What is Low-Code, No-Code Development and Which Solution is Right for Me?

Creatio and Low-Code No-Code Development: What’s the Story?

Software development publications and industry journals have been talking about Low-Code and No-Code (LCNC) development for some time now. If you are wondering what this is and how it can help your business, let’s dive in and explore the world of LCNC, and one of its premier development platforms.

Let’s start with the definition of Low-Code and No-Code development:

Low-Code Development

This approach supports the development team by decreasing the amount of ‘from scratch’ coding required, and creating a foundation of reusable code with components that become building blocks for future development. This development approach allows programmers to leverage low-code user interface components roughly 80% of development tasks, thereby limiting the manual coding efforts to 20% of developer time. Because low-code application development requires a knowledge of other tools and development skills, it is typically used by professional programmers with coding skills and knowledge. A Low Code development platform allows developers to extend component libraries and web frameworks to address specific use cases. Developers can work faster and more precisely with proven tools and combine coding and programming experience with tools designed for rapid software development.

No-Code Development

The No Code approach utilizes a visual workflow in an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), eliminating the need for manual coding. This technique creates a kind of ‘snap in’ system of components that developers can use and reuse to solve problems and create features and functionality. This closed system of tools restricts the developer by limiting use to pre-existing capabilities and user interface tools. The No-Code approach can provide a start-up with quick results and foundational features and allow them to enter the market and build visibility. Now that we have a better understanding of low-code/no-code app development, let us consider how technology research firms and publications see these development techniques.

Is Low-Code/No-Code Development and Creatio Right For Your Business Needs?

According to the world-renowned Technology Research Firm, Gartner, ‘low-code platforms will be used in 65% of application development.’

‘As with any solution or platform choice, the right fit for your organization is based on your requirements, your technology landscape, your users, your products and services and other considerations.’

A recent survey of businesses revealed several primary reasons for using the Low-Code/No-Code approach.

  • Accelerate Digital Innovation and Transformation
  • Reduce Current IT Backlog and Increase Responsiveness
  • Reduce Dependency on Professional Technology Skills, and Increase Developer Productivity
  • Protect Against Technology Churn
  • Improve Time to Market

If you are considering a low-code/no-code development project, you may wish to review the capabilities of the Creatio platform. Creatio is used today in many LCNC projects and has numerous capabilities and advantages.

Creatio is a well-recognized low-code, no-code development option that can be used for many purposes and in many industries.

There are some primary reasons for selecting Creatio as your LCNC choice.

  • First, the development process supports programmers with simple tools, making it easier and faster to develop components and launch an app.
  • Secondly, many LCNC platforms are open-source, so they can be easily combined with other frameworks and platforms to create a comprehensive solution.

Advantages of Creatio

  • For Developers – Creatio provides an intuitive, simple environment in which to build apps with templates, connectors and apps that make it easy to get started, and its design tools allow the team to track project milestones and tasks. The platform allows for easy integration of Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS), OneLogin portals, Microsoft Exchange and 365, Webitel and Google and others. Creatio also includes integration capabilities for REST API support, OData protocol, SOAP services, OAuth authentication and LDAP protocols. The Creatio support team provides responsive access for developers, and the solution can be easily customized to suit various industries and business functions.
  • For the Enterprise – The Creatio environment provides the capability for customer overview from sales conversion to retention and marketing campaigns, and enables insight into planning and budgeting with analytical features to produce reports and help the business improve performance. Creatio allows the business to monitor tasks and projects and forecast outcomes, and tracks email, phone, social media and web interactions to provide a complete picture of customer interaction. Its customer relationship management (CRM) solutions include sales and customer service components and a marketing automation tool. The launch of the Creatio Energy 8.2 platform incorporates unified agentic AI, generative AI (GenAI) and Prescriptive AI in a single platform AI Command Center, making it possible for the business to incorporate AI functions and features into its product or app roadmap.

Creatio combines generative, agentic, and predictive AI into one no-code platform to enable businesses and industries to achieve market advantage, improve productivity and customer satisfaction and support business decisions and strategies.

According to the world-renowned Technology Research Firm, Gartner, ‘low-code platforms will be used in 65% of application development.’

