As technology perpetually evolves, so does the opportunity to elevate an organisation’s competitive edge.

Visualisation technology is transforming the way businesses identify, strategise and action business intelligence thanks to the adoption of customisable dashboards and intuitive reporting platforms.

Perhaps what is less widely known is the low-code technology sitting behind them.

What is low-code?

Forrester defines low-code platforms as ‘platforms that enable rapid delivery of business applications with minimum of hand-coding and minimal upfront investment in setup, training, and deployment’.

As such, the adoption of low code is gaining traction across the field, enabling both providers and consumers of software to add value to their service offering in a myriad of ways.

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This is perhaps most evident in the field of mobile workforce management in the service industry. Here are three areas low code is set to enhance field service management.

1. Efficient software delivery?

Traditionally, 70% of purchasing costs are spent on the people implementing a new management system, not the system itself. Furthermore, maintenance costs and system improvements demand regular spend on costly professional services.

This model is deemed obsolete thanks to new service applications leveraging low code to reduce implementation costs and increase efficiency, right from the start.

Most notably, front-end applications that minimise hand coding and complex integration, provide a unique opportunity to accelerate lead times and ROI.

This leads the way for self-implementation, giving the onus back to IT professionals and away from the self-interests of archaic software providers.

2. Process management?

Even with the most rationalised business process management, without the flexibility to make real-time adjustments to your system, inefficiencies will still hinder productivity and service quality.

Traditionally this has perpetuated the need for professional services, securing revenue streams for software providers at the expense of consumers’ autonomy.

You would not expect to call the mechanic every time you needed to change the direction of your car, so why relinquish the same level of power to your providers?

Low-code applications that support self-configuration empower service organisations to identify and execute process improvements with greater ease, speed and precision.

This is most effective when applied to the management of workflows. Having a user-friendly interface that enables system operators to create, monitor and adjust workflows through a series of easy to follow steps, opens up a whole plethora of opportunities to continually improve and elevate your service quality.

3. Customer experience

With rising expectation and perpetual flux in customer demand, the key to repeat business is through executing a robust customer-driven service offering.

However, in order to keep your business strategy in alignment with market demand, service organisations require tools to capture, review and action customer feedback.

Front-end systems, which are quick to adopt the use-ability factor of low code, address this need for accessible feedback mechanisms with customisable forms and automated audit trails.

This offers an attractive opportunity to create and refine onsite feedback forms and customer satisfaction surveys with greater ease and less technical knowledge – all supported by the simplicity of low code.

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Aside from saving valuable time, low-code solutions provide an exciting opportunity to obtain greater value from management software through empowering users with greater autonomy, flexibility and choice.

As the field service management industry advances through the utilisation of low-code technology, it’s exciting to see if other industries will follow suite or will choose to appropriate other forms of pervasive technological innovations.

Either way, the need for businesses and technology to co-evolve is perpetually growing. The difference between gaining a competitive edge or losing one, for both consumers and software vendors, is the speed in which innovation is leveraged to provide optimised conditions for business growth, sustainability and profitability.