Is Your Consulting Firm Ready for the No-Code Revolution?
In our 2021 No-Code Economy Survey, respondents said a lack of technical resources results in 28% of employees getting held back on projects and/or initiatives. This same lack of resources leads to 59% of projects being sometimes or often delayed. It's clear that businesses are increasingly in need of faster solutions to their everyday challenges.
If you’ve been hearing about the value of no-code technology, but you’re not sure where your consulting business fits in, you’ve come to the right place. No-code technology offers an opportunity for systems integrators to quickly implement bigger and better solutions, simplify customer training, and offer more value for the money.
Your customers are looking for easy ways to manipulate and manage their data to make better business decisions and improve workplace productivity. For IT consulting firms, the rise of no-code software means building a powerful back-end connection and looking like a hero to customers with a solution that is incredibly easy to use on the front end.
Working through a worldwide pandemic proved how quickly technology can help reimagine the way work gets done. From eliminating physical interactions and paper workflows to transitioning to virtual meetings and events, the digital transformation we all knew was coming arrived well before many were ready to welcome it. No-code tools, apps, and platforms made it possible for businesses across the world to keep up with the need for warp-speed digitization and innovation. Businesses that now rely on the efficiency of a no-code solution will continue to look for ways to integrate their new favorite tools with their central databases.
So what is no-code? And how can you share its values with your customers? This guide will help you better understand no-code and where your consulting firm fits in. You’ll also get three examples of how Formstack partners have shared the power of no-code with their customers.
What is No-Code?
Is no-code a new term for your customers? They’re not alone. In fact, according to our survey, 82% of people are unfamiliar with no-code. If you search the term no-code in Google, you’ll discover many different definitions for the term, ranging from simple to complex. For this guide, we decided to develop our own definition of no-code:
“No-code is a type of software development that allows anyone to create digital applications without writing a single line of code. It involves using tools with an intuitive, drag-and-drop interface to create a unique solution to a problem. The resulting solution can take many forms—from building mobile, voice, or ecommerce apps and websites to automating any number of tasks or processes.”
No-code tools include software, systems, or products that allow users to build a solution without needing to know any code. These tools enable non-technical workers, in any department, to create the processes, products, and tools they need to get work done—without needing support from IT. They help organizations become more digitally agile, which makes it easier to edit, change, and adapt workflows with limited investment of time, money, and technical resources.
This type of software provides a visual arena to build processes, usually with a drag-and-drop menu of options. From manipulating CRM data to automating the creation of contacts and applications, no-code offers a simple way for your customers to manage the data they use every day.
Ways No-Code Can Improve Business Automation
Now more than ever, your customers need to be able to quickly adapt to the ever-evolving digital world. The preferences and abilities of workers are changing, and if your company can’t offer processes and systems that keep up, you will begin to see customers turn elsewhere for services.
No-code is on the brink of changing the way people work—from automating repetitive, time-consuming tasks to building entirely new processes, products, and applications in just days versus months. Sharing no-code tools with your customer base can enable workers of all technical levels to achieve great results in conjunction with the infrastructure your firm builds. Here are three major perks of no-code tools that you can share with your customers.
Minimize Reliance on IT
When an IT team is stretched thin and serving several departments at once, it can be difficult to get in their queue. With no-code, businesses can connect with an implementation partner or their IT team to build, test, or launch new tools, apps, or workflows. Once their integrations are built, employees of all technical skill levels can manage data, troubleshoot processes, and make workflow adjustments on their own.
By sharing no-code tools with your customers, you can end your customers’ reliance on their IT department. They’ll be thanking you for making their tech stack more accessible and freeing up their IT team to focus on the technical tasks that require their expertise and abilities.
Read More: Learn how Lanvale Consulting brought no-code software into the real-estate industry.
Accelerate Turnaround Time
Businesses turn to your consulting services for a reason. They’re tired of wasting time trying to develop a new project or improve an existing process. They’re looking for solutions to their business problems, and they want your team to solve them as quickly as possible.
While traditional software may require months to learn the system, onboard employees, and develop, no-code tools take nowhere near this time to implement. Many Formstack partners can get their customers up and running with no-code tools in mere weeks. In fact, our survey revealed that 50% of people choose to use no-code tools because they are easier to use and faster to develop than traditional software.
When your next project requires a quick turnaround time, you’ll be ready. No-code tools can help you get customers from idea to solution much faster.