As with any solution or platform choice, the right fit for your organization is based on your requirements, your technology landscape, your users, your products and services and other considerations. Work with a domain expert to review your needs and decide if low code or no code development is right for you and if Creatio is the right platform and framework for your organization.

Contact Us to find out how Low-Code/No-Code Development and Creatio Development can help your business and provide swift, targeted results. Read out free White Paper: ‘What Is Low-Code, No-Code Development? How Can It Support My Business Application And Software Product Development Needs?’ and ‘Creatio Low-Code and No-Code Development: What is the Creatio LCNC Platform and When and How Can My Business Use Creatio?

Assessing Ten Years of the Citizen Data Scientist Approach

Ten Years Into the Citizen Data Scientist Revolution

It has been a decade since Gartner first defined the role of a Citizen Data Scientist. In 2018, Forbes published an article, referencing Gartner’s updated analysis of the role and stating that, ‘And the best part is, mid-market organizations already have potential citizen data scientists on their staff—it’s just a matter of tapping those with potential and interest in the work, and cultivating an analytical mindset across their workforce. Then, those who serve as citizen data scientists can grow their own skillsets, all the while being active players in their companies’ ability to tap the value of big data and drive transformation.’

‘It is likely that the Citizen Data Scientist role will continue to evolve, and it is important that the enterprise facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing and build a sustainable technology environment with appropriate policies.’

A lot has happened in the past decade, and today the role of Citizen Data Scientist is no longer new. So, what has changed in the ensuing years? How as this role changed? Has the average enterprise embraced the role and made the technological and cultural changes required to truly support this approach?

A Decade of Citizen Data Scientist Evolution

Here are a few of the ways in which the Citizen Data Scientist approach has evolved within the organization.

  • In the early days of the Citizen Data Scientist approach, Data Scientists often worried that their positions would become obsolete. Nothing can be further from the truth. The use of Data Scientists to perform strategic analytics and to refine analysis performed and submitted by business users has kept Data Scientists busy.
  • The evolution of augmented analytics and self-serve tools has expanded analytical capacity, the speed at which business users can gather and analyze data and the dependability of the outcomes. Drag and drop capabilities, machine learning and, more recently, artificial intelligence (AI) have significantly improved tools and made it easier and more desirable for business users to dive into analytics and make it part of their day-to-day role.
  • As cloud-based access expanded, the enterprise leveraged improved access and data platforms to enable collaboration and create multi-disciplinary teams and power user roles that would further encourage the use of these tools across the enterprise. Methods and guidelines improved data literacy and encouraged business user expertise creating more confident Citizen Data Scientists and supporting the role as a mainstream concept.

Every enterprise must do more with less, increase productivity and reduce missteps in order to remain competitive. So, it is likely that the Citizen Data Scientist role will continue to evolve, and it is important that the enterprise facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing and build a sustainable technology environment with appropriate policies for user access, upgraded technology and data analytics tools and standards and regulations to govern and manage risk and maintain alignment with enterprise strategies and goals.

‘Those who serve as citizen data scientists can grow their own skillsets, all the while being active players in their companies’ ability to tap the value of big data and drive transformation.’

If you wish to know more about the Citizen Data Scientist approach and how augmented analytics tools and your industry and market knowledge can position you for success in this role, Contact Us today to find out how our team can help you to improve business results and increase team collaboration, data literacy, productivity and competitive advantage. Get started today with our self-paced FREE Online Citizen Data Scientist course.

Conversational AI and NLP Expand Access to Analytics

Users LOVE Conversational AI and Intuitive Analytics

Forbes Reports that Conversational AI is making autonomous agents capable of completing end-to-end workflows, so much so that Deloitte projects that 25% of businesses using GenAI will deploy AI agents in 2025 (growing to 50% in 2027).

Analytics solutions represents an ever-expending segment for conversational AI for features and function, and the use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Conversational Artificial Intelligence will continue to impact the industry as end users demand easier, more intuitive ways to prepare, analyze, share and report on data.

When we consider this evolving technology, and how it will continue to affect BI solutions and augmented analytics software, one thing is clear. The average enterprise and its users will push for more intuitive products and services, for ease-of-use and improved productivity, improved user adoption, affordability, the flexibility to grow and change with new technology and with business markets.

