For: Application

Development
& Delivery
Professionals

New Development Platforms Emerge

For Customer-Facing Applications
by Clay Richardson and John R. Rymer, June 9, 2014 | Updated:
August 6, 2014
Key Takeaways
Growth In Customer-Facing Applications Drives Development Teams
Away From Coding
Customers increasingly interact with products and services, as well as marketing, sales,
and service teams through software. The short schedules and rapid change cycles required
to develop these applications often bust development life cycles and platforms for coding.
Thus, some firms seek quicker alternatives to traditional programming platforms.
Some Switch To Low-Code Platforms For Their Customer-Facing Apps
Low-code platforms are rising as an alternative for developing customer-facing apps.
Initially targeted at speeding all projects, these platforms are finding traction in the age
of the customers heightened priority for customer experience software. Clients have a
wide range of choices among these platforms, almost all of them from small vendors.
Firms Often Adopt Fast Delivery Practices Along With Low-Code Platforms
Customers adopting low-code platforms also change their practices, methods, and delivery
metrics. Some value these practice changes as much as the low-code platforms that
support them. Key is the ability to test business ideas with working code within days or
weeks, funding attuned to uncertainty, and metrics emphasizing quality of engagement.

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For Application Development & Delivery Professionals

June 9, 2014
Updated: August 6, 2014

New Development Platforms Emerge For Customer-Facing

Applications
Firms Choose Low-Code Alternatives For Fast, Continuous, And Test-And-Learn
Delivery
by Clay Richardson and John R. Rymer
with Christopher Mines, Alex Cullen, and Dominique Whittaker

Why Read This Report

Hand-coding is too slow to develop and deliver many of the applications that companies use to win, serve,
and retain customers. Some firms are turning to new, low-code application platforms that accelerate app
delivery by dramatically reducing the amount of hand-coding required. Faster delivery is the primary benefit
of these application platforms; they also help firms respond more quickly to customer feedback after initial
software releases and provision mobile and multichannel apps. Usage of low-code platforms is gaining
momentum for customer-facing applications. This report analyzes the requirements, products, and potential
benefits driving this trend, as well as the implications for software delivery methods, governance, and cultures.

Table Of Contents

Notes & Resources

2 Customer-Facing Applications Demand New

App-Delivery Thinking

Forrester conducted 22 in-depth interviews

during the first four months of 2014 with
customers using low-code platforms
to deliver systems of engagement. The
interviewees include customers of Acquia,
AgilePoint, Alpha Software, Alphinat, Bizagi,
Claysys Technologies, Mendix, MicroPact,
Mobideo Technologies, Nintex, OutSystems,
salesforce.com, and Software AG.

3 Low-Code Platforms Deliver At Digital Clock

Speed
Low-Code Platforms Lower The Barriers
Between Requirements And Delivery
First Movers Are Taking Established Categories
In A New Direction
9 New Platforms Mean New Culture, Practices,
And Design Approaches
Establish Methods, Life Cycles, And Cultural
Norms For Customer-Facing Systems
A Customer-Driven Ethos In Development Will
Spread Across Tech Management

Related Research Documents

Design For Disruption: Take An Outside-In
Approach To BPM
June 12, 2013
New Productivity Platforms: Our Interactive
Vendor Profiles
November 1, 2011

RECOMMENDATIONS

12 Rebalance Your Development And Delivery

For Customer Apps
13 Supplemental Material

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For Application Development & Delivery Professionals

