Hello, and thank you for watching another video in our series, where we look to discuss different trends that we believe will impact the future of financial services. My name is Arda Sitak, and I'm a Director of Agile Project Management at Publicis Sapient, where we've spent the last three decades helping our clients use the disruptive power of technology to help digitally enable their pursuit of what's next. Today we're going to discuss low-code, no-code with Serbi Durr, a Senior Client Partner at Publicis Sapient. Serbi, thank you for joining me today.
Hi Arda, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to share what I have been doing in the low-code, no-code space in North America, specifically for our clients with Publicis Sapient. So thank you for having me here.
Awesome. So why don't we start off with a brief introduction of what is low-code, no-code?
Yeah, absolutely. You know, as the name says, low-code, no-code. In my two cents, I think there is nothing as no-code, but it's an industry sexy approach. But let me talk more about what is really low-code. Back in the day, we used to refer to this as rapid application development, and then it really became workflow process automation. But fast forward 2021, what this solution really is, it allows for repeatable blocks of code to be leveraged with minimalistic coding, enabling business users to be more IT savvy and allow for rapid application development, improvement of overall process workflows and process lifecycle. And at the same time, it allows for rapid deployment. So that in a nutshell is what low-code is. And the reason it has this sexy name, low-code and no-code, is because the idea is that we should be leveraging the blocks of repeatable logical code, and that should limit the number of coding, net new coding that is required, net new details that are required, and so on and so forth. And that is why it's called low-code, no-code.
So what's the business value that's driving the need for these low-code, no-code solutions in financial institutions?
I think there are a lot of reasons why low-code, no-code has picked up steam in the last four to five years. The number one is the digital influence. And we've all lived through a very challenging 2020 and a continued challenge on 2021, where we saw that digital influence has rapidly increased almost to the tune of 28 to 32% across the financial services industry. Second reason for low-code, no-code revolution is the operational efficiencies. Banks can improve their operational efficiency for up to 30% by emphasis on automation and adopting cloud technologies. That again has led to an increased focus on, hey, can we do it with repeatable blocks of code? Customizable low-code solutions with robust security processes, data integration, cross-platform support can help optimize development resource allocation. And I think that's one area that across the industry we've been feeling a burn, lack of resources, lack of IT resources. And it's been ever so more this year and last year because it's so hard to find the right skills. So how can we still scale? How can we still deploy when we are facing resource shortages? Not saying that low-code, no-code is a silver bullet, but it definitely comes in really, really as a powerful tool that can enable FIs to leapfrog and to continue with their same delivery timelines and still deliver given the shortage of resources, if they look at low-code, no-code as a solution for some of their business problem statements. And the last driver that I see is the overall delivery transformation that's happening. There is already a wide adoption of the concept of test and learn. A lot of our clients that I interact with on a day-to-day basis have moved away from big bank projects where we would deliver all at once, but it's more around let's break it down into the most viable product. Let's have lessons learned from it, and then let's scale it to the other lines of businesses, or let's scale it to the other customer journeys, even for that matter, in some cases. So with that mindset in play, the product mindset is something that is very widely understood by the FIs now. And low-code, no-code fits in as a data engineering solution provider in that space. And I think all these factors combined are driving the reason why this industry is expected to reach $29 billion by 2025. And these numbers are staggering because the banks and the FIs, they tend to lose close to $1.5 trillion to $4.7 trillion in aggregate cost due to the COVID recovery scenarios that we are looking at. So due to the V-shaped recovery that we are looking at, banks are really focusing on, hey, where can we have those operational efficiencies? Where can we have reduced dependency on IT resources? How can we enable businesses to be more IT citizens? And with those factors coming into play and the economic recovery coming into play, low-code, no-code delivers a staggering response, and that's why we are seeing that more and more clients are requesting for low-code, no-code solutions.
That's amazing. Can you maybe tell us some use cases where it would be best applicable to look at a low-code, no-code solution?
Yeah, absolutely. So low-code, no-code can be applied across the value chain. And I mean, when I say the value chain, from customer onboarding, from a new business or deal lifecycle, to payments, to overall customer lifecycle management, and in operations, in corporate functions, in governance, risk, and compliance. So some of the use cases that I'll touch upon as across the value chain that I just mentioned. It can be applied for campaign management. It can be applied for loan origination, customer onboarding, fast credit lending programs. It has been applied. The examples that I just gave, it has been applied by some of our clients, and some of the clients that are working with these low-code, no-code vendors in the market. It can also be applied for disputes and complaints management. Back-end operations is somewhere, is a place where I've seen a lot of FIs benefit from applying low-code, no-code solutions, such as in corporate actions, omni-channel case management, robotic workforce manager, people performance reports come leveraging low-code, no-code solutions. Reconciliations, another area. And some of the other corporate functions that have greatly benefited from it are incident and crisis management, tax redemption management. And when you talk about governance, risk, and compliance, there have been use cases around KYC, credit risk review, data privacy, which have AML, which have really benefited where our clients have actually applied low-code, no-code solutions. And those teams have seen operational efficiency. They've seen quicker turnaround time, reduced time to deploy products to the market. So it's been great.
Wow. Does that mean that we can expect to build complex enterprise-level applications without doing any coding at all?
That's a great question. No. Because I think what low-code, no-code solution does is it solves a part of a very big complex problem. But in this ecosystem of a complex problem, you require a typical SI player to be engaged to track program transformation, to track overall delivery KPIs, to track business requirements, delivery, and so on and so forth. Where low-code, no-code players come into play, such as our systems, Appian, Mendix, and a whole suite of them, where they come into play is when the data sources are identified, when the requirements are absolutely clear and they're not ever changing, and when it is time-boxed and it's time-sensitive, that's where a low-code, no-code delivery will have maximum value. And the reason I say that is because if you're trying to build a simple user interface or if you're trying to automate engagement with your customers that are, you know, you have to issue claims to them and you're trying to simplify the claims process, leveraging low-code, no-code solution, and you're basically making it easier for them to submit documentation proof and stuff, it's, you're simplifying a process, you're simplifying a use case. So you apply a low-code, no-code solution to one customer journey or two customer journeys and you can definitely see your maximum value coming out of it. But if you were trying to do an enterprise transformation program, then I would hesitate to put all my, you know, engineering folks just on low-code, no-code because there are going to be ever-changing requirements, there are going to be data gaps that we are not aware of at the beginning of the engagement, there are going to be so many unknowns that would defeat the purpose of a fast-track agility product mindset delivery that would come with a low-code, no-code player.
Okay, that makes sense. So, I mean, an organization really has to identify the right place to apply the low-code, no-code solutions. It's not really a silver bullet for everything.
Yeah, I would agree. And interestingly, where we are seeing, we are working with clients, and I mean, Publicis Sapien, we are working with clients where we are bringing in low-code, no-code vendors in partnership with our ecosystem and delivering a cohesive solution that makes sense. And that allows a win-win for our clients is because they're getting the fast agility delivered solution and are able to achieve their operational efficiency metrics, but at the same time, they're engaging with an SI player that's accountable for overall delivery, that's accountable for overall transformation, that's responsible for overall program governance, that's responsible for all the requirements, that's responsible for teeing up the entire complex delivery together. And I think that accountability being on the SI makes it so much simpler for our clients and success more achievable and more feasible as opposed to just engaging with a low-code, no-code player and not having that steady hand that's delivering together in a complete package solution. So we've been partnering with Appian, we've been partnering with Uncork, and we've been delivering low-code, no