While we cannot make specific predictions about the evolution of AI and NLP, we can predict that businesses and users will push software vendors and technology companies to provide simpler tools, better, more accurate insight and results and automated features that provide users with alerts, suggestions and support to make their jobs easier and improve results.

Incorporating conversation AI bots and NLP within BI tools will allow users to monitor and manage results more easily and optimize their time by focusing on other, more crucial tasks.

When the organization invests in new or upgraded self-serve analytical tools, it must first ensure that users will adopt these tools and that the features and analytics provided will result in increased productivity and collaboration and resource optimization. When the enterprise selects BI tools with Conversational AI and NLP features, it can achieve all of these goals and assure a good Return on Investment (ROI) and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies evolve, these technologies will be applied within advanced analytics, self-serve analytics and business intelligence (BI) tools to further improve features, provide better, faster insight and clearer, more concise results and optimize human resources and productivity.

Businesses and Users Push for More as Conversational AI and NLP Expands Access to Analytics

The future of AI and NLP in BI tools will support:

  • Processing large volumes of unstructured data (text, speech, written) to produce actionable insight and reports.
  • Automatically identifying trends, patterns and sentiments to alert users of changes and shifts that may affect goals.
  • Supporting decisions with conversational business intelligence to allow team members and executives to interact through NLP.
  • Real-time analytics to reveal sentiment, emotion, context and tone in customer interaction.
  • Automated reporting to save time and analyze complex data.
  • External data integration to analyze markets, social media, financial markets, investments, and other aspects of external data that will affect businesses.
  • Understanding and responding to voice commands, analyzing and working with contextual information, predicting user needs.
  • Eliminating static reporting, using conversational, dynamic analytics that can leverage predictive and analytical algorithms to produce results.

Contact Us to find out more about how your business can incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI), natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning into your products, your business processes and your Digital Transformation (Dx) initiatives. Our AI-Enabled Advanced Analytics Solutions and Products And Services can help you achieve your vision with affordable, dependable technology. Explore our white paper ‘Conversational AI And NLP Analytics Reduces The Dependence And Usage Of Traditional BI Tools, And Improves User Adoption And Data Democratization,’ and our free articles about Agentic AI: The New Age Of AI: Agentic AI, and ‘What Is Agentic AI And Why Should I Consider It For Apps?

Mobile BI Tools Are Not Just Nice to Have, They Are A Necessity

Mobile BI Tools Support Users and a Competitive Strategy

No matter the size of your business or the industry or market in which you compete, the importance of business intelligence (BI) and self-serve augmented analytics is no longer in question. Nearly every business is using some form of business intelligence today and, if your business is not, you are already behind the competition!

When we consider the growth of this important solution market, we find that the mobile market for business intelligence solutions is growing exponentially and that is not surprising. Today’s workforce is mobile and, even where employees work onsite, their work will take them away from a desk and into a manufacturing or production environment, or perhaps within the walls of a hospital, a university, a retail store, etc.

‘The shift to mobile BI tools is not just a matter of convenience. It is crucial that your team remain informed and that they have the tools they need to collaborate, share and present data, whether they are on the road, with a client or in an airport. This flexibility reflects the evolving business environment and the need for agility.’

A recent Mordor Intelligence Report revealed that the 2025 market size for mobile business intelligence was 19.33 billion USD and that the 2030 projected market size is 55.56 billion USD.

While many businesses rely solely on BI solutions and look to their team to implement and use these solutions, the growth of business intelligence services is also of note. The complexity of technology landscapes, in-house vs. cloud implementations, security and regulatory and industry compliance, as well as artificial intelligence (AI) add-ons and integration have created an environment that is often best served by expert services.

These services can help businesses to personalize and customize their approach and to provide meaningful mobile BI tools, embedded BI for familiar best-of-breed and legacy software solutions and other tools that will support end users and make the team more productive.

User accessibility and ease-of-use are paramount considerations. The shift to mobile BI tools is not just a matter of convenience. It is crucial that your team remain informed and that they have the tools they need to collaborate, share and present data, whether they are on the road, with a client or in an airport. This flexibility reflects the evolving business environment and the need for agility.

