The race is on to win and keep your customer relationships. Retailers do that with an intense focus on the customer experience. That means providing convenient, user-centric shopping and fulfillment. It means meeting customer expectations, and therein lies the rub.
Customer expectations are ever-evolving. Retailers need the agility to keep up – or better, set the trend. Meanwhile, developer talent is in short supply and your existing teams are already overwhelmed. But you can’t wait.
Top AIThority News: Top Strategies to Help You Amplify Your Facebook Marketing Campaigns
The problem with legacy systems
Let’s talk big, unwieldy and decidedly non-democratic.
Your business users have little to no ability to produce widgets or automation systems that meet their needs. Your IT team has to handle new features, releases and even routine data translations. Tedious, and boring for your developers. And that during a time when you really need to keep your developers happy!
That over-reliance on one team of specialists means retailers often struggle to respond to rapidly-changing needs. It’s an expensive and slow process, and because development time is such a hot commodity it’s a constant juggle to re-prioritize and justify business requests.
Introducing low-code
Now retailers are breaking free of traditional development with “low-code” solutions. It’s a revolution that’s reshaping how organizations build and adapt their systems.
With low-code, business users can do a lot of the work that IT used to do, such as setting up widgets and online apps and adapting them for different functions and client partners. Developers don’t have to get involved as often, and when they do, it’s to code components that don’t yet exist.
“Low-code” is a combo of no-code and some-code. Your business users—i.e., the people with the first-hand knowledge of what they need the system to do—can mix and match pre-built templates and pieces that create the workflow and interfaces. That’s the no-code part that allows them to configure certain features.
When your team needs something next-level, your developers can step in, building out new user interface components and business rules using development kits and pre-built code blocks that help them code more efficiently.
Think of those code blocks like a Lego set.
One block is a ready-made connector to integrate with popular third-party systems. Another handles common workflows or business logic. Developers choose the block they need and customize it, instead of building code from the ground up.
Be more responsive
Your business users can develop the digital tools they need. It’s possible once you’re set up with a low-code system. On-boarding a new partner, adjusting a fulfillment process, setting up third party logistics, offlining a region during a weather event—these are things your business users can handle on their own in the right low code environment.
Your customer experience needs to be a competitive advantage. But, getting there isn’t simply a systems issue. It’s about your ability to continually adapt and respond.
Comments are closed.