Low-Code/No-Code Platforms and Business Process Transformation: Opportunities, Risks, and Governance Approaches
Chapter from the book:
Sinap,
V.
(ed.)
2026.
Innovative Solutions and Contemporary Approaches in Management Information Systems - IV.
Synopsis
Digital transformation has fundamentally changed how organizations design, manage, and improve their business processes. The increasing demands for enterprise agility, rapid innovation, and operational efficiency have accelerated the adoption of Low-Code/No-Code (LCNC) platforms as an alternative to traditional software development approaches. By enabling users with limited programming expertise to develop applications and automate workflows, LCNC platforms have broadened participation in digital solution development and contributed to the emergence of the citizen developer approach. While these platforms offer significant opportunities for process innovation and enterprise agility, they also pose challenges in governance, security, data management, and enterprise control. This study examines the role of LCNC platforms in business process transformation from the perspectives of business process management, the citizen developer approach, and information technology governance. In this context, the conceptual foundations of LCNC platforms are discussed, and their impact on process agility, user engagement, process visibility, and collaboration between business units and information technology departments is debated.
Furthermore, a SWOT analysis was conducted to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the LCNC-supported process transformation. The findings show that LCNC platforms can significantly increase process development speed, operational flexibility, and user engagement; however, they can also bring risks such as shadow IT, technical debt, security vulnerabilities, and governance issues. Based on these findings, this section proposes an integrated governance model comprising strategic governance, process governance, data governance, technology governance, and security governance dimensions. The proposed framework aims to strike a balance between organizational agility and control mechanisms, guiding the sustainable management of citizen developer initiatives. Artificial intelligence integration, process mining, hyperautomation, and the changing roles of citizen developers in digital transformation initiatives are considered future areas for development.
