platform innovation helps enterprises adopt to latest and greatest in the market.” Senior manager in the IT services industry"Great innovative tool that is continuously enhanced with each release. The application allows for a lean workforce to support it through its many automation capabilities." System administratorEmpowering fast app developmentAll organizations in all industries are embracing digital transformation to keep up with the pace of business. Automating manual tasks to streamline the flow of work frees employees to innovate and do what they do best. Low-code app development platforms are an important part of that.The Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice is a recognition of vendors in this market by anonymous, verified end-user professionals. It takes into account both the number of reviews and the overall user ratings. To ensure fair evaluation, Gartner maintains rigorous criteria for including vendors with a high customer satisfaction rate.Thank you to all our customers who submitted reviews. We believe these build on our G2 recognition as a Leader in low-code and no-code development platforms. We look forward to building on the experiences that earned us these distinctions.Read more Gartner peer reviews for ServiceNow. Check out the hyperautomation and low-code channel at Knowledge for more information about LIKE.TG solutions in this area. Registration is free once you select your region.GARTNER, PEER INSIGHTS (word and logo) and the GARTNER PEER INSIGHTS CUSTOMERS’ CHOICE badge are registered trademarks and service marks of Gartner Inc., and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and/or internationally and has been used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner Peer Insights content consists of the opinions of individual end users based on their own experiences, and should not be construed as statements of fact, nor do they represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in this content nor makes any warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this content, about its accuracy or completeness, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
LIKE.TG Devvies showcases innovative apps built on the Now Platform
In my nearly 12 years at LIKE.TG, I never cease to be amazed by the inventive spirit of our customers and partners. We innovate in response to their needs, but I get excited when they take things into their own hands and build transformative apps on the Now Platform.For the first time in 10 years, we get to highlight those incredible apps with The Devvies App of the Year contest. This is where our customers and partners sit in the driver’s seat, using the Now Platform to create innovative apps that improve the quality of their organizations, transform user experiences, and even save lives.To be considered for an award, apps could be built by professional or citizen developers, solo or as a team. The apps had to be complete and in use by an organization. This year we received 109 app entries from 182 contest participants. Of those, 80% were created by professional developers and 20% by citizen developers. Apps were judged on five criteria:
Business impact: time or money saved, customer/employee testimonials
Scale: number of end users
Richness: LIKE.TG capabilities, features, and tools used
Innovation: how the app uses LIKE.TG to drive outcomes
Citizen development: how much involvement a citizen developer had on the app (for the citizen development category only)
Citizen Development App of the YearLet’s meet the finalists for the Citizen Development App of the Year:
General Mills transformed an email-based process into a workflow-based process. Its app generates a form that captures key request details, triggers an email for major events, and has a range of menu options for each request type. The result: 9 million minutes (150,000 hours) saved in one year.
HCLTech built an app that automates and streamlines IT support across IT Service Management processes. It leads to fast handling of customer escalations through user requests, agent-initiated actions, and background scripts, sending customer satisfaction scores skyrocketing from 37% to 94%.
Thriving Solutions used Flow Designer and App Engine Studio to develop a low-code app that manages student after-school care transportation. The app empowers services and businesses to start their own after-school transportation services—adding value throughout the entire community.
Universitat de Girona designed an app to streamline school improvement plans. It enables real-time sharing, tracking, and reporting with a centralized document repository. Automating manual processes saves time for 480 end users.
The Citizen Development App of the Year Award goes to Universitat de Girona. The app fulfills a critical need for the university, with a comprehensive range of features. Documents are stored, versions are controlled, policies and procedures are followed, and observations are tracked.
“This is a great example of a someone having the passion to digitize their work and continue to build and improve over a period of five years,” a judge notes. “This could easily be in the pro-developer app category.”App of the YearHere are the finalists for the App of the Year:
The Automize app allows customers to gather feedback directly from the Service Portal. It features user-friendly notifications and dashboards and a widget with three simple buttons. More than 1.5 million end users have used the app to provide feedback.