New Development Platforms Emerge For Customer-Facing Applications

Customer-Facing Applications Demand New App-Delivery Thinking

Customer-facing applications are now the top technology priority in many enterprises. Customers
or sales reps and other agents use these applications to interact with products and services, as well
as with marketing, sales and service employees, and partners.1 Companies are investing in these
software projects principally to enrich customer interactions, but they also drive innovations in
customer service, brand connection, products, and business models.2
As software projects, customer-facing applications challenge all the norms of enterprise software
development and solution architecture. Delivery speed is the biggest challenge, but in formulating
strategies for customer-facing applications, application development and delivery (AD&D) leaders
tackle four challenges:
1. Run projects at digital clock speed and continuously. In the age of the customer, everything
runs as quickly as customers and markets and software delivery must keep up. To make
software delivery as nimble as their customers imaginations, application delivery leaders must
slash project schedules to weeks for initial delivery and days for updates and fixes. Doing so
requires completely different software structures, project methods, and team organizations.
2. Create software that is immediately intuitive. Waze, Hipmunk, Fly Delta (the Delta Airlines
app), and other consumer mobile apps reset the definition of intuitive software to mean no
training required to be immediately useful. All customer-facing applications even those used
by employees must meet this standard.
3. Transition application delivery methods to fit customer engagement models. Systems of
engagement extend back-end applications and systems of record to make it easier for customers to
engage with a company. Many teams are applying Agile methods to coding frameworks like Spring
Framework and .NET to deliver systems of engagement applications. But making frequent updates
and module deployments requires continuous integration methods that go beyond Agile.3
4. Find platforms that fit customer-engagement realities. Many development teams are
questioning the role Java, .NET, and other coding platforms should play in their customerfacing systems. The control that coding provides comes at the cost of time. Application
development platforms that rely on faster development techniques visual development,
automatic configuration and deployment, or user interface transcoding can speed delivery
compared with coding. We call these products low-code platforms and define them as:
Platforms that enable rapid application delivery with a minimum of hand-coding, and quick setup
and deployment, for systems of engagement.
A UK-based insurance firm typifies the situation many enterprises face. The firms software
development regime treated every project as a strategic system requiring fully articulated
requirements and years of development work. The approach quashed promising new ideas

2014, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

June 9, 2014 | Updated: August 6, 2014

For Application Development & Delivery Professionals

New Development Platforms Emerge For Customer-Facing Applications

because they had either fuzzy requirements or looked like big projects or both. Result: The
firm was falling behind its competitors. We had no way to improve our business model quickly
and at a low cost. (IT innovation director, UK insurance carrier)
To better understand how firms are meeting these new challenges, we interviewed 23 enterprise
development leaders to determine how they are meeting these four key challenges. We zeroed in on
organizations that decided to adopt low-code platforms to deliver customer-facing applications. Here
is what we learned about why and how these organizations adopted new platforms, and introduced
big changes to their established methods, to produce customer-facing software faster and better.
Low-Code Platforms Deliver At Digital Clock Speed
If hand-coding cant keep pace with the speed of change that customers and customer-facing
employees demand, what are the alternatives? Some enterprises cope by outsourcing the challenge.
Some look to packaged applications, some to specialized middleware. None of these alternatives
address the problem head-on how can application delivery teams speed up their useful output?
A promising approach is to use low-code platforms an emerging category that supports rapid
assembly of customer-facing applications, requiring minimal hand-coding and enabling productive
new development practices. In this research, we focused on the customer experiences with low-code
platforms from Acquia, AgilePoint, Alpha Software, Alphinat, Bizagi, Claysys Technologies, Mendix,
MicroPact, Mobideo Technologies, Nintex, OutSystems, salesforce.com, and Software AG.
Low-Code Platforms Lower The Barriers Between Requirements And Delivery
Low-code platforms speed up development by allowing AD&D teams to eliminate barriers to
customer participation in projects, as well as handoffs between phases of projects. But theres more;
these platforms also:

Slash the hand-coding needed to deliver applications. Low-code platforms minimize hand-

coding and speed up delivery by providing visual tools for quick definition and assembly of user
experiences and forms, rapid build out of multistage workflows, and easily configured data models
that eliminate common data integration headaches. Nearly all of the companies we interviewed
confirmed that low-code platforms allow them to succeed with less-skilled developers. However,
they were also all quick to point out that some hand-coding was still required to deploy the
application to production but far less hand-coding than their previous practices.

Provide a proving ground for testing and experimenting with new ideas. Business leaders trying
to move rapidly on new ideas to boost revenue and improve competitiveness often get bogged
down by rigid and siloed development approaches. Low-code platforms allow business leaders to
experiment with new product and service ideas by merging requirements, design, development,
and deployment into a single platform. This sandbox approach allows one- or two-person teams to
compose new apps and quickly gain feedback from customers, employees, and partners.

2014, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

June 9, 2014 | Updated: August 6, 2014

For Application Development & Delivery Professionals

New Development Platforms Emerge For Customer-Facing Applications

The platform allowed us to trial ideas through a test-and-learn approach. And it wasnt just
a trial system, it allowed us to experiment and then continue building out the app [toward
production] as needed. (IT innovation director, European Union [EU] insurance carrier)

Address all customer channels, including mobile. Customers using the low-code application
platforms primarily focused on apps for the web channel. But these platforms support
responsive design and mobile-ready functionality that makes it as easy as pushing a button to
extend the app to work across other channels, including tablets and smartphones (see Figure
1). In some instances, these platforms provide offline support for apps when used on mobile
devices for areas with limited or no cell coverage.
After building out our first few apps, we were able to extend these apps out to mobile
without any additional work. Our team did not need to learn anything else or use any
mobile development kits to refactor forms, tasks, or interfaces. (Director of information
technology, North American energy company)

