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A holistic view on innovation

Plant an App innovator

The last two decades have been challenging for companies and governments all around the globe. The world is moving faster than ever, legislation is popping up left and right attempting to manage all these developments and at the same time there are so many opportunities that seem promising. 

One of the major issues is defining a clear vision. To pinpoint where you want to be in 5 years, 10 years and beyond. How you can lean on trusted applications while connecting them to a modern architecture, how you can experiment with new trends and create web applications for work enhancement at the same time. 
 
We built Plant an App with exactly these criteria in mind. We have two functions for our low-code platform to utilize this: 

  • Plant an App as a connector: because it is so easy to create or read APIs and modify the database, Plant an App is a very flexible and powerful tool to connect different applications. Actually, it is not just connecting, but also matching the data for the various structures. Plant an  App speaks more languages than any of our competitors. It makes it feasible to reach the desired architecture, including legacy software and modern initiatives like machine learning or AI.

  • Plant an App as a creator: there are no limits to the amount of apps, actions or workflows you can create with Plant an App. We always recommend to start with simple apps that are not related to core processes. Compliance, for instance, is very important and often done in spreadsheets. It is a small, yet valuable, step to digitalize these excel sheets. Once you gain confidence, you can grow your apps to more advanced scenarios. 

 
How to get there?

Usually, you start with a vision of where you want to be, but for this article, we reverse the steps. The purpose of this is to build up the story. No worries, we'll get to the end game.

Define your current architecture

For this example we take a simplified architecture of one of our customers. Before innovating and expanding the software landscape, the goal was to simplify and gain better control. Because the number of applications was staggering. Besides all the bespoke applications, that almost every department has, the main applications were integrated using custom connectors. All with their own dashboards to provide insights. 

Current
Although, it is not wrong, it is also expensive to maintain and not scalable. If you scale up, the amount of connectors get out of control. It is no path to digital transformation. 
 
In order to innovate, we define 3 lanes. The best thing: these lanes can have their own pace, which means you have a flexible, yet controlled way to move your organization forward.

Lane 1: Plant an App as a connector

API and DB creation and maintaining in Plant an App is extremely powerful, stable and scalable. Because Plant an App speaks more languages than any other low-code platform, it can call, consume and normalize data from any application. In many architectures, Plant an App functions as a hub. 
The picture would be simplified to this: 
Connector
As you can see, the amount of connectors has decreased considerably. And connecting more legacy systems will not grow your connectors exponentially.  

Another trade off: you will all use the same dashboard technology. This is easier to create, maintain and because it is low-code, many more of your colleagues will be enabled to create them themselves.  

Lane 2: Plant an App as Accelerator

While you are restructering your architecture, departments across the organization want to move forward. For instance, to move their excel sheets to web applications. We have seen excel being used to get an overview of compliance, to create graphs and even as project management tools. The result is always the same: it is difficult to work with, there are multiple versions of the same document across the organisation and there is a lack of control what data actually represents. 

Luckily, these excel sheets can be transformed to beautiful and comprehensive web applications in a matter of hours. And the best part: in most cases, you don't need a developer to create them. To prevent web applications from popping up haphazardly, you'll need developers to act as directors of governance.
In this model Plant an App facilitates acceleration of your digital transformation.

Accelerator

Lane 3: Plant an App as facilitator  

As mentioned earlier, there is a lot going on. New technologies emerge in a pace that is hard to keep up with. At Plant an App we aim to facilitate these initiatives and allow you to test and embrace them, all within a controlled manner. You can implement them as a contained environment or embark in the overall architecture. 

Innovator
  
Further down the road

Following this strategy, replacing legacy systems could also be a part of your innovation. Once you utilize Plant an App as a hub, the transition is much easier and is less dependant on other legacy systems.  

If you want to have more in-depth insights we have several articles and videos. 

Try Plant an App

The best way to get started with Plant an App is to see a demo of the capabilities to ensure it’s right for you. Alternatively, start exploring on your own.

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