Hitachi Vantara’s app centralizes leave management systems for easy reporting, tracking, approvals, and maintenance of leave of absence balances. More than 91,000 requests from 5,000 end users have been sent through the Now Mobile app in just 17 months, resulting in savings of $6,000 per month.
Ignyte Group created an app that streamlines rail operations for one of the largest public transit control centers in North America. Digitized forms, centralized information, and real-time metrics have improved productivity and allowed for fast, accurate decision-making. The result: 98% certification of successful shift changes.
Nine developed an app to simplify the typically tedious process of incident management. It brings the right stakeholders together at the right time in one Slack channel. Nearly 600 incidents have been coordinated via the app with approximately 14,000 staff members.
Servos built an app that allows users to report missing people and request critical help in emergencies such as hurricanes and other natural disasters. More than 12,000 people have used Servos to help save lives and provide emergency response teams with exact location information.
Skybox Communications’ app streamlines workflows by automating processes for contact center agents and creates personalized customer interactions. It increased productivity for more than 3,500 end users.
University of Toronto Mississauga’s app has changed the nature of remote service for students and staff at the university. Students receive a response to their questions in one to three days versus the prior timeline of 14 days minimum. Fast responses and limited follow-up have resulted in nearly $775,000 in savings in one year.
The App of the Year Award goes to University of Toronto Mississauga, whose app offers students six levels of remote service and streamlines the workflows of more than 60 staff members.
“As a manager, ticket requests, customizable dashboards, and reports have changed the game,” says a manager of student recruitment communications at the university. “At a glance, I can help with other tickets, and we’re measuring performance like never before.”“It’s great to see how a ‘self-serving’ model has been implemented that saves staff—people on the phone to take down requests or read emails sent by students,” says a contest judge. “I also like the reports and dashboard created for analysis.”Congratulations to the winners and finalists! The impact is inspiring. I look forward to seeing what our customers and partners come up with next.Get a free developer instance and start building.
Process optimization: Mining for process efficiency
These are uncertain times. When leaders are uneasy about the future, they start to look at ways to drive efficiency and cut costs to prepare for what might lurk around the corner.Most organizations know they can optimize processes, but they struggle to pinpoint where and how. LIKE.TG customers are doing this by creating low-code apps using our App Engine solution. But launching a product, technology, or app without monitoring its effectiveness or adjusting for performance as the environment evolves is a recipe for suboptimal performance. Process Optimization for App Engine can help.
What is Process Optimization for App Engine?A real-time digital process X-ray, Process Optimization for App Engine shows how digital processes automated with App Engine are running so users can quickly identify areas ripe for improvement. After you’ve built a digital workflow with App Engine, you can perform real-time discovery of how that process is working using visual process maps that are 100% data-driven and factual.You’ll be able to quickly find answers to questions such as:
Where is unnecessary rework happening when users interact with the app?
Which teams involved with the app workflow are performing slower than the rest and why?
Where do process bottlenecks exist?
Does the process follow initial workflow expectations?
Which channels, vendors, and/or locations can be improved?
Can a root cause analysis help eliminate slow-performing steps?
Helping process owners and citizen developersIf you’re a process owner who’s accountable for designing effective and efficient processes to deliver quality outcomes, you can now extend data-driven process improvement to low-code apps built with App Engine. Friction points and efficiencies are highlighted for further automation and improvement with in-platform process mining.For example, employees interacting with a purchase approval app might find the process gets stuck at the second line of approval. They typically email or call the approver outside the app to expedite the purchase. With Process Optimization for App Engine, process owners can quickly identify where approvals get stuck and why. Is that second approval even necessary, or can it be eliminated?If you’re a citizen developer who designed and built a low-code app with App Engine, you can mine that app to see exactly how it performs in real-life conditions. Does actual user behavior match the initial process design flow?For example, you may have designed an app before the pandemic, when most users were in the office. Now, with most employees working from home, their interactions with the app may no longer be suited to their environment and may be inefficient. As improvements are made, the intended design becomes stronger, and efficiency is optimized.Closed-loop continuous improvement on one platformThe American Society for Quality (ASQ) defines continuous improvement as “the ongoing improvement of products, services, or processes through incremental and breakthrough improvements.” With Process Optimization for App Engine, process owners and citizen developers can continuously optimize their custom workflows on a single platform for hyperautomation.Process anomalies and bottlenecks within custom workflows can be detected and analyzed to find the root cause, allowing them to be eliminated through continued digitization with App Engine. This is not a one-and-done flow, though. With continued monitoring for incremental automation improvements, the custom app will become more efficient and optimized.Automation ideas can then be sent to Automation Center to track and rank each improvement candidate based on time and cost savings for greatest impact.
