It’s easy to be pessimistic when you’re in the business of enterprise technology. After all, the vast majority of large-scale IT projects fail in some regard—56% of them deliver less value than predicted, and 45% cost more than expected. And of these large-scale IT projects, software projects fail most of all.
If you’re reluctant to go out on a limb, we understand. Before we were the no-code experts, we were enterprise leaders and software developers ourselves, trying to add value to an unforgiving industry. But it’s also true that pessimism holds a lot of enterprises back from innovation. A positive attitude can be the difference between future success and falling behind your competitors in a quick-moving market.
This series will break down our company values and explain how we apply them to the challenges we tackle every day. Our first value is optimism—here’s how we lead with the belief that we will win.
A History of Success
If your current IT project has been preceded by a string of expensive failures, it’s natural to be apprehensive about taking risks in the future. According to the Boston Consulting Group, the potential lost value from a project delay can cost an enterprise anywhere from 100 to 170% of their initial investment cost. That’s more than enough to put an enterprise in danger—and to make them nervous about jumping in again.
Regardless of past failures, however, we’ve found that there’s value in approaching each project like it’s already a success. As an example, let’s discuss the cross-carrier quoting platform we created for one of our life insurance clients. Insurance is a notoriously slow, paper-laden industry, and companies have long struggled to find a way to optimize quoting and better meet the needs of the modern customer. Brokers were losing money and customers weren’t getting the help they needed.
Historically, attempting to automate this process with code had proven to be too complex. A fully functioning cross-carrier quoting platform just didn’t exist. Tackling this challenge with no-code required optimism to even try, simply because it had never been done before. Despite the challenges we faced, it eventually became clear that no-code provided the opportunity the insurance industry had needed.
Want to see the power of no-code in action? Watch the above demonstration of “Project Cupid,” New York City’s online marriage portal to support legal unions in a time of pandemic.
With the Unqork platform, we created a platform that simplified the entire intake and underwriting process. Automated decision-making features cross-referenced a set of commonly asked questions against all carriers, and then used those responses to direct an applicant to their best match. Digital questionnaires weeded out irrelevant questions and applications could be vetted in real-time, reducing costly inefficiencies. And it was in large part due to our optimism that this seemed a challenge worth tackling at all.
Another key to ensuring success has been replicating things that work and applying them to new concepts. The majority of enterprise software tries to simplify processes that are somewhat similar at the root, and we use that to our advantage. Wherever possible, no-code allows us to lead with confidence and optimism by applying successful builds to new use-cases and fleshing out a custom-fit solution from there. Our Business Product team is dedicated to getting proven products to market that can be applied to a wide variety of industries.
Being optimistic in this business is equal parts confidence and not-so-blind faith. But if you have a product you really believe in—and a good track record!—it becomes that much easier to innovate without fear.
Tackling the Unknown Together
Still, we understand that a history of success alone doesn’t necessarily instill optimism when you’re dealing with uncharted territories. That voice in your head that says, “Ok, but what if…” can get pretty loud sometimes. When it comes down to it, we trust in our platform’s ability to build any number of complex applications (including itself!). And when it’s hard to feel optimistic, our collaborative, team-based company structure supports us.
As we tackle a typical new project, there are a few key steps we take to gain input from our larger team. We start by discussing each new challenge with the Solutions team to see if they’ve built any similar applications. Then we drop in on the Engineering team to ask them for product expertise or, if necessary, to build out new functionalities that support our idea.
“Our company values optimism because no-code is a new frontier—and we’re trying to fundamentally reshape how entire industries operate.”
Pessimism feeds on isolation—it’s easy to feel defeated when you have a seemingly insurmountable challenge and you think you have to attack it alone. At Unqork, we do our best to nip that in the bud. We’re able to be optimistic because we surround ourselves with optimistic people, and they push us forward.
How Optimism Drives Industries Forward
To sum it up, our company values optimism because no-code is a new frontier—and we’re trying to fundamentally reshape how entire industries operate. Our company can only exist if we believe that what we’re doing is not only possible, but revolutionary.
No-code is the future, but you don’t have to take our word for it. The demand for high-quality software will only keep climbing, and legacy code cannot rise to the occasion. According to Salesforce, 52% of all IT departments report that the IT skills shortage is hurting their enterprise. Therefore, 74% of those same companies have plans to cultivate their existing talent by empowering their business teams to build apps using no-code. We believe in no-code’s ability to help enterprises with these issues, and that belief in a different way of operating drives us forward.
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