Q&A with Rierino on how next-generation low-code accelerates ecommerce and digital transformations
With the promise of faster development cycles, reduced reliance on traditional coding methods, and enhanced agility, low code has emerged as a game-changer for digital initiatives. Empowering a broader range of users, it supports rapid application development in various domains.
To explore its potential impact, challenges, and best practices, we spoke with Mine Ozmen, Cofounder and CMO of Rierino, a disruptive low-code/no-code technology provider that serves leading ecommerce and other digital brands. As a versatile professional with experience across ecommerce, banking, telecoms, and public sectors, Mine is a seasoned expert with a keen passion for human-centricity and technology adoption. In this insightful Q&A, she shared her perspectives on low code, key learnings from clients, as well as Rierino’s vision for an innovative low-code future.
What is next-generation low-code development?
As you know, low-code/no-code is a software development approach that supports more visual and verbal interactions in building applications. Instead of traditional coding, users mainly configure their requirements through intuitive graphical UIs, drag and drop pre-built components, and easily reflect business rules.
Next-generation low-code pushes the boundaries of this concept by incorporating advanced capabilities to tackle more sophisticated use cases. Equipped for flexibility and scale, it allows organizations to revamp their core business platforms, enhance their integration capabilities, and expand deployment options in addition to supporting basic app generation. It also leverages intelligent technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide smart automation and real-time personalization.
What are the common challenges you’ve observed in digital transformation initiatives?
Some challenges are fairly common even among the most renowned companies typically slowing down innovation or reducing the overall impact of the initiative. Legacy systems and technical debt are a nightmare for any enterprise causing integration challenges, data silos, and compatibility issues. Skill gaps and talent shortage, again, are global issues creating resource dependencies and organizational bottlenecks. Lack of alignment between IT and business teams may also result in ineffective technology investments and missed opportunities failing to deliver value to the actual stakeholders.
In ecommerce, these challenges become even more significant and urgent given the fast-paced nature of the industry. From data silos to constantly putting out fires, there are some telltale signs for ecommerce replatforming. Characterized by rapidly evolving consumer preferences, fierce competition, and complex supply chains, ecommerce relies on continuous technology transformations as a key driver ensuring both survival and a competitive edge.
How do low-code/no-code technologies accelerate ecommerce and digital transformations?
Low-code/no-code platforms reduce time-to-value and operational costs by both streamlining and democratizing the development process. Through a range of pre-built templates and components, users can easily customize and configure modules instead of building everything from scratch or investing in disparate black box solutions. By facilitating integration with legacy systems, databases, and external APIs, low-code platforms allow organizations to extend functionality without the need for costly and time-consuming redevelopment efforts. This interoperability and extensibility enable organizations to maximize the value of their IT investments and drive greater ROI across the enterprise.
Another benefit of low-code platforms is their ease of use and accessibility to a wider range of users. With intuitive interfaces and visual development tools, low-code platforms empower business users, citizen developers, and non-technical stakeholders to participate in the development process. This promotes collaboration, creativity, and innovation across teams and departments, driving greater agility and efficiency within the organization.
What makes Rierino a standout choice in the low-code technology space?
Unlike traditional low-code platforms that offer predefined templates and limited customization options, Rierino empowers users to build practically anything, allowing for unprecedented flexibility and agility in application development. Another difference is that it is both a business user and developer-friendly platform. Through our mission-specific access profiles, business users can directly contribute to technology. Developers can incorporate components in any language as well as benefit from our self-documentation and native testing features for APIs. Overall, both teams can easily collaborate over shared workflows greatly improving implementation times.
With strong roots in ecommerce, we have our high-impact commerce modules such as PIM, CMS, Personalizer, and Cart Manager which, when combined, form a complete headless e-commerce platform. Online retailers have the flexibility to either transform their backend completely with Rierino or augment their tech stack with the modules of their choice.
Additionally, Rierino distinguishes itself through its advanced automation capabilities and built-in intelligence features. Through our platform, users can integrate real-time AI/ML into any customer interaction or workflow, benefit from our built-in MLOps feature to instantly deploy their models, and leverage self-service BI capabilities.
