Australia is facing a deepening shortage of technology skills in the coming years, putting pressure on businesses that need developers and other ICT professionals to innovate successfully. It is estimated that 1.3 million technology workers will be needed in Australia by 2030 to meet industry demand.

But new tools are enabling the rise of citizen developers to fill these tech gaps, here’s how:

Creating Citizen Automators

Automations are important. Business workflow automations that can be integrated across multiple technology systems can be used to streamline any number of business processes, allowing them to operate faster and produce less human-based errors — a critical capability in today’s highly competitive and fast-moving business landscape.

But with business tech teams struggling to find the resources needed to keep up with the demand for the implementation of workflow automations, a new trend is emerging that sees non-technical employees from other areas of the business create automations of their own. These ‘citizen automators’ are set to change the game when it comes to automation creation.

Citizen automators can be thought of as an extension of citizen developers, non-IT employees within an organisation who create applications or enhance existing systems, frequently without relying on formal training in software development. The emergence of citizen developers — and now citizen automators — is reshaping the way some businesses approach technology. 

Accessible Technology Is Powering the Trend

The rise of citizen developers has been enabled by the growing access to no-code or low-code platforms that let non-tech staff develop functional applications and workflows quickly and easily. Features like smart recommendations, natural language descriptions and visual flow builders can make low-code automation platforms can enable citizen automators across the business.

While such platforms can enable the rise of citizen automators, easing pressures on IT teams, it remains critical that there are strong controls in place that prevent non-IT staff members from accessing data they shouldn’t access. For that reason, it’s key that any low-code or no-code platform being used to support citizen automators has adequate data governance and guardrail features.

Automation platforms that offer additional measures, such as having completed an independent Infosec Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) assessment, underscore their commitment to meeting the stringent security expectations.

Powering Innovation From Within

With the right platform in place, citizen automators can fill the skills gap in automation creation pipelines safely, without putting organisations’ security profiles at risk. This also gives businesses the ability to dramatically expand the pool of automation builders within the business with individuals who are likely to be closer to the business problems they are trying to solve.

The reason for this is that many of the citizen automators are likely to come under other lines of business outside of the IT department and be focused predominantly on building automations and integrations within their own areas of the business. The deep understanding of their respective departments means such citizen automators are well placed to design the ideal automations for themselves and their colleagues — and ultimately, for the business. 

For example, a finance officer automating invoice approvals is likely to have a better understanding of the compliance nuances than a developer with no prior finance knowledge who sits within the IT department or elsewhere. This kind of insight leads to automations that are likely to be more effective and frequently more relevant to their respective use cases.

Rethinking the Role of IT

Citizen automators and the low-code and no-code platforms that support them give businesses a new way forward when it comes to driving innovation and efficiencies throughout the business  while being able to avoid putting undue pressure on their valuable tech talent and the frequently limited pool of skills they have available to them. However, implementing a highly governed solution is critical to ensure this process can be managed in a secure and high value manner – after all, the last thing IT teams need is additional tech debt to fix.

This does not mean that the IT department has become less important as citizen developers and citizen automaters become more prevalent within businesses, but that other departments outside of it can become partners in strategic innovation, collaborating with the tech team to create the best solutions for specific internal departmental challenges.

According to workato research, more than half of all automation builders today sit outside traditional IT. This is a figure that is growing year on year, reflecting a broader shift in how digital transformation is being executed at scale.  

By embracing citizen development and providing the platforms needed to enable citizen automators, businesses are in a position to no longer ask IT to carry the weight of automation creation alone. Instead, they can create a network of automation experts throughout the organisation to drive innovation in a fast-evolving business landscape.