Citizen Development Programs Accelerate Digital Transformation: Kissflow Report

As organizations increasingly leverage technology for a competitive edge, 62% now believe that citizen development programs will significantly accelerate their digital transformation efforts. According to the latest Citizen Development Trends report by Kissflow, 86% of businesses have active citizen development programs, with 45% of these programs in operation for over a year.

Citizen development represents a new approach to application development, empowering non-IT employees to design, build, and deploy applications, processes, and tasks using low-code/no-code platforms. This innovation allows “citizen developers” to create solutions tailored to their needs without relying on IT departments, advancing the democratization of technology and integrating non-IT professionals into the development process.

This trend is particularly relevant in the Middle East and Africa (MEA), where previous Kissflow research found that one-third of organizations face resource constraints in custom app development. The high cost of outsourcing this function further compounds the challenge, prompting 80% of tech leaders in the region to seek refined app development processes for effective digital transformation.

Suresh Sambandam, CEO of Kissflow, noted, “With a growing number of engineering talents entering the workforce, the culture of business teams building complex apps is becoming more common. Early adopters of this paradigm are seeing transformative results. Empowering non-IT professionals to contribute to application development enables businesses to innovate faster, reduce backlogs, and maintain a competitive edge.”

Kissflow’s report highlights several benefits of citizen development, including reduced IT backlog, shorter process completion times, and an increased number of new solutions deployed. Low-code/no-code platforms, featuring intuitive drag-and-drop interfaces and extensive libraries of pre-made templates, enable business users in departments with specialized, labor-intensive, and repetitive processes to automate workflows efficiently. Operations (30%), Human Resources (28%), Marketing (20%), and Finance (12%) departments are anticipated to lead in adopting citizen development.

Despite its potential, the report also identifies challenges. Data security remains a top concern for 44% of CIOs, followed by the need for seamless integration with existing IT systems. Governance and a lack of training for citizen developers are also significant hurdles that organizations need to address to fully realize the benefits of citizen development.

Sambandam emphasized, “For citizen development to reach its full potential, it must be adopted under IT’s oversight. Governance is crucial but should not add to the IT workload. A robust governance framework acts as a safeguard for safe app creation, reducing the need for IT to approve every application, mitigating data leak and compliance risks, and empowering a capable citizen development workforce.”