Simplify Processes Across Departments
Whether you’re consulting for a small or large organization, most businesses face issues when trying to share data across departments. From paper forms getting lost in the mail to data inconsistently integrating across tools, it can be incredibly difficult to streamline data sharing processes. This can create dangerous data silos that impact productivity and information management.
Working in silos leads to poor data management, inefficient systems, and loads of manual work. No-code tools can help minimize, and even eliminate, many of these issues. Because no-code software can be used by employees of all skill levels and technical knowledge, it can easily fit into any department’s tech stack. This enables you to rely on one tool to streamline processes and workflows across many departments. No more paperwork, manual data entry, or complicated systems to learn.
Control Workflows from Start to Finish
When workers need to rely on others to get work done, it can create huge bottlenecks that are mostly out of their control. From relying on IT to train teams on a tool to awaiting approval from a manager or tracking down paperwork, there are plenty of roadblocks that can impact your productivity.
No-code software puts the power to build in the hands of your customers, allowing them to update a web page, digitize assets, create robust workflows, and collect data. With a tool like Formstack, your customers can oversee the entire workflow from start to finish, enabling them to see, adjust, and fix any issues or bottlenecks in real time.
By adding no-code tools to your next implementation, you can quickly adapt to the needs of your customers. Easily automate many of their most tedious tasks, such as new customer onboarding, contract and application generation, or invoicing.
3 Examples of No-Code Implementations from Formstack Partners
It’s time to end inefficient processes and upgrade your customer workflows to something better by using no-code workflow automation. Formstack’s no-code technology can empower teams to achieve more in less time—from completing daily tasks to building brand new systems and processes.
At Formstack, we’re dedicated to setting our partner community up for success. Our partners have already started incorporating the power of no-code into their customer implementations. Here are a few examples of no-code workflows our partners have built for customers across a variety of industries.
Simplified RSVP Workflows
Formstack partner Skie is a boutique cloud services company specializing in Salesforce. At Skie, they know Salesforce is an incredibly powerful way to manage customer success. But after years of building customer solutions, they know that combining Salesforce with the right technology can build a workflow that is more usable, scalable, and functional.
Products: Forms for Salesforce · Documents for Salesforce
Features: Native Salesforce Form Builder · CRM Document Generation
Optional Integrations: Sign
When Hawthorn Football Club needed to replace an aging solution and connect multiple systems to better engage fans and stakeholders, they turned to Skie. Skie was able to combine the power of a custom Salesforce solution with the flexibility of Formstack’s no-code platform to create a scalable hospitality workflow. Hear Co-Founder and Director Adam Troughear explain the solution they built in the following video.
Learn More: Building an event management workflow? Learn how the Indianapolis Pacers use Formstack for Salesforce to automate their ticket generation workflows.
Personalized Patient Experiences
Formstack partner Coastal Cloud empowers healthcare systems by helping them build powerful, HIPAA compliant, digital workflows. One of the tools they rely on to do this work is Formstack. With the power of no-code technology, Coastal Cloud consultants are able to build secure, streamlined data management processes for healthcare clients of all sizes.
Products: Forms for Salesforce · Documents for Salesforce
Features: HIPAA Compliance · One-Click Salesforce Documents
Optional Integrations: Sign
With more than two decades of experience working in the healthcare sector, JoAnne King, a healthcare consultant with Coastal Cloud, knows the struggles hospitals have when it comes to digitization and creating a seamless patient experience. Hear how her team helped customers build powerful healthcare workflows quickly in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Automated Non-Disclosure Agreements
Formstack partner Denamico is an expert HubSpot consulting agency that can plan, implement, and execute inbound marketing strategies that deliver growth. Denamico is focused on helping their clients get the most out of HubSpot. Oftentimes, their customers are in need of upgraded data management workflows that connect to their most important business systems. One of Denamico’s go-to products to recommend to clients is the Formstack Platform.
Products: Forms · Documents · Sign
Features: Drag-and-Drop Builder · Section 508 and WCAG Compliance
Optional Integrations: HubSpot
When Denamico needed to route data from a form submission to generate an NDA document, they turned to the no-code power of Formstack. This workflow sent data from a form into HubSport and allowed Demanico’s customers to automate the generation of nondisclosure agreements. Their customer reported saving 40 hours per week by automating this workflow. Listen to Denamico’s VP of Operations Emily Hulstein share how they implement Formstack.
How to Get Started with No-Code Workflow Automation
If you’re ready to share the benefits of no-code with your customers, we have an interactive checklist that will set you up for success on your first no-code implementation. Use this resource to organize your thoughts, outline what your customers are looking for in a solution, and prepare their team for implementation.