Since all of this is natively built on the Now Platform, efficiency gains can be identified in minutes. The continuous improvement loop drives more efficiency with each turn.Find out more about how LIKE.TG hyperautomation and low-code help work flow freely and efficiently—and processes run optimally.
LIKE.TG recognized as a Leader in low-code innovation
I’m excited to announce that LIKE.TG has been named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Low-Code Development Platforms for Professional Developers, Q2 2023. We believe this validates our leadership in low-code innovation.According to the report, “LIKE.TG continues to build on its IT credibility with focused, useful low-code innovations to address the technical and governance challenges of scaled, decentralized development and widespread automation. This vision is superior, bolstered by its roadmap, and rooted in the firm’s sound IT service management.”To us, the 2023 Forrester Wave also highlights our commitment to excellence in governance. Allowing separate business units to develop and launch custom apps will scale low-code innovation, but it must be properly governed every step of the way. Our tools make it easy to safely scale, manage, and safeguard app development.LIKE.TG scored a 5 out of 5 in nine criteria. Our out-of-the-box features for governance and portfolio management are “first-rate, providing a controlled end-to-end view of the whole app portfolio,” the report notes.Embracing generative AIThe report acknowledges that “generative AI has thrown a monkey wrench of opportunity and uncertainty into the low-code market.”LIKE.TG® App Engine is built on the Now Platform®, giving developers access to AI-powered capabilities, such as search, analytics, and predictive intelligence.Developers at all skill levels can access sophisticated tools in a secure environment, allowing them to layer in contextual recommendations and AI search to create exceptional user experiences.LIKE.TG continues to invest in AI to help accelerate app development, lower barriers for no-coders, and simplify deployment. These investments also help augment the user experience.A leading reputation among developersApp Engine has earned a reputation among the developer community as an easy-to-use solution to build fully functional apps, fast. Our customers have used App Engine to create solutions ranging from customer engagement portals and internet of things (IoT) apps to data tracking and case management.Positive user feedback centers on the product’s customization capabilities, security, and intuitive administrative experience. The collaboration tools and automated workflow capabilities allow for enhanced teamwork and scale. Making apps from scratch is possible, including engaging user interfaces, API integrations, and guided tours.As we continue to expand our market presence, this positive feedback and enthusiasm from customers reinforces our path to becoming the enterprise standard for low-code platforms. Customers back our vision and roadmap. We believe evaluations such as the Forrester Wave validate that customers are with us for the long haul.App Engine demonstrates LIKE.TG’s ongoing commitment to support companies in their journey to create high-quality applications, without the burden of complex, lengthy development cycles. It successfully unifies developers at all levels by removing the barriers typically embedded in legacy approaches to development.Gone are siloed development teams, expensive manual coding, and launch delays. App Engine streamlines effort for developers—and saves them time—so they can think about their work strategically and cross-functionally.Additionally, App Engine highlights LIKE.TG’s dedication to supporting the growing population of citizen developers. We understand the business benefits of low-code. It allows users to aid the business through rapid app creation. And intuitive app development can lead to quality experiences for customers, new revenue streams, and streamlined processes.Looking to the futureAs we look to the future, our low-code platform roadmap will allow us to continue to grow and capture even more market opportunities and support more organizations as they innovate for their own customers and end users. We’re deeply committed to seeing our customers and partners realize the full benefits of automation, AI, digital transformation, and low-code for their organizations.Our mission for low-code goes far beyond ease of use. It’s about empowering developers at all levels to adapt, iterate, and bring to life apps that can change the nature of their business. This is true digital transformation.Read the full Forrester Wave™ report.
