A shortage of developers is going to lead to a boom in tools that help make simple apps without coding, and Microsoft stands to benefit, analyst says

• Low code and no code tools are expected to continue growing in popularity this year, and the market could be worth $52 billion by 2024, according to analysts at RBC Capital Markets.
• As the name suggests, low-code/no-code tools help users automate common tasks, while requiring little to no programming.
• Microsoft stands to be a major beneficiary of this trend, thanks to its lesser-known Power Platform product line.
• Other companies that could benefit from the rise in low-code/no-code are productivity tools like Smartsheet, Airtable, Asana and Monday.com, all of which have made simple automation a core part of their products.
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Like it or not, automation is coming to every job, everywhere. That's going to spark high demand for developers who can actually do the hard work of automating those systems - demand that's very likely to outstrip supply by some 1 million developers by 2030, warns equity research firm RBC Capital Markets in a new report.

That dynamic is going to drive demand for so-called low-code and no-code tools, which, as the name suggests, allows users to automate common tasks with only a minimum of coding. RBC, citing P&S Intelligence, said the market is expected to be worth a whopping $52 billion in 2024, a huge increase from the $6 billion it was worth in 2018.

The underlying principle behind the field is to make it as easy to build a simple app as it is to make a PowerPoint presentation.

And on the subject of PowerPoint, Microsoft is one of the companies that stands to benefit from this rise in low code/no code, thanks to its Power Platform product line.

Power Platform is a set of tools that helps businesses develop applications and analyze their data, and recently added some automation capabilities. While not as prominent as Microsoft's better-known Office 365 productivity tools, RBC said Microsoft expects this product category to really take off in the next three to five years.

Smaller companies also poised to benefit

Many smaller companies building productivity software also stand to benefit. Certain high-profile private startups, including productivity tools like Asana, Airtable, and Monday.com, are also well-positioned to benefit from the rising tide, RBC said.

One public company RBC spotlighted was Smartsheet, which makes spreadsheet-like software for managing work and automating business processes and workflows. Smartsheet went public in 2018 and its stock price has more than doubled since.

Smartsheet integrates with many third-party apps, and has tools to help automate job-specific business processes and workflows, such as IT project management offices, M&A transactions, and onboarding customers. RBC notes that Smartsheet is seeing "very strong performance" with those more specific functions, and that it's "increasingly gaining share and early traction in this market."

Similarly, industry-specific automation tools have a bright future, says RBC. Unqork, a tool for the insurance, financial services, and real estate industries, already has non-technical users making their own apps at customers like Liberty Mutual.

RBC also highlighted an app called Hooky, intended to help guide professional development, which was built entirely on the Slack work chat app tool. By using Slack's simple low-code user interface, Hooky's creators were able to build an app and get a business off the ground in less time than if they had done it the old-fashioned way.

Ultimately, while developers and programmers will always be needed in the workplace, these tools make it easier for more people to build things and therefore work more efficiently, RBC said.

"There will always be the need for highly skilled people with deep programming/development ability and tools to support them," RBC wrote. "However, the simultaneous increase in both the sophistication and ease of use of these various low-code applications/platforms is bringing development to a much wider range of people, and is both shortening cycles and extending the usefulness of existing applications that can embrace the paradigm."

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