Provide a single control point for configuration, delivery, and maintenance of apps. Low-

code platforms provide a unified and centralized environment for configuration management,
role-based access, authentication, and repository control of apps and configuration components.
All key players in software delivery enterprise architects, security experts, IT operations, and
business experts can add their input to the configuration and management of the platform.
The tool fit the purpose of the business guys and marketing. Their teams were able to
design forms and workflows without knowing anything about the back end. (Marketing
technology lead, Canadian government agency)

2014, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

June 9, 2014 | Updated: August 6, 2014

For Application Development & Delivery Professionals

New Development Platforms Emerge For Customer-Facing Applications

Figure 1 Low-Code Platforms Deliver Mobile-Ready Features

Source: Mobideo
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Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

First Movers Are Taking Established Categories In A New Direction

Low-code platforms are a converging category, not a new one. Most vendors of these products
established their technologies with internal-facing applications. Customer-facing applications are
quickly becoming a popular new use case for these platforms because these types of applications
demand rapid delivery and evolution.
The vendors of these products hail from three neighborhoods of the software industry, each of
them bringing particular strengths to customer-facing application projects while providing the four
common benefits described above (see Figure 2). Low-code platform vendors are evolving from:

Business process and dynamic case management. AgilePoint, Appian, Bizagi, Intalio, K2,

MicroPact, Mobideo, Nintex, Red Hat, and Software AG all share strengths in business process
management (BPM), case management, and workflow. Each of these vendors has also in
recent releases either developed or acquired low-code development tooling that dramatically
simplifies product adoption compared with enterprise BPM/dynamic case management(DCM)
suites (see Figure 3).4

These vendors are not all the same. K2and Nintex both have strong .NET foundations and often
supplement investments in Microsoft SharePoint with workflow functions. MicroPacts primary
focus is on case management. The others are business-process specialists that can support a
broad array of process use cases.5

2014, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

June 9, 2014 | Updated: August 6, 2014

For Application Development & Delivery Professionals

New Development Platforms Emerge For Customer-Facing Applications

General-purpose and public cloud app platforms. Alpha Software, Alphinat, Avoka, Claysys

Technologies, Mendix, OutSystems, salesforce, and Wavemaker seek to address a wide range
of web and mobile application scenarios with broad toolsets and application services for
transactions, integration, and workflow. (K2s most recent release also fits this mold.) Alpha
Software, Alphinat, and Claysys Technologies are strong for database applications; Alphinat and
Claysys Technologies are also strong for forms-based applications. Mendix, OutSystems, and
salesforces Force.com add strengths in collaboration and business process (see Figure 4).

The Mendix and OutSystems platforms, as well as Force.com, provide their platforms as public
cloud services (Force.com is only available as a public cloud service). Public cloud services
streamline adoption by eliminating the need to procure and install the platform developers
subscribe to the service to get started.6

Web content management. Acquia, Adobe, and a host of other web-content management

(WCM) specialists address the needs of developers working primarily with HTML and CSS
as their programming languages to create applications with sophisticated web-content needs.
This category is morphing along the same lines as enterprise BPM customers value nimble,
lightweight solutions compared with the enterprise WCM solutions.7

2014, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

June 9, 2014 | Updated: August 6, 2014

For Application Development & Delivery Professionals

New Development Platforms Emerge For Customer-Facing Applications

Figure 2 Low-Code Platform Vendors Hail From Three Neighborhoods

BPM and case management

(e.g., AgilePoint, Bizagi, K2, Nintex,
MicroPact, Software AG)

Forms, data

Web content platforms

(e.g., Acquia, Adobe)

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2014, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

Workflow,
app life cycle,
integration

Mobile,
content,
UX

App platforms
(e.g., Alpha Software, Alphinat,
Avoka, Mendix, OutSystems,
salesforce.com, Wavemaker)

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

June 9, 2014 | Updated: August 6, 2014

For Application Development & Delivery Professionals

New Development Platforms Emerge For Customer-Facing Applications

Figure 3 BPM And DCM Low-Code Vendors Combine Task Management And Forms Automation

Source: Bizagi
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2014, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

June 9, 2014 | Updated: August 6, 2014

For Application Development & Delivery Professionals

New Development Platforms Emerge For Customer-Facing Applications

Figure 4 General-Purpose Development Platforms Drive Rapid Delivery

Source: Mendix
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Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