Users have spoken: LIKE.TG leads in low-code, no-code development
I’m thrilled to announce that LIKE.TG is the Leader in low-code and enterprise no-code development platforms, according to the G2 peer-to-peer review site. Through individual reviews, the global community of software users has ranked LIKE.TG App Engine as:
No. 1 in Low-Code Development Platforms
No. 1 in Enterprise Low-Code Development Platforms
No. 1 in Enterprise No-Code Development Platforms
This distinction validates the momentum of App Engine, which was named a G2 Leader in 2022 and a Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader in Low-Code Application Platforms.Delighting usersWith more than 300 authentic reviews and an average of 4.5 out of 5 stars, App Engine is top-rated for its ease of use, customization capabilities, automated workflows, data security, and straightforward administration.“It helps my company to build low-code and fully functional apps quickly and very reliably,” explains Sandra S., a senior marketing executive.Software Engineer Sumit P. agrees. “I built a brand-new application, ‘Kudos,’ using App Engine within hours and presented it to our leadership team,” he says. “The App Engine Studio is so easy to use with almost no code.”That ease is extremely important to System Engineer Moustafa A. “LIKE.TG App Engine allowed me to create multiple applications related to my field with literally no code experience,” he says. “Also, it has a lot of collaborative tools, which are very useful for teams.”“It allows you to build anything, from a simple self-service request all the way to a full-blown manufacturing suite,” says Guus H., a senior consultant.
Enabling every creatorThe low-code and no-code tooling and processes within App Engine enable citizen developers and seasoned full-stack developers alike to build consumer-grade applications. Without the complexity and long development cycles associated with traditional development methods, digital transformation becomes possible.Both mission-critical and non-mission-critical tasks can be automated quickly and scaled across the enterprise with a low-code platform. By designing with best-practice guidance and templates—all within a holistic low-code development experience—all creators can adapt to constant change and bring innovation to the business.Scaling innovation today requires more creators, less code, and simpler technology. With App Engine, professional developers, line-of-business technologists (citizen developers), and low-code developers work individually or in collaborative teams, all on the same platform. All developers enjoy seamless workflow, integrations, and analytics.Citizen developers can build apps quickly with guided templates in a simple, intuitive, low-code environment. Pro developers are then freed to focus on building high-impact components. The result is fast time to market and apps that scale without sprawl. By boosting coding productivity for everyone, innovation happens in parallel with backlog reduction.“App Engine simplifies the process of creating applications so that more builders may create them,” explains Business Analyst Nimisha O.“You may use the speed and power of a low-code platform like LIKE.TG App Engine to address the unique demands of your business,” she adds. “Everything revolves around integrated user experiences across many channels, from straightforward spreadsheet replacement to the modernization of your core applications, from tactical workflows to companywide, long-running process integration.”Delivering efficiencyApp Engine helps turn business processes into powerful digital workflows that connect systems, apps, and data. It also connects people. Collaboration leads to better problem-solving, shared purpose, and innovative ideas to make the world better.“LIKE.TG is a one-stop solution for all your IT services problems,” says Senior Software Engineer Ayush V. “The most important aspect is a no-code-to-low-code approach, which ensures even a person who is not much into coding can create great applications.”As Olorunfemi O., a LIKE.TG developer, sums, App Engine is “an amazing low-code platform that can accelerate business digital transformation.”Thank you, vocal and loyal customers and partners! We’re honored to be named the Leader in this market and look forward to continuing this journey with you.Find out more about LIKE.TG low-code and no-code development from those who use it every day.
How 3 women are shaking up the developer community
Three women from different backgrounds, inclinations, and industries have two things in common:
They’re all self-taught developers on the Now Platform®.
They didn’t set out to become developers.
