Low Code for Consultants: Adapt to the Changing Digital Landscape

Today’s businesses are competing in an entirely different landscape.

And while every company must adapt to rapid changes, the consulting sector – with its focus on strategy development, operational analysis and client relationship management – must be especially committed to staying innovative amid major business shifts. This includes meeting the demands of today’s digital-first customers.

As the sector grows steadily, challenges remain on the road to digital transformation. Fortunately, low-code technology offers solutions to help the industry navigate uncharted waters and meet its ever-evolving needs.

Learn how to build secure and powerful custom applications for your consulting business — with minimal to no coding.

Challenges Facing the Consulting Industry

Just a few years ago, “addressing the increasing competition” was a top business priority for more than half of consulting firms. Today, they also juggle growing customer demand, increasing project complexity and digital adoption hurdles.

Increased Competition

From independent consultants to niche boutiques, traditional firms are gaining new competitors. Of the $150 billion global consultancy budget, independent contractors are getting a bigger slice of the pie. That said, firms must also compete to deliver the highest-quality service at the most affordable price point.

Talent Shortage

About 60% to 70% of managers in consulting companies agree that projects are becoming more and more complex. Consulting firms need not only subject matter experts, but technical talent as well. However, nearly 2 out of 3 consulting companies say they have limited resources in their organization.

LOOMING PROBLEM: Following the “Great Resignation,” firms had to turn down work due to a lack of staff and lower retention rates among employees.

Digital Adoption

Consulting businesses are also lagging in their adoption of digital strategies in regards to their clients’ emerging need for a digital-first approach. Many resource-strapped firms grapple with bridging the digital transformation gap where a lack of technology and expertise prevents them from reaching their goals. As a result, they fall short of maximizing existing online tools, modernizing internal workflows and keeping up with rapidly changing client needs.

How Low-Code Development Can Help

Over the years, low code has grown from an emerging technology into a core solution for any business embarking on digital transformation.

Low code is a software development approach that involves little to no coding. Professional software developers or tech-savvy business users leverage visual point-and-click tools instead of line-by-line coding to create their apps. The result? Businesses build the applications they need in a fraction of the time and cost versus traditional development methods.

Consulting businesses with limited technical resources use low code to empower non-IT employees to participate in software development. This means even those without a coding background can create simple apps that meet their requirements, without waiting on overburdened IT teams to accommodate their requests. As a result, IT teams can focus on bigger, more complex problems that need immediate solutions.

Because low code also allows users to inject code when needed, tech-savvy professionals can apply further customizations to their applications. This is especially important for major projects that require branding and functionalities unique to their business.

What Consultants Need in a Low-Code Platform

Caspio, the world’s leading low-code platform for building feature-rich database applications, enables consulting firms to rapidly create and deploy cloud-based solutions.

Here’s what you can expect from Caspio’s award-winning platform:

Centralized Online Database                                                                        

Use Caspio to build a custom online database that streamlines data and eliminates silos. Its visual tools enable users to input a wide range of data types, design table relationships and maintain referential integrity. As a Microsoft Gold Partner with SQL Server as its backend database, Caspio provides exceptional performance, reliability and enterprise security.

Scalable Infrastructure

When your business expands to larger markets, you need a platform that grows with you. With Caspio, aside from running AWS and SQL Server as its cloud infrastructure, it can also scale to millions of app builders and users out of the box. All plans include unlimited users at no extra cost, so you can budget and scale without arbitrary limits.

Powerful Integration Features

Caspio’s low-code development platform also gives you the ability to connect your apps to third-party systems. Consulting firms with existing cloud solutions can link their Caspio-powered databases to over 5,000 apps, such as Office 365, Salesforce, Mailchimp, PayPal and more, through Zapier integration.

Automation Capabilities

Speed up mission-critical processes using Caspio’s built-in automation features. With these, you can assign tasks, approve requests and track the status updates of consultants more easily. Caspio’s triggered actions and tasks allow you to send automatic emails and SMS alerts from your apps and customize them for different users.

Security and Compliance

Securing clients’ data should be on top of your list, especially for those in critical industries such as finance and healthcare. Caspio meets regulatory requirements and adheres to global compliance such as HIPAA and FERPA. It also comes with enterprise-grade security features, including record level security, encrypted password technology and role-based permissions, to ensure your data is always protected.

Case Studies: Get Inspired by These 4 Success Stories

For years, consulting businesses have used Caspio’s low-code platform to digitally transform their operations. Here are four success stories that will inspire you to follow in their footsteps.