Whether you are a sales manager, a media executive, a healthcare provider or a business analyst, it is important to have access to a suite of BI tools that will help you gather and analyze business data using mobile devices.

Why is Mobile Business Intelligence Important for My Business in Today’s Work Environment?

The team needs interactive data tools and tools that enable sharing and collaboration, reporting and sophisticated analytics – all with dependable security. Users should also be able to tailor their mobile BI tools to suit their role and preferences and integrate the use of these tools within workflow to foster a data-driven, fact-based culture.

‘Today’s workforce is mobile and, even where employees work onsite, their work will take them away from a desk and into a manufacturing or production environment, or perhaps within the walls of a hospital, a university, a retail store, etc.’

Look for a mobile BI tool that will:

  • Support a native mobile environment for Android and iOS, with an intuitive user experience (Ux).
  • Provide access rights defined at the server level with appropriate security and privacy at all levels.
  • Accommodate hosting within the IT infrastructure, on-premises or in public or private cloud environs.
  • Provide users with access to dashboards, reports, and clickless analytics with a natural language processing (NLP) search function.
  • Provide expertise and services that are appropriate for the needs of your organization.

If you want to support your business user team and provide a foundation for BI tools that will better serve your team and your customers, explore Smarten Mobile BI benefits and features, with powerful functionality and access for your business users including out-of-the-box Mobile BI and advanced analytics for every team member. For more information on Mobile BI and Augmented Analytics, read our article, ‘Mobile BI Business Use Provides Real Advantages,’ and take a moment to watch and listen to this informative webinar, ‘Smarten Mobile BI.’

Does a Small or Medium Business Need Digital Transformation?

Embrace Digital Transformation (Dx) to Support Your SMB

Small and medium sized businesses (SMEs or SMBs) are not exempt from competition. In fact, they are constantly subjected to the pressures of competition and, lacking the resources of a large enterprise, they are far more likely to fail if they are not ready to be battle-tested.

No matter the age, experience or tech savvy of your executive and management team, it is hard to keep up with technology and yet, as we all know, technology is a necessary tool and component of enterprise success.

A recent in-depth Springer study of the barriers and enablers of Digital Transformation (Dx) in small and medium enterprises revealed that: ‘several factors simplify the process of digitization in SMEs, including the appropriate technologies, and a workforce equipped with the right digital skills to use them. While barriers to digitalization included the risk-averse culture prevalent in many SMEs, and their reliance on outdated legacy systems.’

‘Engage an expert partner to help you assess your current environment and look for opportunities to improve the digital landscape using existing technology, and where appropriate add new tools to support your team, your management and your customers.’

Here are some statistics that may help your enterprise understand the urgency of Digital Transformation (Dx) and the need to plan for and execute this strategy with appropriate support and expertise.

  • The digital transformation market is expected to grow at a 23.9% CAGR between now and 2030.
  • 74% of organizations consider digital transformation a top priority
  • 77% of companies have already started their digital transformation journey
  • Only 35% of organizations’ digital transformation efforts are successful

Your IT team may be small and they are probably overloaded with projects and maintenance, but Dx is an important component of your success and should not be ignored. When a Small or Medium Sized Business (SMB) embraces Digital Transformation, it can improve operational efficiency (do more with less), improve productivity and enhance customer experience. In short, Digital Transformation can have a positive impact on all areas of your business, making your enterprise more customer-centric.

Support Your SMB and SME with Digital Transformation (Dx) and Achieve a Competitive Advantage

Online experiences are crucial to business success and when it comes to customer satisfaction, they are mandatory. By embracing Dx, the small and medium sized enterprise (SME) can leverage its agility to compete with large and small competitors.

  • Enhance the Customer Experience with targeted services and tools to foster loyalty and improve customer satisfaction
  • Improve Team Efficiency by automating tasks and streamlining workflow and approval loops, enhancing efficiency, reporting, collaboration and productivity.
  • Reduce Cost and Increase Revenue with streamlined operations, optimized resources,  and improved customer experiences.
  • Improve Decision-Making by enabling data gathering and analysis from disparate data sources to provide insight to your ream and support fact-based decisions.
  • Improve Competitive Advantage with faster, more flexible digital tools and features to enable entry into new markets and quickly adapt to changing customer buying behaviors and needs.

