Application development is the process of creating a computer program or a set of programs to perform the different tasks that a business requires. From calculating monthly expenses to scheduling sales reports, applications help businesses automate processes and increase efficiency. Every app-building process follows the same steps: gathering requirements, designing prototypes, testing, implementation, and integration.

Custom Application Development

To customize software, business owners turn to service providers, who build apps to their specifications. However, such solutions are both cost and time-intensive, as they impose a high degree of dependence on the providers for upgrades and support. And the final product may not be in tune with the actual requirements when it's built by someone who's unfamiliar with the business. These problems can be overcome with a procedure that allows business owners to build their own apps, with minimal programming and investment. That's where low-code custom application development comes in.

Low-code custom application development empowers novice developers to build and implement apps without having to acquire deep programming knowledge. It dramatically simplifies the app development process, masking all the programming that goes into it and presenting users with ready-to-use, intuitive development tools. These custom apps come to the rescue where the one-size-fits-all dogma fails.

Mobile Application Development

Nearly 75% of all large organizations reported an increase in productivity after adopting the enterprise mobility paradigm*. A recent report on workforces revealed that mobile devices saved field staff an average of 240 hours a year* as a result of being seamlessly connected to their workplaces. This statistic drives home the fact that mobile application development has the utmost relevance today. Simply put, it's the development of software modules for use on mobile platforms, either independently or as part of a larger ecosystem.

Mobile devices permit employees to complete tasks on the go, which is why enterprise mobility is such a popular concept. In many cases, apps also act as a medium between a business and its customers, making them indispensable tools for building customer relationships. However, conventional mobile app development is a rigorous and effort-intensive process, requiring considerable time and money to be spent on individual apps. Enter low-code mobile app development platforms.

Rapid Application Development

Conventionally, Rapid Application Development (RAD) is a software development model, in which individual application modules are developed in parallel and assembled into a finished product. Low-code platforms represent the latest trend in RAD methodology, wherein these platforms are used to swiftly create and develop web and mobile apps. It is a relatively new approach to development, and is characterized by intuitive, easy-to-use user interfaces.

The low-code revolution is responsible for empowering citizen developers by making it possible for them to quickly create custom apps. To businesses, this means their IT departments get to focus on more productive projects, rather than fielding queries from non-technical staff. On a large scale, this saves time and effort, which translates to an overall boost in productivity for the business as a whole. Commercially, RAD tools allow vendors to develop, test, and publish apps faster, giving them a much-needed edge over competitors.

Low-Code Application Development

The latest trends in business processes have made custom application development indispensable. Almost every business has a dedicated IT team to hand-code the necessary applications. However, there's always a demand to develop and deliver apps faster, which makes traditional hand-coding cumbersome. So businesses are seeking ways to speed this process up, and the best alternative out there is to go low-code. These platforms employ a visual user interface with drag-and-drop features. This approach accelerates and simplifies the application development and deployment process by drastically reducing the lines of code required.

Database Application Development

Database applications are designed to collect, organize, and manage information efficiently. They're used to sort data by criteria, perform calculations, create reports, and share information with team members. As a business expands, its operations grow in complexity. Relying on spreadsheets to tackle burgeoning information and processes could lead to a data pile-up, and ultimately slow the business down. Database applications come to the rescue when spreadsheets become unmanageable. With the business expanding, managing structured information with relationships across tables is paramount, and that's exactly what databases are designed for. With a database app, users can define custom roles, provide user based authorizations, implement business specific workflows, etc., by adding their own code to the data modelled in the database. Data entry and manipulation in these databases require commands coded as queries. This calls for programming in SQL (Structured Query Language), which is why most small and medium-scale businesses resort to paper-based systems to manage their data. While this might work well for small amounts of data, using paper to handle an increasing flow of information can culminate in chaos.

Enterprise Application Development

Enterprise applications are on-premises software or cloud-based apps that serve the needs of large, often global, organizations such as corporations, banks, and government agencies. Traditional application development is time-consuming, cost-intensive, and requires a sizeable workforce of developers. Outsourcing of app development frequently leads to less than desirable results and can cost more to fix than to develop. To make issues more complex, each app has to be designed for web browsers, tablets, and smartphones individually, increasing costs and reducing efficiency. These challenges can be overcome with the low-code approach to enterprise app development.