BPM and Low-Code — To the unsuspecting, these may seem unrelated terms with absolutely nothing in common. But still, they have often used in tandem in enterprise technology circles.
Business Process Management (BPM) is a software platform to automate organizational workflow and business processes. On the other hand, Low-Code platforms enable businesses to develop software applications rapidly with minimum hand-coding.
BPM Software has been in the market since the early 2000s, while Low Code Platforms have gathered momentum only in the past few years.
If we dig deep to analyze all the vendors who claim to provide Low-Code application development platforms, you will realize there is a sizeable number who have evolved from a BPM legacy. In their prime, BPM Software was able to do much more than process automation and management.
With the competition in the BPM Software space hotting up, it was only natural for established BPM vendors to alter their positioning as well as product architecture to align with the new wave of enterprise application development.
Their ideas were further conformed when analyst companies started backing Low-Code platforms as the next big thing in the enterprise software space.
Given this history and background, let us look at what each one is built for and which one is right for your business needs.
Purpose
BPM Platforms have been built to bring operational excellence to departmental and enterprise workflows.
Modern BPM platforms can go one step further and bring value for non-process driven business applications, but you cannot build an enterprise-grade application for every business need.
Low-Code Platforms were born to address a different problem. As new software application demand rose, so did the need for talented programmers and developers who could build any type of software application rapidly. But businesses were not able to scale this consistently due to lack of quality software developers across the board.
Welcome, Low-Code Software. Low-Code Platforms fundamentally altered traditional software development methodologies. They empowered novice developers with basic programming knowledge to build any type of software application rapidly.
Audience
BPM Software is targeted towards operational heads, business users and department heads. As it directly relates to improving their work efficiency, visibility, and measurement.
Low-Code Platforms are targeted towards IT Heads, Development Teams and Architects. As it helps them deliver business applications faster, better and cheaper. Given the skills and time required for each.
What can you build with it?
Typical use cases for BPM Apps would be any process app that is document and workflow centric. Customer Service, Approval Processes, Back office processes, review processes are a few examples. Such applications are still relevant to most industry domains, where work moves from one desk to another or one mailbox to another in modern times.
Low-Code Platforms are employed to develop any type of software application, web or mobile. They can internally use workflow/ BPM engines to handle things done by BPM platforms as well.
Customer-facing web apps, Vendor Portals, Employee Portals, Ecommerce Mobile Apps, Legacy Modernization Apps, etc. are a few examples where Low-Code software excels.
The Bottomline
BPM Software though aging is still relevant to handle workflow and process-driven application requirements. They do this better than any other cross-breed platform in that space.
On the other hand, Low-Code Platforms are instrumental in bringing down the time and skills required to build any type of software application across web and mobile.
Depending on your business need and timelines you can choose one over the other.
Have you tried The Neutrinos Platform yet? We are offering a free trial for the complete platform for a limited period.