The Dx journey can support small and medium enterprises by leveraging cloud services, simplifying data storage and data management, enhancing collaboration and data access and improving eCommerce services, digital marketing services, and data analytics for your team, and by streamlining routine business processes

‘When a Small or Medium Sized Business (SMB) embraces Digital Transformation, it can improve operational efficiency (do more with less), improve productivity and enhance customer experience.’

Engage an expert partner to help you assess your current environment and look for opportunities to improve the digital landscape using existing technology, and where appropriate add new tools to support your team, your management and your customers.

Contact Us to find out how Digital Transformation (Dx) services for your Small Or Medium Sized Business can help you to achieve your goals and gain a competitive advantage. Read our free White Paper: ‘Is Digital Transformation Important For Small And Medium Businesses?’, and ‘Understanding Digital Transformation: What It Is And What It Is Not.’

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Embedded BI for End-Users Improves User Adoption and Results

Should My Business Employ Embedded BI for End Users?

The Embedded Business Intelligence (BI) and augmented analytics market is growing by leaps and bounds. According to a recent Mordor Intelligence the banking and finance industries represent 21% of the Embedded Business Intelligence end-user market, while Healthcare represents 15% and there is significant growth in the end-user component of business intelligence solution use for manufacturing, retail and energy. In short, embedded BI for end-users is growing in many industries and markets.

‘No matter the industry or market, end-users can easily access embedded BI and analytics tools from within familiar, popular solutions and apps and use analytics to gather and analyze data, produce reports and collaborate with other users to make fact-based decisions.’

Embedded BI allows the enterprise to affordably and quickly put the power of integrated business intelligence where they need it, with simple, easy-to-use analytics integration within enterprise and business applications in a single sign-on environment. Organizations can easily integrate and embed BI objects within their ERP, CRM, Intranet portal or other applications, to improve user adoption and maximize Business Intelligence ROI.

When enterprises integrate Embedded BI within popular solutions, they report significant improvement in user adoption and in the value of BI tools.

  • 67% of companies say time spent in their applications increased after they embedded analytics
  • 93% of application teams say embedded analytics improves their user experience

Business users can access augmented analytics and BI tools from within their enterprise applications or mobile apps. The enterprise can engender business intelligence data democratization and alleviate user frustration with real business user solutions and deep dive capabilities. Your team can provide user access within their favorite applications to improve user adoption of business intelligence tools, and engender collaboration, data sharing and fact-based decisions.

How Does Embedded BI Improve BI User Adoption and End-User Solution Satisfaction?

When your business selects the right embedded BI solution, there are many advantages for end-users, including:

  • Seamless Access to Data Sources including data warehouses, and business application architecture with single-tenant mode or multi-tenant modes.
  • Single Sign-On Access (SSO) for access to analytics, using the same login credentials as those employed to access the business application.
  • Access to Embedded BI Objects from Within Your Application with easy to use, scalable Integration API. Integrate BI objects (Dashboards, Crosstab, Tabular, KPIs, Graphs, Reports, Clickless Analytics and more) into your business application.

Select a solution that is easily implemented without a lot of customization and that can be deployed quickly and easily, so your end-users can get started using self-serve analytics right away.

‘Business users can access augmented analytics and BI tools from within their enterprise applications or mobile apps. The enterprise can engender business intelligence data democratization and alleviate user frustration with real business user solutions and deep dive capabilities.’

No matter the industry or market, end-users can easily access embedded BI and analytics tools from within familiar, popular solutions and apps and use analytics to gather and analyze data, produce reports and collaborate with other users to make fact-based decisions. Embedded Bi enables user adoption to improve Return on Investment (ROI) and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and it increases user satisfaction and understanding of analytics by providing easy-to-use tools that make the team member’s job easier and increase productivity.

Contact Us to discuss the unique needs of your organization and your users and find out more about Smarten Technology. Explore Embedded BI And Analytics and how it can help you to achieve your goals, improve user adoption and satisfaction and improve ROI and TCO.