New Platforms Mean New Culture, Practices, And Design Approaches

The shift to low code is not just about software development platforms. Our interviews with AD&D
teams adopting these platforms also uncovered a shift in methods, practices, and approaches for
application development and delivery. In some cases the shift to new methods and practices was
intentional, while in other cases the shift was more of a subtle side effect that resulted from putting
the platform in place.
As much as the speed of development, we found that the real value of the platform was in
the fact that we could quickly prove a projects value. Under traditional development, that
project would still be on our agenda now. (Director of IT innovation, UK insurance carrier)

2014, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

June 9, 2014 | Updated: August 6, 2014

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New Development Platforms Emerge For Customer-Facing Applications

Establish Methods, Life Cycles, And Cultural Norms For Customer-Facing Systems
Which new methods will help development teams meet the challenge of customer-facing
applications? Our research suggests Agiles core concepts (close connection to the business,
incremental delivery, minimum viable product) are table stakes in this world. In order to accelerate
development for customer-facing apps, AD&D teams must also (see Figure 5):

Embrace new test-and-learn methods for software development. In this approach, an AD&D
team takes between one and four weeks to create a minimum viable product based on a small
number of requirements, and then live-tests that software with the intended audience, gathers
feedback, and either refines or starts over.8 Test-and-learn is attractive because it produces
software based on real customer feedback, rather than on guesses at requirements that are
usually wrong anyway.

Introduce project-funding models that allow for uncertainty. Traditional investment

models prioritize projects that have well-defined requirements and features before beginning
development. These models emphasize the D in R&D. However, since customer-facing apps
tend to start from fledgling ideas, they also come with a high degree of uncertainty about
requirements and critical features. This means teams need to get comfortable with funding
experiments that might not succeed but that provide a way to quickly learn what works and
what doesnt work for customers. This model emphasizes the R in R&D.

Track metrics that prioritize engagement over automation. The success of internal-facing

applications and processes take into account increased productivity, standardization, and
quality.9 However, the success of customer-facing apps relies on the customers perception of
how useful, usable, and desirable an app is for completing given tasks. This means teams will
need to track customer-centric metrics that focus on convenience, engagement, and advocacy.
For low-code scenarios, these metrics help teams quickly evaluate whether theyre moving in
the right direction or need to pivot to better align with customer needs.

Define nimble conventions and architectural practices after the initial wins. Teams that have

worked with low-code approaches for two or more years advise establishment of development
conventions (governing usage of platform services, size of reusable components, etc.) and
architectural design practices and norms. But not too soon. First, give development teams freedom
to prove they can move and shake in the world of customer-facing apps. Then start to normalize
and standardize projects and practices but never in a way that slows teams down.

2014, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

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New Development Platforms Emerge For Customer-Facing Applications

Figure 5 Four Major Practice Changes Accompany Low-Code Platforms

Enterprise software norms

Methods

Waterfall

Funding

Emphasizes development

Metrics

Technical

Architecture
practice

Expansive

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Customer software norms

Test and learn

Emphasizes research

Customer outcomes

Minimal, nimble

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

A Customer-Driven Ethos In Development Will Spread Across Tech Management

Each of these new methods and metrics helps to drive a broader cultural shift not just in application
development and delivery organizations, but also across enterprise technology management. Every
AD&D leader we interviewed made this point.

Whats out: Cultures that reward specialization, top-down delivery processes, system integrity
above all, and measures of success only technical professionals can understand.

Whats in: Cultures that reward learning and experimentation, self-organizing teams,
innovation and fast time-to-market, and metrics reflecting business outcomes.

2014, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

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New Development Platforms Emerge For Customer-Facing Applications

R e c o m m e n d at i o n s

Rebalance Your Development And Delivery For Customer Apps

Our customer research and client inquiries remind us daily that the fast pace of business places
enterprise application development technology and methods under great strain. Customer-facing
applications pose the most difficult challenges. AD&D teams urgently need to change to address
these project needs, as well as to readjust the balance in their application delivery strategies between
innovation and integrity, and between hand-coding and low-code tools.
Tackle three initiatives:

Open your platform portfolio to address customer-facing applications. Which

new platforms will allow your teams to respond faster to requests for new customerfacing software? Which platforms are best suited to the customer-facing scenarios your
organization must deliver and for new opportunities? Low-code platforms are worthy
of consideration for many organizations. If not low-code platforms, what optimizations to
hand-coding approaches can remove huge chunks of time from projects, as well as support
the experimentation and feedback loops that customer-facing applications demand?

