Democratizing Workflow Automation with No-Code Platforms

 

         

The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted several industries, and with organizations across the globe transitioning their workforces to operate in remote environments, the urgency for digital-first sped up. At this juncture, the concept of low-code and no-code platforms appears to intend to reduce an organization’s reliance on skilled talent to build and operationalize software programs, as these platforms allow the people with no coding knowledge (citizen developers) to create mobile or web applications without writing any custom code. Gartner, Inc. predicted that “by 2024, low-code application development will be responsible for more than 65% of application development activity and 75% of large enterprises will be using at least four low-code development tools for both IT application development and citizen development initiatives.” An MNC dealing in energy and digital solutions developed 60+ applications within 20 months using Low-code/No-code platforms increasing the development by 2x and saving 650 days of effort for the organization. 

No-code automation (NCA) tools use AI, RPA, and ML to automate the process. Robotic process automation (RPA) is one of the most promising new solutions that automate structured, repetitive processes and dramatically reduce low-value work while enabling employees to focus on more high-value, strategic activities. According to a report issued by Grand View Research, the global RPA market size is about to reach USD 26 billion by 2027, expanding at almost 40% CAGR. However, implementation of RPA is quite expensive as RPA bots demand high costs and maintenance. Only if the RPA solution is scaled across the enterprise and widely utilized, delivering meaningful ROI can be expected. LCNC platforms simplify and democratize the RPA development process to withstand the implementation risk. 

No-code application development platforms allow business and technical users to automate the process via a graphical, drag & drop interface. With an absolute goal of saving time, money, and resources, no-code technologies sidetracked the traditional software development process and introduced a phenomenon called democratization. Democratization professed to give technology access to the entire population without any specific technical training. Expediting digital transformation, citizen developers with no formal knowledge of system development can unleash their imagination and can create applications through an intuitive interface without programming. 

From human resources to financial services to sales & marketing, no-code has seamlessly replaced traditional programming tools because today’s businesses need a range of velocity and responsiveness that can’t be achieved if every emerging challenge needs to be filtered through system developers and every new application needs dedicated engineering resources. By empowering citizen developers, enterprises can leverage several benefits like integrating traditional and modern technologies, effective reusing of technical assets, exploring hidden talent already existing in the workforce, incorporating customer journeys across channels to deliver an omnichannel experience, optimizing complex systems using predictive analytics, and engineering new solutions without burdening the IT resources. With this newly attained flexibility, every company can reach a higher level of self-sufficiency. Application development will be less time-consuming with reduced production costs and increased productivity. On the other hand, these solutions won’t need higher maintenance and let the resources focus on more important activities of their departments.

 

Key takeaways from the Great Pandemic in this Business World

“Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative”. That was the unpleasant scenario foisted upon several companies during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic – a verdict that also served as a wake-up call for business continuity processes and their real-world application. 

There is no doubt that the pandemic unveiled myriad process inadequacies. While the efforts of some companies to maintain their business operations could survive the catastrophe, others were less fortunate, as their processes were not up to scratch and consequently incapable of incorporating into the pandemic-generated ‘new normal’. 

Executive vice president of business strategy at Citrix, Tim Minahan said “COVID-19 turned business continuity planning on its head, as it forced enterprises around the world to reconsider their operations and, in several cases, embrace completely new models for business projects. While many had begun moving toward cloud and working remotely as part of their business continuity plans, few were prepared to do so at the speed and scale the pandemic required.” 

According to Agility Recovery’s ‘Business Continuity Lessons Learned from COVID-19’ report, the crucial challenges faced by the companies during the pandemic were supporting the health and safety of their employees, and maintaining productivity and rationale. For example, during the onset of the pandemic, many companies were reluctant to grant work from home to their employees but now more than 80% of companies are in either hybrid or remote mode. Post pandemic companies are redoing their risk profiles, where they recognize working from home as a viable option.

For more than two years, the main challenges businesses had to face were delivering business as usual and keeping up with the accelerating pace of change. The impact of the pandemic created huge uncertainty in markets and business leaders had to find ways of working around the challenge and ensure that employees were kept safe, and jobs safeguarded wherever possible.

Lessons Learnt

 As we start to surpass the most severe ravages of the pandemic, companies need to validate their ability to execute a range of business continuity strategies to prove that they have learned from the bitter lessons that COVID-19 has taught them. While the pandemic has indeed instigated a great deal of organizational change, there are 10 key business continuity lessons that companies have particularly learned off the back of the pandemic. 