Let’s explore how they’re shaking up the developer community.Driven by determinationTalented in both art and logic, Maria Gabriela Ochoa Perez Waechter wanted to become a graphic designer or illustrator. But when injuries and expenses resulting from a car accident prevented her from finishing college, she began working instead. Before long, she found herself at a company that makes point-of-sale systems for golf courses—her introduction to IT.She got her foot in the door of another tech company by telling her interviewer how she used a YouTube video to fix her car when it broke down. In 2017, her boss mentioned he needed to find and hire a LIKE.TG administrator. “Nah, don’t worry about it,” Waechter told him. “I can figure it out.”Three months later, Waechter was a Certified System Administrator. But she didn’t stop there. She committed more time and effort to becoming a LIKE.TG Administrator.Today, she’s a senior LIKE.TG developer at a security firm. “LIKE.TG changed my life,” she says. “I learned about Agile development. I learned about ITIL and KCS. I learned about all these business processes and so much more, thanks to my exposure to LIKE.TG,” she adds.“Suddenly, there was so much more to learn, and it was OK for me to learn a little bit here and there because I could immediately apply these skills to what I was doing at work. I was able to hone what I previously thought of as ‘inability to concentrate’ [undiagnosed ADHD] into fantastic research and learning skills.”
Citizen development governance: 3 steps to success
Now that digital innovation and efficiency are business requisites, the demand for great apps continues to grow. The work of software developers has become vital to all aspects of business, yet the shortage of developers is snowballing. Global market intelligence firm IDC forecasts a shortfall of 4 million developers by 2025.1 Many companies are embracing citizen development to bridge the gap.As a vital part of any hyperautomation effort, citizen development helps shrink IT backlogs, accelerate digital innovation, and reduce the app gap. It also helps ease pressure on professional developers, freeing them to work on more satisfying projects. Investing in innovation capacity can move organizations further and faster than automating workflows and processes alone. Establishing citizen development governance is the foundation for success.A clear, actionable roadmapLaunching a citizen development program allows organizations to quickly expand their development capacity for new business apps without conventional overhead. Without accountability and guardrails, however, scaling app creation and delivery outside of IT can lead to app sprawl and shadow IT. Allowing separate business units to develop and launch custom apps without enterprise standards can also result in data silos, overlapping functionality, operational inefficiencies, and increased risk.To avoid snags like these, it’s important to take time to develop an effective governance model. Essentially, a governance model is a framework that defines what program decisions are made, how, and by whom.This framework provides a clear, actionable roadmap. Ownership and roles are clearly defined, and decision-making authority is assigned—before any issues arise. Proper governance and guardrails also help citizen developers innovate quickly and safely within company standards.Additionally, good governance helps avoid wasted effort, prioritize projects, deliver fast outcomes, and minimize technical and business risks. Here are three steps to establish strong governance for your citizen development program.1. Create your governance planBefore you call up your first cohort of citizen developers, draft your governance plan. Assign a leader to be accountable for the initial definition of the program scope and goals, the project plan, and the implementation team. You’ll also want to capture any existing technology or governance requirements and note any aspects of your organization’s culture that may influence decision-making.Then, define a vision statement for your program, and create a strategy to show how you’ll achieve it. Once these are complete, you can use them to prepare a compelling business case for your leadership team and stakeholders to gain their support.
