The Covid-19 era has meant that businesses worldwide have had to swiftly adapt to a new way of doing things. Naturally enough, business continuity is forefront in everyone’s minds, but it’s a mistake to focus on that to the detriment of any in flight or planned digital initiatives
The reality is that, even before Covid-19, digitisation was disrupting business models on a global scale anyway. Thanks to online giants like Amazon, customers have come to expect the rapid delivery of products and services, intuitive interfaces, 24/7 availability, real-time fulfilment, personalised treatment and zero errors. Meeting these expectations means businesses must accelerate their digital transformation – especially now, in the ‘new’ world of Covid-19.
It’s with that in mind that we’ve developed a new eBook: The need for speed: Why rapid software deployment is key for New Zealand business transformation now and beyond Covid-19. It looks at why now is the time to focus on significant tech initiatives that allows companies to embrace a flexible digital operating model, one that can adapt to your ‘new normal’ with the ability to change as needed.
The eBook covers these areas:
1: The need for speed and the rise of automation
The more effort businesses make now in terms of digitising their business processes, the better placed they’ll be to take advantage of increased growth opportunities post-pandemic. Automation is filling the gaps as organisations harness technology to cope with the crisis.
2: Agile Artillery
New Zealand organisations that are continuing their digital transformation strategies are examining the unique challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic. Adopting an agile approach helps businesses to focus on early delivery of software, iterative development and collaboration between business and IT groups.
3: Agile isn’t always enough – fast-tracking digital transformation with low-code
Low-code — an application development approach that primarily uses visual, declarative techniques instead of programming code — is the key to quicker, more efficient and successful software deployment. This section outlines how it can increase efficiency, reduce costs, shorten delivery times and improve services.
4: Legacy systems not keeping up with business needs
To optimise spending and reduce risk, businesses need flexible development solutions that enable them to easily evolve existing applications and systems, and address modern use cases such as latest innovations, quickly evolving industry technology and even major crises.
A significant method of achieving swift digitisation is via Rapid Application Development (RAD) methodology. It’s what we use here at Optimation, and it utilises OutSystems' low-code / no-code approach to agile software development.
This approach prioritises swift prototype solutions, and just recently we put it to use for an organisation in need of a contactless compliance app. Over a period of only four days, Optimation were able to ideate, design and develop a Contactless virtual inspector app that would meet the challenges of contactless registration, tracking and compliance. It’s a great example of not only the speed with which RAD can deliver solutions, but also the need for those solutions to be delivered swiftly in this Covid-19 era.
With business continuity a priority during this crisis and beyond, it's essential to make use of software solutions that can be rapidly deployed to meet the challenges these uncertain times are presenting. In doing so, a business can create applications and services that provide even greater value for their customers and employees, sustain enterprise-wide digital transformation efforts and meet their mission objectives in ways that weren’t even imaginable a short time ago.