•  Businesses need to be prepared for unexpected situations. When employees are allowed to work from home, they need to be given the privilege of high-speed internet and videoconferencing tools. If the companies don’t manage risks associated with a new setting, an interruption in business activities becomes inevitable. 
• When the business setting is changed, it is not possible to comply with all traditional processes. So, companies must focus on protecting those that are most important and skip others. 
• Before migrating to a new setting, a thorough risk analysis and considering probability and impacts are essential. A low probability with a huge impact adds up to a big risk. The pandemic has taught businesses to ponder over the difficulties that may arise. 
• Only recovery plans are not sufficient; companies need to define what procedures they will use to secure alternate supplies and train their employees to wear several hats in times of difficulty. 
• Business plans need to be updated once a year. After the initial risk analysis is reviewed at the beginning of the year, companies can decide on changing or rewriting the whole plan. 
• Recovery and continuity plans need to be religiously practiced every year. Often, these plans are left somewhere in a filing cabinet. Every employee should be aware of these plans and should know what the announcement of the plan means for them. 
• Continuity management is a continuous process, and the companies need to manage it in compliance with guidelines and policies. To add to that, issues and mistakes should be recorded and learned from, with plans adjusted accordingly. 
• Organizations often incorporate continuity management under operations, whereas, businesses should be responsible for protecting key activities like continuity management. Companies must keep continuity management separate and make sure that it is not adapted to the needs of operations. 
• Businesses need to coordinate with their suppliers to protect their important activities. Suppliers need to be aligned with the business plan and in case of any failure, other suppliers must be on standby to fulfill the gap. Essential materials and parts also should be stocked for tougher times.
• A crisis never comes alone. Amidst multiple crises, companies must have a team ready that will coordinate and prioritize solutions to all problems. They can even contract backup capacities with partners prior, helping them out before they manage to restore processes.

 

Renaissance in business

As we are recovering from a two-year-long pandemic, forward-thinking companies’ strategy will be to create and review easily accessible business continuity plans. Inviting a renaissance to the thought process of business leaders, these plans will increase their resilience and allow them to shape their operations to adapt to a steadily evolving landscape. 

Along with the pandemic, there are other pressures that are bringing changes in behavior, such as lesser airline travel, climate change and sustainability, and the drive to carbon neutrality. So, while the COVID-19 pandemic has been an accelerant of change, there are other game-changers that are arising into the scenario, and these will also impact business continuity over time.

The silent crusade of Chetna Gala Sinha for women’s financial empowerment

 

Founded by Chetna Gala Sinha in 1997, Mann Deshi Bank was the first bank in the country for and by rural women to receive a cooperative license from the Reserve Bank of India. The bank was established with a working capital of ₹7,08,000 raised from among its 1,335 members. By now, the bank has 37,000 members, deposits of around ₹100 crores, more than two lakh account holders, eight branches, and has given loans to the value of ₹500 crores with a repayment rate of over 96 percent. The bank started with a single branch in Mhaswad but now operates across seven branches in Maharashtra with a working capital of ₹150 crores. 

The foundation of the bank was not built on smooth grounds. In 1996, when she applied to RBI to set up a bank for rural women, it got rejected on the ground of members were illiterate. Indomitable Chetna started a literary class being motivated by the villagers. They were not very good with reading and writing but they made the officials of RBI spellbound with their skill of calculating the interest faster than any educated banking employee. Within four months of their effort, Mann Deshi Bank got its operating license. Though within a few days of its launch, Chetna faced another roadblock as she found the number of customers dwindling but they moved fast to a positive solution of introducing doorstep banking and started visiting villagers at their homes for transactions. 

Sinha grew up in Mumbai and met her husband Vijay Sinha, an activist farmer from Mhaswad, while working with Jayaprakash Narayan as a socialist politician. She had done her BCOM and had a master’s in economics from Mumbai University before getting married and relocating to Mhaswad in 1987. The initial days of her married life were very tough as the village had infrequent bus service, no electricity, and toilet in the house.

Her fight for obtaining the basic rights for the villagers started with Shetkari Sanghatana where she tried to bring more women into gram panchayats and met Kantabai Salunke, a welder whose application to open a savings account has been turned down by the bank as she saved less than ₹5 a day. Salunke wanted to save this amount in the bank to buy a tarpaulin sheet to shelter her children during the monsoon. Her plight inspired Sinha to open a bank for these illiterate yet confident village women. 