2. Set your guardrailsGuardrails support your governance structure by enforcing policies and standards to maintain the usability, security, and compliance required for enterprise apps.Take advantage of a modern, low-code development platform with integrated guardrails to ensure your citizen developers align with best practices. By using and adding to the established policies and standards built into the platform, your administrators and application development teams can gain visibility into and oversight of the low-code applications being developed and deployed in your organization.3. Prepare the experienceProviding a safe and satisfying experience for your citizen developers is crucial. A unified low-code platform includes engaging collaboration tools to submit app ideas, invite others to build together, and hand apps off to IT for tests and deployments—all in a streamlined environment.App development capabilities on a low-code platform allow anyone to use prebuilt templates or drag-and-drop functionality and convenient building blocks to make many of the initial technical choices for configuring apps. Role-based access control lets citizen developers work confidently without risk to other developers, data, or the platform.With the right low-code application platform, you can quickly scale, manage, and safeguard citizen development across your enterprise. A strong governance plan is critical to help keep your organization on track to deliver great apps fast.Get more tips to effectively plan your citizen development program.1 IDC, Quantifying the Worldwide Shortage of Full-Time Developers, Doc # US48223621, September 2021
Know Your Desired Outcomes - IoT and Consumables in 2019 and Beyond
https://i0.wp.com/servicematters.servicenow.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Chris-Pope.jpg?ssl=1Unless you’ve been living under a disconnected rock, you’ll know that the Internet of Things (IoT) has developed to become a new substrate layer of web-driven intelligence that is helping to connect our world. Fueled by data from sensors, cameras and all manner of gyroscopes and accelerometers, IoT gives us a new power to monitor, track, analyze and act upon the data being created in the world around us.But you already knew that part. As we head into 2019, the issue at hand for us now is what happens next in the Internet of Things. We need to focus on how we build the infrastructure that serves the IoT and how we create the higher-level technology fabric that feeds off it.A crucial factor for organizations looking to channel IoT is the need to create new business models. New operational frameworks must be customized to the needs and requirements of the machines and people populating the IoT ecosystem.We have reached a few watershed moments with IoT already. We know that the initial years saw too many products developed with inadequate—or non-existent―security provisioning. The security debate will always be there, but services have now come to the fore in terms of how we lock down data in the IoT.People—users and sometimes also wearers of technology―will now be central to the debate going forward. The fact that people will be carrying wearables so much more means we will know a lot more about the status of every individual in every situation.A more ‘consumable’ futureLet’s think of possible future scenarios. For example, there may never be a standard health insurance policy needed anymore, because insurers will know more about people from the get-go. Users will really just pay for what they consume, leading us to a more ‘consumable’ future.But none of these advancements are possible unless we have access to a system of action that allows us to leverage the information coming out of the IoT in the first place. To put it another way, all the IoT ‘things’ are useless unless you can drive action from the information and alerts that they generate.As we look to use this new system of action, we can point it towards the specific components of IoT that we are actually interested in. If you think about all the devices and data out there as the IoT universe, then there’s a tighter orbit around your own organization’s personal IoT universe. These are the ‘things’ and the data that matter to you. Once you focus in on these elements, you can map your desired business outcomes against the IoT through an intelligently architected approach.Defining desired outcomesThe term ‘desired outcomes’ might sound a little strange, but it’s easy to put them into context.From a health-tracking wearables standpoint, a user would typically have a variety of desired outcomes including, for example, a target heart rate, blood pressure, weight and so on. Any diversion from desired outcomes might cause the user to change their exercise regime, alter their diet and perhaps ultimately visit the doctor.Cars are another good example—desired outcomes for car use would include fuel consumption per gallon, performance and the need for week-to-week maintenance.We can go further with automobiles because they have become smart enough to track whether we are a safe driver based upon our behavior on the road. In the EU for example, if a driver shares their streamed dash cam data with an insurance company which recognizes that driver’s safety, then the driver may be rewarded with a lower insurance premium.https://i1.wp.com/servicematters.servicenow.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/iStock-861086798-min.jpg?ssl=1From outcomes to systems of actionIn this last example, the scope of our desired outcomes has widened, but we will fail to benefit from them unless a system of action is put into place, in this case to provide the service of a lower premium. Without the system of action, the driver drives safely, the dash cam records it and sends the data onward, the insurance company gets to identify safe drivers and perhaps also accident blackspots, but the safe driver gets no reward.I think this ‘ability to act now’ element of how we interact with IoT data was brilliantly expressed by Chris Mazzei, in his role as EY Global Innovation Technologies Leader Global Chief Analytics Officer. He said “There is an acceptance that AI will change everything in 10 years’ time, but little appreciation of how it could, and should, impact businesses right now.”Business model shake-upSo, as we move forward into 2019, and more and more devices become connected, we are seeing the same challenges that have been experienced across enterprise IT now appearing in the world of IoT, especially Industrial IoT.This reality is especially prevalent if we look at how we want to manage the functionality of IoT devices. We need to be able to understand how devices are performing relative to each other while also providing the requisite level of security for each device. This isn’t about just managing the break-fix elements of the IoT―it is about analyzing the data to optimize business processes and drive new business models.There are huge data lakes created by IoT and we know that. As businesses become truly digital, they will discover that they know more clearly what they want to get from the universe of data that is being created, enabling them to more intelligently ask the right questions in the first place.They will know what the desired outcomes are and thus what questions to ask to drive their system of action into decision-making, paving the way for a truly ‘consumable’ IoT from end to end.