Case Study : Augmented Analytics for India-Based Municipal Corporation to Support Smart City Initiative

The Client is one of the largest municipal corporations in India, and is responsible for delivering essential civic services, i.e., water supply, sewage treatment, solid waste management, road infrastructure, public health, education, and environmental programs for an urban population of over 3.1 million citizens.

Can Agentic AI Help My Business, and How Will it Impact My Staff?

Agentic AI Can Be Used to Support Business and Teams

A recent study by Deloitte Reports that 52% of respondents say that Agentic AI is the most interesting area of artificial intelligence today.

Agentic AI takes artificial intelligence to the next level by enabling decision-making and independent behavior that involves reasoning, planning and completing tasks and actions in real time to achieve established goals.

Thirty years ago, we could not have imagined this technology, nor the impact it would have on productivity, work processes, businesses and consumers. In this rapidly evolving environment, it is worth considering the impact on jobs and on the people who previously performed the tasks we now as AI to complete.

Let’s consider some of the uses of Agentic AI so that we can better understand its potential and how it can be (and is) used in today’s business environment and how the use of Agentic AI will impact those currently working in each of these environments.

How Can Businesses Use Agentic AI to Help the Business and Support Team Members?

Manufacturing

Use Case: The typical manufacturing environment is supported by numerous systems, functions and processes. To complete the cycle, the business must incorporate the supply chain for parts and components and manage a multi-step, multi-level workflow. Agentic AI can work independently to identify supply shortages and review alternative sources for supplies that meet requirements for the timing of shipping and the price of materials. It can complete and submit forms and manage production schedules to accommodate the arrival of materials and meet deadlines.

Staffing Impact: If the business intends to engage Agentic AI to perform these tasks, it would be wise to include team members in the process to control specific, critical points along the manufacturing lifecycle and to monitor and manage the process to ensure appropriate decisions and action.

Call Centers

Use Case: Agentic AI is in use today in many call centers. AI agents gather and use existing intelligence to address and serve customers, considering order history and customer preferences, customer satisfaction, and company policies for returns, shipping and other factors.

Staffing Impact: Agentic AI can relieve live agents from the more mundane tasks and, when a live agent interacts with a customer, that agent can quickly leverage information gathered from previous interactions and orders and even suggest solutions and purchases or alternatives based on the information gathered by the AI assistant.

Healthcare

Use Case: Human interaction is crucial to healthcare but Agentic AI can help with the more routine activities like scheduling appointments, processing insurance claims and aligning government and industry regulations with tasks performed to ensure compliance. The system can review electronic health records (EHR) to bring together unstructured notes into a summary and provide classification information.

Staffing Impact: By streamlining the routine tasks, note-taking and summarization, Agentic AI can enable staff optimization and allow healthcare professionals to focus on patient interaction, records review and diagnostics and other crucial activities.

Research and Compounding

Use Case: Whether a business is developing a pharmaceutical compound or creating a food recipe, this process can take a lot of time and involve a lot of trial and error. Agentic AI allows the business to consider other additives, ingredients and compounds, compare the pricing for these new ingredients and compounds and the manufacturing requirements, alternatives and possible issues.

Staffing Impact: Skilled team members can use the information gathered and recommended by Agentic AI to review results, and make alternative recommendations or test theories and make final decisions.

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) evolves, it is important for businesses to weigh the experience, skills and knowledge of its team members and to incorporate those factors into the decisions surrounding the use of AI. Agentic AI and other technologies can be very helpful in performing routine activities, redundant tasks and even some decisions. But human intervention and experience are always important to identify and address the more nuanced issues and bring a trained eye to the final product, service or decision.

AI is at its best when it is used to its full potential, in concert with the human element of skills, experience and knowledge and it can be a benefit to your team by relieving them of routine tasks and by revealing interesting ideas and concepts that can be refined and used to create new business products and services and solving problems.

Contact Us to find out more about how your business can incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI), natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning into your products, your business processes and your Digital Transformation (Dx) initiatives. Our Products And Services can help you achieve your vision with affordable, dependable technology. Explore our free articles about Agentic AI: ‘The New Age Of AI: Agentic AI’, and ‘What Is Agentic AI And Why Should I Consider It For Apps?