Webinar recap

It comes as no surprise that 99% of all companies rely on software to fuel their operations. Most often, this software takes the form of CRM or ERP systems, making them absolutely vital to business success. However, when these tools are purchased off-the-shelf with standard modules, they inherently limit the potential for creating add-ons to maintain the core software's cleanliness. The proliferation of small-scale SaaS tools on the market often only partially addresses organizations' technological limitations, leaving legacy issues unresolved. This is where the power of low-code augmentation becomes a valuable asset to many organizations. 

Off-the-shelf never meets your needs

There are several reasons why software might not meet your needs. One of them is that software is becoming increasingly outdated at a fast pace. What might have been cutting-edge software ten years ago because it ran on a browser is nowadays considered run-of-the-mill, resulting in solutions that are too rigid for companies to keep up with modern demand. There is also a significant lack of integration capabilities, either because APIs don’t connect to outdated systems or because APIs simply do not solve the issue at hand.

Nowadays, a good UI is linked to a good user experience and is the number one reason for employees and users to adopt a tool successfully. When software implementation fails, it is mainly attributed to a low adoption rate because of poor UI. Another reason why off-the-shelf solutions do not meet businesses’ needs is the prominent lack of real-time data insights. Missing or delayed data is often reported in outdated software, making it difficult to adapt to market trends and changes. You need to have adaptable software that can keep up with business demand, and standardized tools are often not a good fit because a business process is not standardized. Striking a balance between standardization to solve an issue and customization is what modern businesses are looking for.

Current ways of modernizing software

IT departments can take several routes to modernize software systems. 

• Off-the-shelf: Off-the-shelf tools offer a fast and reliable way to bridge a single feature gap. However, a downside is that having many SaaS tools to resolve one-off use cases creates a lack of governance. It’s hard for IT departments to keep track of all these different tools, contributing to a decentralized IT landscape.  
• Rip and replace: Arguably the most challenging route to take, as it involves replacing an entire core system with a new one, which is a slow and cumbersome process. While rip and replace can solve current issues, it is also prone to introducing new issues to the IT infrastructure. 
• Cloud migration: Many businesses opt to move their on-premise core system to a cloud environment. While a modern solution, cloud migration has become increasingly expensive and does not resolve the inherent customization issue that core systems face.    
• Core extension: This relies on taking the original codebase and adding additional functionalities to it. Core extensions can be a short-term solution but are highly likely to break during the next software update, making it an unreliable practice.

Augmentation is always customization

Betty Blocks offers a way to augment your system with low-code, keeping your core system standardized and adding a modern, flexible layer around it. This allows IT teams to release updates to the core system and apply continuous customization through augmentation. Betty Blocks offers a myriad of options to augment a core system with low-code. This can range from adding bespoke portals complete with web and mobile UI to adding missing functionalities in an augmentation layer. Benefits of low-code augmentation include:

• Faster time-to-value: The main perk of low-code will always be the rapid and accurate creation of new applications, which leads to faster time to market. 
• Better maintainability: Code is intrinsically complex to manage. Visual representation of code on a low-code platform makes codebases easier to manage. 
• Empower the business: Business users have a much better knowledge of the feature gaps within core systems. Citizen development involves business users in the software development process, resulting in more successful augmentations. 
• Better scalability: The technical scalability is built into the Betty Blocks low-code platform. 

Three low-code ways to augment core systems

Let’s go over the ways that low-code can augment core systems, as explained by Betty Blocks’ CEO, Chris Obdam. 

Custom applications

The easiest way to augment a core system is through a custom application that integrates with it based on a template. The Betty Blocks platform offers a plethora of different templates per use case that can seamlessly integrate with a core system to augment it. This makes maintenance of the software extremely lucrative. 

Templated solutions

Templated solutions are especially beneficial for larger organizations with multiple departments and/or regions. Not all tools that the business utilizes are compatible with the processes on a company-wide level. Applications built on a template are much easier to maintain and update without having to touch the core system. Developers can make changes directly to the template, and they will apply to all applications using that template, significantly increasing the speed at which IT departments can resolve issues.

Digital product suite

Betty Blocks allows businesses to create a line of digital customer-facing solutions connected to the core system. By digitizing their services rapidly, companies can create modern, new revenue streams. 

Real-life examples of low-code augmentations 

Betty Blocks’ low-code capabilities also lend itself well to augmenting third-party platforms, tools, and vendors. For example, users of the Betty Blocks platform can create client portals baked on templates on top of insurance tools such as INSIS. By creating self-service portals, the business can bridge the demand for customers being able to resolve their own issues without the help of a representative. Low-code can also be used to augment the overall workflow of a business by automatically registering a policy with both the business’ core system and the INSIS platform. This saves a lot of time compared to registering new clients and policies manually in the organization’s back office. 

The final example is augmenting an organization’s document management system. Low-code augmentation can be used to simplify document search across multiple document management systems. Thanks to the AI toolkit available on the Betty Blocks platform, businesses can create a centralized search hub where they can search for documents in an AI-prompted fashion. This example improves workflow efficiency and decreases the risk of missing important information.

To learn more about system augmentation, please visit our dedicated legacy modernization page or schedule a demo with us.