Can you share any success stories of both ecommerce and other businesses that have embraced next-generation low-code solutions?
We’ve had the privilege of working with a diverse range of businesses across industries, helping them leverage Rierino’s technology to achieve their ecommerce and digital transformation goals. For example, a global retailer significantly improved the time-to-market of new products and expanded their portfolio of personalized content through centralized product and content orchestration. With our built-in localization features and customizable workflows, another online retailer accelerated its expansion to 10+ European countries.
Beyond ecommerce, Rierino Core is being used to develop a variety of large-scale applications such as online collaboration and networking platforms, and journey monitoring tools. In addition to cutting down implementation times from months to weeks, its intuitive UIs allow newcomers to become avid users within 1-2 weeks.
What are some misconceptions or myths surrounding low-code technologies?
The most common misconception is that it is only suitable for simple or basic applications. In reality, modern low-code platforms offer a wide range of capabilities that enable the development of complex and sophisticated solutions, including enterprise-grade applications for industries like ecommerce. I can speak from firsthand experience that these platforms provide extensive customization options, integrations with other systems, and support for advanced AI/ML features making them suitable for addressing the diverse needs of businesses across various sectors.
Another misconception is that low-code development sacrifices control and flexibility in favor of speed and ease of use. While low-code platforms do streamline the development process and reduce the need for hand-coding, they also offer robust customization capabilities and allow developers to write code when necessary. Additionally, many low-code platforms support collaboration between business users and IT teams, empowering both groups to work together efficiently while maintaining control over the development process.
What should businesses keep in mind when transitioning to a low-code approach?
With any transformation, organizations should assess and clearly identify their strategic objectives to select the best-fit solution. Stakeholder alignment from the beginning is critical for maximized adoption. Organizations can start small with a targeted proof-of-concept scope, measure the impact, and build on it accordingly. We recently compiled 10 key benefits of low-code together with how Rierino fares in each category which can serve as a quick starting point for potential buyers.
As a rule of thumb, businesses should evaluate the scalability and flexibility of low-code platforms to accommodate future growth and evolving business needs. Integration capabilities with existing systems and support for data security and compliance are also crucial factors to consider. For ecommerce, robust support for building and managing complex workflows, such as product catalog management, order processing, and customer relationship management, is even more essential. Advanced automation and customization capabilities should also be considered in line with the strategic vision.
How do you see the future of low-code technology evolving?
Low-code technologies are poised to revolutionize the way organizations approach software development and digital innovation. With the accessibility and flexibility provided, we expect explosive growth not only in traditional sectors but also through disruption in unexpected industries. Organizations of all sizes will recognize the value of low code in accelerating initiatives, and developers will rely on more advanced functionalities to build complex applications with ease.
AI will be a driving force behind the next wave of low-code solutions improving productivity through automating tasks, predicting outcomes, and optimizing performance. The role of IT departments will evolve from traditional software development to strategic innovation management, and we will witness a reinvention of business models through rapid experimentation.
Overall, organizations will unlock unprecedented opportunities for growth, innovation, and success. We at Rierino are thrilled to be a driver of this transformation, empowering businesses worldwide to realize their visions and achieve remarkable outcomes.
About Rierino
Rierino is a next-generation technology provider that allows digital businesses to go beyond packaged solution features and incorporate their unique twist on technology. Rierino Commerce is a headless backend platform with various modules such as PIM and CMS. Rierino Core is a smart microservice development platform for digital enterprises targeting the rapid creation of custom solutions. Rierino’s portfolio unites low-code, composable commerce, and embedded intelligence concepts to effortlessly tackle enterprise-grade development challenges and fuel unlimited growth. From retail to finance, insurance, telecoms, and government entities, it enables various sectors to accelerate time to innovation across different domains. Currently backed by the Future Impact Fund and featured in Fast Company’s Top 100 Startups to Watch, the company is the brainchild of seasoned strategy and technology advisors who have served over 60 brands across 20 countries.
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