New Software Technologies Trends For 2021 - What is the right option for you?
In a fast-moving digital world, there are many software options that can bring massive benefits to your business, but sometimes, too much information about them can be overwhelming. You heard about robotic process automation (RPA) saving resources, low-code/no-code can save costs, even SaaS solutions like Salesforce are mentioned as the answer to all of your problems.
But how do you know which one is the best for you when you just hop on the digital transformation train a few seconds ago?
The fact is, all these options are no silver bullet, but if you know how and when to use them, in the right circumstance, you can tackle your current business’s challenges.
In this article, we will provide you enough information to know which solution is best to solve your problem.
Low-code/No-code relies on Graphical User Interfaces to build applications that solve business problems. The goal is to save costs, reduce time to market, and improve the quality by not rebuilding the wheel for each project. Because it is no-code or low-code app development, instead of paying highly-priced software engineers you can replace them with a business analyst. Less technical resources needed equals less money to pay.
Read this article to understand the difference between low-code/no-code and traditional app development.
Yet, the weak point of low-code/no-code platforms is that you’ll be stuck with the vendor's proprietary approach and language.
If you’re using the low-code/no-code solution from one specific vendor, for instance, you’ll have to reconstruct everything on other platforms. This is time-consuming. At the same time, minimal input from the end-users of the application, more testing after requests from the users, and more fixing/patching in the maintenance phase. It is both an advantage and disadvantage when these platforms allow you to easily make changes directly to the production system, it is dangerous and can cause significant system breakdowns.
If you consider low-code/no-code app development, we at TP&P Technology follow a strict procedure always: documenting the requirements, testing implementing them, and only promoting them to production when the regression phase is complete. We recommend you to use the low-code platforms when the implementation outweighs the cost of platform licenses.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a practice based on the use of software robots. RPA uses various methodologies such as record, playback, screen scraping, etc. to automate the repetitive tasks. Screen scraping, in general, is not a good long-term investment and can be breakable when the software changes. Although for large enterprises and business organizations with tons of repetitive and manual work issues, this RPA solution can be a way of life, for others, we can look to replace RPA processes with better-integrated software.
Software as a Service, Commercial-Off-The-Shelf Solutions (SaaS/COTS) applications are produced to solve business problems. Salesforce is a SaaS product, allowing users the flexibility they need. Some SaaS solutions can be free (to-try) or open-source, meanwhile, some cost thousands of dollars. The SaaS/COTS options are almost the best option for businesses trying to solve business problems when their business needs match the solution offered. The largest SaaS solutions are in the areas of customer relationship management (CRM), and enterprise resource planning (ERP). However, as they say, if you’re looking for something, there is most likely an app for that.
Custom Software Development
If you need a software application that solves specific problems in a specific way for a specific group of users, custom software development is the choice you’re looking for.
In the past, developing custom software was very expensive. However, in recent years, cheaper cloud computing along with open-source tools and frameworks has significantly reduced the cost of building your own software. An application that could cost millions of dollars to build 20 years ago can be done in weeks at a very reasonable price.
As a top leading software development company, we advise our customers to go with custom software when there is no current existing manual or automated solution that can solve their problems, at the same time when they want to differentiate their product from their competitors.
In Summary
You should use RPA when there is a large volume of repetitive, rules-based tasks that are time-consuming to complete, low-code/no-code when the cost of implementing them is cheaper than the cost of the platform licenses, SaaS/COTS when the business needs to match what the solution offers, and custom software development when you try to solve the business challenge and there is no existing platform that can help you with.
Depending on your situation, TP&P Technology experts can advise you with the best solution. Contact us now! We are among the top IT providers in Vietnam and in the Asia region.