“Mann Deshi provides a powerful platform for women’s empowerment in India. It sets itself apart by being one of the only organizations focusing on both—access to finance on one hand, and financial and business literacy on the other. One of its key differentiators is that it goes beyond traditional vocational courses like tailoring, computer literacy, etc., and develops rural, women entrepreneurs by providing business skills and exposure,” says Harpreet Bagga, head of the department, capacity building, Dasra, a strategic philanthropic foundation that connects funders with social enterprises.

 

The Mann Deshi Foundation took the responsibility of educating village women by arranging financial literacy classes where women can learn the ropes of savings, investing, loans, and insurances through modules that comprise games like Monopoly. The foundation also initiated the endeavor for community radio - Mann Deshi radio to spread the motivating life story of courageous women who started their own businesses withstanding many adversities present in society. In 2014, the foundation established a chamber of commerce where they can mentor aspiring women entrepreneurs. At present, they have three such chambers. It also has a toll-free number that provides instant business solutions to these women. They are also working on setting up a professionally managed $15-million fund that includes global development financial institutions and provides debt to women. During the demonetization phase, Mann Deshi Bank officials collected coins from the State Bank of India and went from door-to-door and in the weekly markets to exchange them for old ₹500 notes. 

In its silver jubilee year now, the Mann Deshi Foundation is working for the financial empowerment of both rural and urban women. This project is called “Her&Now” (Empowering Women Entrepreneurs) where the foundation formed a partnership with GIZ, a Germany headquartered development aid agency, to help women entrepreneurs grow their businesses.  

Apart from Women’s financial empowerment, Mann Deshi invested in sports and training of rural women. Mann Deshi’s sports field in Mhaswad is the only one available in the taluka and boasts of a 400 m track, annual camps, and a trained coach. For her philanthropic endeavors, Sinha has received various accolades, such as the Nari Shakti Award, the highest civilian award for women, and Forbes Social Entrepreneurs of the Year (2017), among others. Chetna Gala Sinha has also served as a Co-Chair of Financial Inclusion at the W20 Summit 2018 in Argentina and Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum in Davos 2018. 

 

 

The Firewood bank of Sanjay Rai provides dignity in death

 We have come across many heart-wrenching stories after the second wave of the Covid 19 pandemic, but the most horrible of them was the floating corpses in the River Ganges. It happened almost every day in many a district of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. As per media reports, more than 2,000 bodies have been pulled out from rivers in UP, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh over the past two months. Hospitals and crematoriums were overflooded. Relatives started abandoning the bodies in hospital morgues due to the fear of infection, and for others, they had no means left to bid their loved ones a dignified goodbye. 

 Sanjay Rai Sherpuria, a 50-year-old social entrepreneur from Delhi was moved so much by these horrific visuals that he shifted his base to Uttar Pradesh. Sherpuria started a unique bank, Baikunth Dham Antyeshti Lakdi Bank (wood bank) with the help of a philanthropist from Ghazipur district, Virendra Singh. They have established 10 firewood banks across 10 ghats (piers) in UP’s Ghazipur district with the help of the district administration to arrange for the cremation of unclaimed bodies or the bodies from underprivileged families. A team of 46 people and more than 5,000 volunteers provide round-the-clock assistance to the relatives of the deceased to help them with cremations.

 Sherpuria says in an interview, “It was important to set up the bank for a number of reasons - first, the poor cannot afford the cost of cremations. Second, families have spent a lot of money on treatments, leaving them with very few resources; and third, the cost of firewood has been hiked in many places. On average, about 6-7 mann (maund) of wood is required for cremation. The cost of one mann wood has gone up from about Rs 250 to Rs 1,000-1,250 nowadays. Then the cost of performing other rituals is also about Rs 2,000-3,000 which adds up to around Rs 8,000-10,000 per cremation. This is not even the total annual earnings of many families in the poverty-stricken Purvanchal region,” he said.

 

The idea of setting up this bank appeared to him when he met Virendra Singh at the district hospital. Both of them were haunted by the visuals of floating dead bodies in the Ganges. As a businessman, Sherpuria offered Virendra money for the cremation of the dead bodies but he refused. So, he provided him with truckloads of wood for free to perform the last rites of the poor and needy. To start the bank, they put posters at the crematorium and outside hospitals and within two days, had helped 10 people. Apart from providing woods for the funeral, the bank has also started a helpline number to facilitate people approach them. “We are also getting calls from village heads but we are using discretion and taking the help of civic and hospital administration to identify those who genuinely need help,” Singh said. They are currently hoping that more people would join the cause. “The facility will be extended to eight other ghats of the district next week,” Sherpuria said. 

