Philipp Erdkönig, Partner Account Manager at Webcon: "Low-code tools yes, but not where many expect them!"

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In recent years, companies have driven digital transformation at an unprecedented pace - partly due to the pandemic, but largely due to changing customer expectations and market requirements. For many, automating their processes is one of the first things to go. Because when it comes to organizational change, this offers a number of advantages. Companies that automate highly manual processes quickly and visibly benefit from greater efficiency and speed as well as a lower error rate and workload. The experts at Webcon see five trends for 2022.

Trend 1: The triumph of low-code/no-code tools

Low-code or no-code development environments are designed to make it possible for citizen developers - employees without programming skills - to program small automations of their day-to-day work themselves. Such tools are popular with many users because they offer companies advantages such as scalability, security and simple application deployment. In view of the high demand for new applications in companies and the ongoing shortage of IT specialists, the use of such tools will continue to rise sharply in 2022 - but not where many expect it.

Trend 2: Citizen-assisted development on the rise

For more than ten years, companies have expected citizen developers, often referred to as power users, to take the place of IT specialists - but with limited success. This is because power users focus on solving their own problems when developing applications. This results in applications that cannot be scaled to the entire company and are not designed for long-term growth. Citizen development projects are thus becoming passé: they are being replaced by citizen-assisted development.

The two trends mentioned above - the acceptance of low-code/no-code tools by experts and the decline in citizen development projects - must be viewed in conjunction with each other. The result will be the citizen-assisted development approach: a method in which citizen developers and professional developers use the same tools to work hand in hand on the digitalization of business processes using rapid prototyping.

"This allows companies to develop applications that are precisely tailored to their own needs - and much faster and more effectively than in citizen development projects," says Philipp Erdkönig, Partner Account Manager at Webcon.

Trend 3: A damper for robotic process automation

Robotic Process Automation (RPA), i.e. robot-supported process automation in the true sense of the word, does not exist. What the providers of RPA are really selling is the automation of individual tasks - not the automation of a more comprehensive process. That's not to say that this technology won't continue to be very successful; but companies will find that they are asking too much of it. In the coming year, we will instead increasingly see a combination of RPA and digital process automation.

More often, for example, we will see the automation of data capture or data retrieval into or from legacy IT systems or other information sources using RPAs that have no interfaces. This data is then processed further as part of a digitalized and therefore transparent and efficient business process.

Trend 4: Content management as part of automation

Many companies will also rethink the area of content management. For too long, users have been under the misconception that it is enough to make content usable and accessible by centralizing and organizing it. However, this is not the way to achieve true real-time collaboration and digital transformation. Rather, content should be used as part of a larger process management and automation initiative. In addition to the authorization management and versioning of documents, they should also be made available in the context of business processes, or created and edited accordingly in the course of a process - because documents and other types of content such as tables and technical drawings are an important part of almost all processes in a company.

Trend 5: The waterfall model remains

In the waterfall model, software development is supposed to take place in a series of consecutive, self-contained steps. However, this methodology is now antiquated - especially in light of today's agile development methods. These focus more on the continuous provision of software in rapid iterations and lead to faster results. Some companies are already using this type of development in many areas.

"However, as long as companies hire external consultants and agree projects at fixed prices and with fixed durations, the waterfall model will unfortunately continue to be used in the foreseeable future - which has a negative impact on process automation. This is because processes are constantly evolving. It is therefore better to implement and continuously refine a process automation solution than to view it as a one-off project that will not be touched once it is completed," adds Erdkönig.

"Depending on the industry, companies will adapt the trends at different speeds. But one thing is clear: 2022 will be dominated by process automation - no organization will be able to imagine life without it. This is the only way they will remain sustainable in disruptive times like these," concludes Erdkönig.