The No-Code Guide to CRM Integration for Better Business

An efficient business process is all about workflows. The more seamless the workflow, the more efficient your business processes are. This efficiency is something you'd also want to see in your marketing or sales funnel to ensure that both the customer and employee journey runs smoothly. This is where customer relationship management tools come in. Customer relationship management (CRM) refers to how a company uses technology to manage business relationships with existing customers and prospects. It's a centralized location where all prospect and customer data is stored and made accessible to members of an organization. CRM systems help increase company revenue by managing leads, contacts, deals, and email communications. By streamlining business processes, CRM systems also help your company provide excellent customer support, build lasting relationships, and acquire new customers.

One of the fastest-growing markets, the CRM software industry is predicted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.6% from 2021 to 2028, as more customers demand better real-time customer experiences. This growth in the CRM software market is also helped by the growing dependence of consumers on digital channels to communicate with brands and companies. A recent survey shows that more than 67% of customers engage or interact with brands on social media. This interaction on social media platforms, in turn, helps provide brands and organizations with data on buyer behavior and preferences that help them craft appropriate strategies and deliver the best customer experience possible. Promising developments in technology also show great promise, allowing for automated conversations with customers, mobile CRM solutions, and software integrations with business intelligence (BI) tools.

The Low-Code and No-Code Movement Can Transform Your Startup Into Category Leaders

No-code and low-code technologies have been making inroads for years but have never quite delivered on their promise as reliable alternatives to traditional software development for complex, business-critical applications. Then COVID-19 forced a new, expedited timeline for moving analog in-person processes to semi- or fully-automated online ones. At the same time, IT and engineering roadmaps have been thrown out the window as technical teams scramble to adjust to new distributed working conditions while juggling multiple "hair on fire" problems. As a result, operations and business teams have been left with urgent needs for new business applications and scant developer resources, creating the perfect storm for no- or low-code solutions to emerge as the savior of productivity. But decision-makers should be wary of treating these platforms as a panacea to avoid costly failures and lost time.

What Are No-Code and Low-Code Technologies?

To understand how no- and low-code solutions fill the gap between business demand for development and supply of technical resources, it is helpful to understand what those terms mean exactly. No-code platforms allow people with no technical knowledge to stand up complex, cloud-based business applications using simple, drag-and-drop tooling. Relatedly, low-code platforms are also based on the concept of abstraction through pre-built software building blocks oriented towards accelerating time to development by reducing the amount of “original” code that needs to be written in any given application. Perhaps because of their shared DNA, there is a trend towards convergence; as no-code platforms become more powerful and versatile with add-ons and application marketplaces, and low-code platforms build features to require less coding. Given this trend, we can collectively refer to these platforms as Low-code Development Platforms.