The Lakdi Banks aim to help the distressed; it also ensures that firewood is reserved for those who are in dire need and people from marginalized communities. "We usually consult the village heads to check a person’s financial status, and it is on their reference that we provide the wood free of cost. We also help people who haven't received any aid from the government and are unable to afford even wood to cremate their family members,” Sherpuria adds. Each of the piers has a team of about five people to supervise the process and help prevent confusion and chaos. They collect the wood from local markets, while a few farmers also donate leftover wood. The team requests people and organizations to send their leftover wood to the Lakdi Banks in their areas. Currently, they have a bank of about 600 tons. 

The initiative is successful in helping many families put their loved ones to rest in a dignified way. To date, the bank has collected around Rs 20 lakh ($27,000) and has a goal of collecting Rs 1 crore ($135,000), so the team can provide basic amenities to the crematoriums. 

However, in the future, Sanjay aims to create a more sustainable model, towards which he has started his work. “I’ve created a machine to make cow dung-based wood, which has many benefits. It will prevent us from cutting more trees, and also help villagers earn money in return for the cow dung they provide us with. It will also prevent them from abandoning the cows once they stop producing milk,” he says.

 

Sherpuria feels that, more than that, it will cut the expenses of cremation to a large extent. “With normal wood, one needs about 500 kg to 600 kg. A cremation process with this alternative won’t require more than 120 kg,” he says. “If successful, I will submit the plan to NITI Aayog for crematoria across the country to adopt this method”, he adds.

Apart from establishing the wood bank, to help villagers access resources for treatment, Sherpuria set up a quick Covid-19 response center in Ghazipur. Through a call center operated by 70 people working round-the-clock, it has so far responded to 16,000 calls and emergencies. The center also has a team that goes to every villager in Ghazipur district to conduct Covid-19 tests, provide medicines and raise awareness.

 

Bike Blazer, a start-up manufacturing semi-automatic bike covers with an annual turnover of Rs 1.3 crore

 

Bike Blazer, an initiative by Entrepreneur Keshav Rai is India's first semi-automatic full-body bike, car, and scooter cover startup that produced this handy bike cover to keep the vehicles protected from dust and weather. Founded in 2016, the Bike blazer has sold around 75,000 semi-automatic bike covers and is expecting an annual turnover of Rs. 1.3 crore.

 Twenty-seven-year-old Keshav Rai was not good at academics but wanted to repair things from his childhood. He completed his high school education at St. Xavier school in Delhi and Baldwin boys high school. After finishing his senior secondary studies at Delhi public school Indirapuram, he pursued Mechanical Engineering from Maharshi Dayanand University Rohtak. 

He was keen on starting his own startup and kept discussing the same with his college friends. In 2015, he requested his father to fund his first app-based business. The business failed but the experience gained from it helped him learn and innovate for his future endeavor. In 2016, he again started his startup Bike Blazer to protect two-wheelers in parking from dust and water. This weather-proof blazer can be fixed on the vehicle in below 30 seconds. Made from industrial-grade Nylon Taffeta, this durable cover is 100% dust, water, UV, and chemical wash-proof. Ingeniously crafted with an excellent draining system, this bike cover can be rolled right inside the bike even when in wet condition. Equipped with an anti-theft and anti-vibration mechanism, it fixes securely onto the bike with exceptional lock nuts.

The idea of Bike Blazer came from Keshav’s witnessing an incident where the bike owner was struggling to find a piece of cloth to clean his dusty bike. This incident motivated Keshav to plunge into this untapped market of bike covers. He felt that this kind of product is still unavailable in the market and filed a patent for it in 2017.

Starting with manufacturing the covers in his terrace, now the company has two manufacturing units in Ghaziabad and New Delhi. The product is priced between Rs 780 and Rs 850 on the company’s website and is available for Rs 899 on e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart. The price of the cover also varies on its size. Explaining the process to use the bike cover, Keshav said, “To use the portable, semi-automatic bike cover, one has to pull out the cover from the device and cover the entire bike and rotate the handle to fold it back in”. 

The company started with an investment of around Rs 2 lakh but made a turnover of around Rs 7 lakh in the very first year. By the second year, after promoting the product on social media platforms through advertisements and having been listed on an online marketplace, Bike Blazer’s turnover jumped to Rs 55 lakh, and Keshav hasn’t to look back since then. They are presently distributing in 11 Indian states and started exporting internationally to Peru and Nepal. In the future, Keshav says, he is aiming to launch similar products for four-wheelers.