"Atmanirbhar" No-Code Platforms!

Implications of Geo-Politics on Tech landscape in general and Cloud/no-code ecosystem.

Passengers queue up at Moscow Metro Station

A Changed World Order

In a Social media accelerated hype, yesterday’s vaccine, blockchain experts are all today’s geo-politics experts! Jokes apart, the current Russia-Ukraine situation has warranted the need to discuss on this important topic. At least from an India IT eco-system perspective. Its a undeniable fact that geopolitics cannot be discounted in any sovereign country’s tech strategy/roadmap.

Remember people queuing for cash once Visa, MasterCard, Googlepay, ApplePay etc. were blocked recently in Russia. China itself had its own version of regulatory overreach by strictly regulating the Fintech players there. It hasn’t stopped yet, China is now considering a shake-up of Tencent similar to Jack Ma's Ant, which could require carving out its popular Pay service under a new holding company .

The Decoupling Factor

The Big-Tech control and Decentralization debate is raging on world over( crypto ban, CDC etc) Some nations have taken the decoupling route. Despite their interdependence, China has been tech decoupling from the U.S for years. India also needs to come with its own and nuanced strategy with a combination of decoupling and scaling in changed complex world order.(this doesn’t mean we need to go against all current globalization efforts!) . Its more of focussing on building world-class products so that rest of the world can consume it! All these efforts need realism and factoring combination of local and global imperatives. For starters, the cloud infrastructure and the Low-code/node ecosystems transformation should be part of this pivot . This should enable our own supply chains for software innovation (in terms of developing apps, hosting servers/data centers in our own geographical locations etc.) These additional nuances can also help avoiding recent Paytm like issue where their company’s servers were sharing information with China-based entities that indirectly own a stake in Paytm Payments Bank

The future of coding is no coding at all - Chris Wanstrath, GitHub CEO

What is No-Code?

Its a process and a mindset as well. Low code app development is a way of creating software which minimizes the requirement for specialized software developers. The development platform is configured in such a way that users can use form fields, selection palettes and drag and drop components to develop their software. The bulk of system creation can be done by non-professional developers, referred to as ‘citizen’ developers, with only highly bespoke elements requiring professional developer input. Most low code app development platforms are modular, with pre-configured, highly flexible components that allow incredible versatility in system design.

The future for no-code tools is definitely bright and its a huge opportunity .The global low code platform market is forecasted to be around 65 Billion USD by 2027.

Gartner magic quadrant has these low-code vendors - Appian, Creatio, Kintone, Mendix, Microsoft, Newgen, Oracle, OutSystems, Pega, Quickbase, Salesforce & ServiceNow. None from India!

India Stack Moment for Low code/Nocode

Sridhar Vembu @svembu

Our attitude towards deep tech R&D projects is "This technology is important for us to figure out and we will persist and persevere". @ZohoCreator is one example. We are working on many such deep R&D projects, from databases to semiconductors, compilers to medical instruments.

Zoho Creator @ZohoCreator

As time goes on, products that were once best of breed gradually fade away. But not us. Our secret? Read on to explore the history and evolution of Zoho Creator—a platform that changed the landscape of application development. 👉 https://t.co/cLDHaE1YgN #ZohoCreatorPlatform https://t.co/EjlQnhxbd8

The problem is that we are leveraging some of these magic quadrant vendors for our core enterprise software development and its risk mitigations are a different discussion topic altogether . The need of the hour is, we need to have more native & home grown No-code platforms to develop for Bharat and in turn can potentially help in digital sovereignty initiatives .We need more Indian companies like Zoho to spur more MVPs, product development initiatives and innovation in the No-code space.

The ability to gain traction in cyber-security, mapping, drones, 5G, medical AI, and other areas will determine whether #India becomes a major force in the next ten years. SaaS opportunity is huge to build next generation of companies (success stories like Zoho and Freshdesk ) . We need to augment & replicate the SaaS story with a robust “Atmanirbhar” no-code platform/ecosystem within India. Taking a leaf out of the IndiaStack can be a good step!

Sahil Lavingia @shl

It’s going to get much crazier when crypto meets nocode.

As India's Tech Revolution starts leaving the west behind, It's the right time and our best investment opportunity to scale IndiaStack ( crypto can potentially added to the same) and built the most unique digital platform for creating a world beating digital economy. The fundamental pieces of these new ecosystem involves a lot of new regulatory paradigms and innovation. Digital transformation of this scale and magnitude involves new product mindsets and a strong ecosystem of “Atmanirbhar” no-code platforms.

Its about time we build our own no-code platforms that the world takes note! I understand, we can’t boil the ocean but need to start small and make incremental progress.