Realize that Agile is necessary but not sufficient for rapid delivery. In the era of empowered
customers, AD&D teams need to look beyond Agile methods to cut time-to-market. While
use of popular Agile methods like Scrum encourage teams to develop smaller deliverables
more frequently, those methods alone will not enable the experimentation and close
business connections required of customer-facing applications. Thus, embrace test-and-learn
approaches, responsive design, and continuous deployment in addition to Agile methods.

Use your scenarios to drive platform selections. Each of the low-code platforms comes

from a background in a certain type of application. If your customer-facing apps require

deep process management functionality, general-purpose and content-centric platforms
will likely fall short. On the other hand, the general-purpose low-code platforms such
as Mendix, OutSystems, and Alphinat are good enough for most workflow and datamanagement needs. A key question will be whether or not your firm needs multiple lowcode platforms to satisfy all of its needs.

2014, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

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New Development Platforms Emerge For Customer-Facing Applications

Supplemental Material
Companies Interviewed For This Report
We interviewed customers from the following companies for this report:
Acquia

MicroPact

AgilePoint

Mobideo Technologies

Alpha Software

Nintex

Alphinat

OutSystems

Bizagi

salesforce.com

Claysys Technologies

Software AG

Mendix

Endnotes
Customer-facing applications are a subset of the broad category of applications author and consultant
Geoffrey Moore labeled systems of engagement in papers for the Association for Information and Image
Management (AIIM) and IBM during 2011 to 2012. Moores intent was to distinguish software that aids
and automates front-office communications and collaboration to be better responsive to customers from
software that maintains the integrity of core business data, which he called systems of record. Source:
Geoffrey Moore, A Sea Change In Enterprise IT, AIIM white paper, 2011 (http://www.aiim.org/~/media/
Files/AIIM%20White%20Papers/Systems-of-Engagement-Future-of-Enterprise-IT.ashx).

Companies are realizing the powerful role that software has within the business and see how it can enhance
the business. See the January 23, 2014, Software Must Enrich Your Brand report.

Continuous integration provides the basic automation infrastructure that enables subsequent innovation
breakthroughs. See the April 15, 2014, The Eight Tenets Of Faster Application Delivery report.

To deliver next-generation business process solutions, business architects and business process professionals
will need to shift from systems thinking paradigms that emphasize process modeling to design thinking
paradigms that emphasize creativity and customer experience. See the June 12, 2013, Design For
Disruption: Take An Outside-In Approach To BPM report.

Forrester evaluated the enterprise BPM suites during 2013. See the March 11, 2013, The Forrester Wave:
BPM Suites, Q1 2013 report.

Forrester first analyzed the promise of these general-purpose low-code platforms to speed development in a
report. See the November 1, 2011, The New Productivity Platforms: Your Solution To The AD&D Crunch
report. We included several in our most recent evaluation of public cloud platforms; see the June 14, 2013,
The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Public Cloud Platforms, Q2 2013 report.

2014, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

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14

Forresters latest evaluation of the WCM market noted the shift of these vendors from website publishing to
broader digital experience support. See the April 8, 2013, The Forrester Wave: Web Content Management
For Digital Customer Experience, Q2 2013 report.

Minimum viable product is a hallmark of so-called Lean thinking and Agile development methods. Rather
than deliver applications in one big package, developers start with a subset of the application they can
understand well enough to build and test and build subsequent modules or functions as add-on deliverables.
See the February 12, 2014, Application Delivery In The Modern Age report.

Forrester, in partnership with IQPC, surveyed 739 respondents to capture their experience with the
improvement BPM programs have made to processes within various value streams. Respondents described
the improvement over current state after applying BPM for the four categories of metrics in our framework.
These categories are productivity, quality,customer experience, and agility metrics. See the September 21,
2012, BPM Projects Show Good But Varied Performance report.

2014, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

June 9, 2014 | Updated: August 6, 2014

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Forrester Focuses On
Application Development & Delivery Professionals
Responsible for leading the development and delivery of applications
that support your companys business strategies, you also choose
technology and architecture while managing people, skills, practices,
and organization to maximize value. Forresters subject-matter expertise
and deep understanding of your role will help you create forward-thinking
strategies; weigh opportunity against risk; justify decisions; and optimize
your individual, team, and corporate performance.

Andrea Davies, client persona representing Application Development & Delivery Professionals

Forrester Research (Nasdaq: FORR) is a global research and advisory firm serving professionals in 13 key roles across three distinct client
segments. Our clients face progressively complex business and technology decisions every day. To help them understand, strategize, and act
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