As we commence our journey into 2024, Telefónica Tech UK&I CTO for Business Applications, David Small, has delved into the emerging trend of citizen development in Telefónica Tech’s latest Tech Trends series. 

This instalment of Tech Trends investigates the reasons behind the shift from traditional software developers to citizen developers, particularly for businesses emphasising agility. 

In today’s rapidly evolving technology landscape, the concept of citizen developers is revolutionising how organisations approach software development. These are end-users within your company who can create new business applications when provided with the right tools and oversight. For this purpose, users leverage low-code platforms, sanctioned by the IT department. Low-code platforms typically allow business users without any knowledge of how coding works to address their own development needs.

Citizen developers are end-users empowered to create business applications using low-code platforms. Gartner predicts that, by 2026, developers outside formal IT departments will make up at least 80% of the user base for low-code tools, up from 60% in 2021, with 89% of CIOs and IT professionals acknowledging the efficiency of the low-code approach. 

David’s Tech Trends article explores: 

  • The rise of citizen developers 
  • Strategic Power Platform CoE (Centre of Excellence) 
  • Microsoft’s Low Code Power Platform 
  • Fusion teams for digital transformation 
  • Benefits of citizen development and fusion teams 
  • Best practices for fusion teams implementation 
  • Citizen development case study. 

To fully uncover the transformative impact of citizen development, you can read the full article here. Telefónica Tech was acquired by Telefónica Tech in 2022, broadening our portfolio of offerings to our customers to provide an end-to-end digital transformation from business applications, to cloud, security, and data and AI capabilities. For more information, please do not hesitate to get in touch with our team of digital transformation experts.