1. Black Belt Digital Migrates Business Data to the Cloud

When it comes to organizing business data, traditional consulting firms often rely on Microsoft Excel and Access. While these tools are great at sorting data, both have their known limitations: Excel is prone to errors and breaches and isn’t technically designed for collaborative work. Access, on the other hand, has limited scalability, security and integration, preventing it from leveling up to the functionalities offered by today’s cloud databases. These make both tools unreliable for company-wide data management.

Caspio’s low-code platform empowers users to build secure online databases that consolidate information from multiple sources, reflect accurate data in real-time and scale as your business grows. As a result, firms can save time, reduce human error and streamline information management for clients and stakeholders.

This is how Australia-based global consulting company Black Belt Digital solved the risk of disparate spreadsheets and Access databases in their organization. Using Caspio, they built a cloud-based repository and migrated all business data from their local desktops to the app. The custom database is now being used by over 5,000 users, helping improve the firm’s overall productivity and efficiency.

“Our clients can now enter data conveniently and quickly,” Peter Barton, a consultant at Black Belt Digital, shared. “That really shows the power of such a small app and how it was able to impact numerous users.”

2. Vision to Action Builds Custom Apps for Highly Regulated Industries

Consulting companies serve clients from various industries, from finance and healthcare to government sectors. By building custom apps on Caspio, consultants with limited IT support can provide efficient digital solutions for clients that address their specific pain points – even if they are not coders.

CUSTOM APPS FOR ALL: V2A uses Caspio to provide strategies and tools for all clients, including those from highly regulated industries.

Vision to Action (V2A), a management consulting firm with offices in the US, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, used Caspio to build custom solutions for clients in different industries. The best part? They empowered their 50+ consultants – none of whom are coders – to develop the apps themselves.

Using Caspio, V2A consultants created a credit origination system for a finance client, who eventually ran a $40 billion portfolio on the app. They also built a custom enrollment processing software for a healthcare business and a resource management app for a utility/HR firm. Together, they democratized application development in their own consulting firm.

“Caspio is an empowering tool for our consultants. It gives them the flexibility to do things they couldn’t do before.”

Rene Yamin
Senior Partner and Director
Vision to Action (V2A)

3. GLOBAL CSR Launches Compliance Software for EU Clients

Caspio’s low-code platform helps consulting businesses improve critical workflows without compromising data security and integrity. Aside from offering flexibility in developing the apps, Caspio enables consulting firms to align their solutions with global standards like HIPAA, FERPA and more.

END-TO-END COMPLIANCE: Caspio’s secure and versatile low-code platform has helped GLOBAL CSR develop a compliance tool for EU clients.

GLOBAL CSR is a consulting firm focused on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG). They needed a solution to help EU clients comply with a new law obliging companies to conduct due diligence on environmental and human rights.

Combining his programming knowledge with Caspio’s low-code capabilities, Head of Product Development Oliver Norman created csrCloud – an all-in-one compliance tool that streamlines the entire CSR/ESG due diligence process for EU clients. He also built other internal apps, such as modules for environmental impact assessments and social impact status reports.

“Caspio gives us everything we need for our projects – I’ve yet to find limitations of what I can do,” Norman shared.

4. Tyler Technologies Unifies Calendars for Field Consultants

Consulting firms can also use Caspio to automate scheduling tasks for client meetings, team syncs, and project consulting. With automated tasks, they will no longer need to perform manual reminders via email or other third-party calendar apps.

Tyler Technologies struggled with unorganized data from their 40+ disparate calendaring systems shared within SharePoint and accessed by members throughout the United States.

Using Caspio, they built a unified calendar system for all of their field consultants, allowing them to see real-time schedules and determine consultant availability with just a few clicks. In addition, they can now see key metrics they couldn’t get before with their old calendaring system.

“Our goal was to consolidate those calendars into one system. Caspio did exactly what we needed it to do,” Implementation Director Jane Grant said.

Unlock the Full Potential of Your Consulting Services

Transform the way you deliver solutions to your clients by harnessing the power of low code.

With Caspio’s low-code platform, you can create applications designed to address unique challenges and meet organizational goals. From consolidating disparate data into a single repository to producing internal and external management apps, Caspio is a powerful tool that will drive your business forward.

Schedule a consultation with our team today and we’ll help you explore the possibilities.

Interested in becoming a Caspio partner? Apply here and join our growing network of Solutions Partners with a mission to build apps rapidly for today’s digital customers.