Since Forrester put forward the concept of low code/zero code in 2014, visual programming has really entered the layout of major manufacturers. Since 2016, low-code visual platforms in China have been released one after another, formally entering the commercial field, but it has been lukewarm. IT was not until Gartner put forward the concept of aPAAS/iPAAS based on the concept of low code/zero code in 2018, which was formally applied in the FIELD of IT services. With favorable policies, the country supported the development of digital economy and software industry, and capital was successively invested, until the rapid growth of the industry began.

01 Concept Understanding

Before the low Code platform, it was pure Code development. Every function needs to be coded. If the business changes, the corresponding logic needs to be changed and constantly modified.

As a result, zero code and low code are on the rise. So what’s the difference?

■ No Code in a broad sense refers to the combination of configuration construction through the visual page drag and drop, without writing Code to achieve software functions.

■ Low Code is broadly defined as writing a small amount of Code to accomplish software functions through highly visual IDE (Integrated Development Environment) configuration.

In short, the difference between a low-code platform and a zero-code platform is whether the developer is required to be able to program.

But zero code or low code is a way to iterate quickly, not a technique or theory. So how do you understand low code versus zero code platforms? Before we get there, we need to understand two more concepts.

iPAAS/Integration Platform as a Service

Integration platform as a service.

Gartner defines it as “a set of cloud services that facilitates the development, execution, and integration of flow governance with any on-premises and cloud-based processes, services, applications, and data, either in a standalone or multiple overlapping organizations.

aPAAS/Application Platform as a Service

Application platforms as services.

Gartner defines it as “a paAS-based (platform as a service) solution that supports the development, deployment and operation of applications in the cloud and provides users with basic tools for software development, including data objects, rights management, user interfaces, etc.”

In short, iPAAS is the operational basis of aPAAS, providing it with a base based on cloud native capabilities, and is the application theory and infrastructure of landing low code and zero code platforms, as shown in figure:

02 User industry distribution and scenario value analysis

The main customers of low-code platform applications include b-end enterprise business personnel and R&D personnel. The majority of enterprises are large and medium-sized enterprises, governments/associations, scientific research institutions and system integrators. The majority of industrial customers are Internet, professional service, retail, finance, manufacturing and education industries. Customer case scenarios include project process management, CRM, procurement and marketing process control, financial integration, enterprise administration, industrial digital production, etc.

The main customers of zero-code platform application include scientific research personnel, business personnel, IT administrators and individuals. Among them, enterprises are mainly industries in subdivided fields, including retail, home decoration, education and marketing companies, etc. The scenarios mainly involve custom mall, full-case design, promotion activity system and marketing creative editing.

According to the classification of industry customer attributes and scenarios, the low code platform is more suitable for the whole case business of KA large customers, while the zero code platform is more suitable for the segmentation field with stable industry framework.

According to Gartner research, the average growth rate of the overall industry output value of low code and zero code is over 40%, and it is predicted that the overall size will reach usd 47.1 billion by 2025, with an average growth rate of over 70%.

03 Case analysis and practice

Next, we analyze the cases of low code platform and zero code platform respectively:

Case a

One may need very large real estate companies have business, culture, real estate and financial industry, is one of the China commercial complex benchmarking, but the guest data is digitized upgrade to reach a cooperation with the enterprises, through data during the middle ground and low code ability, help enterprise value in the scene, data assets and data management in many ways, such as the transformation and upgrading.

In the process of construction, the low-code platform drives data bearing through business orchestration, and then drives business components by data, forming the ability of low-code platform, helping customers realize digital upgrade and transformation, reducing enterprise development costs vertically and improving resource management efficiency.

Case 2

A Top50 head real estate enterprises on the digital mall, health and other businesses. In digital mall, zero code page is decorated, forms, engine, template engines, the ability of custom activities such as zero code, only need to pull, can achieve in one thousand “, a yard multiterminal, personalized sales and marketing activities rapid improvements, such as landing without having to rely on developers, with data driven efficient customer management.

According to the different business systems of the above two typical group customers, we can see that no matter low code or zero code, in the enterprise digital transformation, they can play a role in the data island, enable industry standards, accelerate product iteration, and better help enterprises to solve the problems encountered in the process of digital upgrade.

Some views on the future of both

First of all, from a macro perspective, the state vigorously supports digital upgrading and transformation and the software industry in policy, taxation and other fields. The existing enterprises’ digital demand stock and incremental market scale are strong, and the dividend period is long, which is prone to oligopoly effect.

Secondly, low-code and zero-code platforms based on business objectives in digital upgrading will become the objects of mainstream capital competition, but their technical barriers are relatively weak, and they are indispensable in the actual implementation of scenarios, ecology, industry, cases and operations.

Finally, whether low code or zero code is used to build product service ecology, it can effectively solve the data confusion of smokestacks, unify the data caliber, and accelerate the process of product commercialization verification.