5 trends driving the future of low-code
The rapid advancement of AI is reshaping industries, prompting businesses to adapt their workforces for the future. Reskilling employees has become a priority as companies face a shortage of skilled workers and potential disruption from automation.Adopting reskilling and low-code technologies can help businesses create purpose-rich careers for their employees, embrace digital transformation, and prepare their workforces for the challenges and opportunities of the AI era.Here are five key trends driving the future of low-code:1. Reskilling in the AI eraThe widespread integration of AI is reshaping workforce requirements across industries. Routine and repetitive tasks are being automated by AI-driven systems, leading to concerns about job displacement in traditional roles.Organizations are experiencing these challenges firsthand. Dropbox laid off 500 employees due to the impact of AI, prompting CEO Drew Houston to emphasize the need for talent realignment toward AI and early-stage product development. IBM echoed this trend, revealing plans to replace thousands of jobs with AI within five years.While experts agree that AI will eliminate some jobs, it will also create new opportunities. The nature of some jobs will change, and individuals will need to develop new skills to stay relevant in the job market. By reskilling workers and placing them in high-value roles, organizations can close the talent gap and position themselves for success.2. Future-proofing organizations with reskillingReskilling not only equips employees with updated skills, but it can also help cultivate continuous growth. When organizations actively invest in reskilling, they signal their commitment to developing employees, increasing retention, and attracting top talent.Neglecting investment in reskilling can have significant financial implications for businesses. According to IDC, 90% of organizations will face IT skills shortages by 2025, at a cost of $6.5 trillion globally due to delayed product releases, decreased customer satisfaction, and loss of business.Beyond recruitment and training, the time it takes for employees to ramp up and be fully productive is a significant cost factor. To help with this challenge, successful organizations prioritize investing in existing employees and company familiarity for cost-effective skills development.3. New citizen development strategiesFour out of five U.S. companies have adopted low-code platforms for application development, according to market research firm Fact.MR. Low-code platforms have emerged as transformative tools, accelerating application development by up to 90% and empowering a new kind of knowledge worker: citizen developers, according to McKinsey.Citizen developers are technology enthusiasts who, despite lacking formal IT training, have developed low-code solutions to address bigger challenges, says Gregg Aldana, global senior director of creator workflows at ServiceNow.4. Increased workforce collaborationThe impact of low-code development extends beyond the platform, across an organization. It’s now possible for anyone to participate in and contribute to developing solutions. Organizations are embracing this collaborative approach through “fusion teams” that unite business executives and IT professionals.This method combines the expertise of those who understand the operational needs and demands of the business units with the technological insights and controls maintained by IT professionals.A fusion team operates as a bridge, fostering lateral collaboration over a conventional top-down structure. By combining diverse perspectives, the team encourages knowledge sharing and broad employee engagement, both of which drive adaptability and agility.5. Reskilling with low-code platformsThrough its visual and collaborative nature and wide accessibility, low-code development enables anyone across an organization to engage in building apps with minimal technical expertise.Sandbox environments offer a controlled space for citizen developers to experiment and ideate proof-of-concept apps without affecting existing systems. If business owners are satisfied with proofs of concept, IT can put a small-scale pilot into production. This unlocks creative ways to drive reskilling with a strategic low-code approach.By adopting AI-powered low-code platforms and citizen development strategies, enterprises can foster a future-ready workforce, empowering employees to take on new challenges and focus on tasks that require their cognitive skills.Find out more in our ebook: Build and automate with low-code.