Internal Launches Enterprise-Ready App Development Platform for Internal Tools
New survey reveals organizations need a better way to develop internal apps than to rely entirely on engineering.
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 12, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Internal, the platform empowering non-coders and coders to build powerful internal apps on top of their databases, APIs and business applications, today announced the launch of an enterprise-ready app development platform for internal tools. In addition, Internal reported it has achieved AICPA Service Organization Controls (SOC) 2 Type II compliance for its SaaS offering, showing continued investment in security best practices.
The enterprise-ready platform, offering a powerful no-code app builder, advanced data access controls, on-premises hosting option, and new developer tools, gives larger organizations and those with complex business needs the ability to open up internal app development to more teams within the organization - including customer support, operations and product management. This frees up valuable developer time to focus on driving innovation, empowers non-coders to build what they need themselves, and accelerates the entire organization.
"Internal is committed to building a powerful platform for internal applications that makes most of the development process self-service for non-coders, even when they're building on top of their company's databases and APIs," said Arisa Amano, co-founder and CEO. "Non-coders can do 70~100% of the development with the new no-code app builder while coders can take apps the rest of the way there with Internal's new developer tools. This opens up tremendous opportunities to build more apps, faster, that precisely fit the needs of the business."
Large Amount of Time Spent on Developing Internal Tools
Third-party survey results released by Internal on no-code/low-code adoption confirm that organizations are spending large amounts of engineering time on internal tools, with 62% of respondents reporting more than 25% of time is spent on developers fulfilling requests to build internal tools. This is time that could be used to drive innovation and customer value.
Sixty-six percent of respondents said the need to work on internal tools delays customer-facing products on either a daily or weekly basis. Almost 79% of respondents said if engineers weren't building internal tools, they would be using that extra time to develop customer-facing features.
Hidden Costs to the Business
Internal tools are not only costly to build but also require significant maintenance and ongoing updates to evolve with the business. This is often a "hidden cost" of internal tools that is not considered. Nearly 75% of the survey respondents said they need to make updates to internal tools at least weekly, while about 70% said they need to make updates to the internal tools more than once a week.
Total dependency on engineering departments to build internal tools creates unnecessary strain on interdepartmental relationships, which can slow down the entire organization. Over 92% of respondents report that when engineers lack the time and/resources to fulfill a request for new or updated internal tools, it creates a strain on interdepartmental relationships.
This potentially leads to job dissatisfaction within engineering teams. Furthermore, engineering teams are generally disinterested in working on internal tools. Customer-facing work is usually more creative, engaging, and core to the business. Asked to cite the biggest pain point when building internal tools, 50% of respondents responded that it was either not having enough engineering resources or incremental requests tied to internal tools, while 35% cited engineers lack interest or enthusiasm for internal tools.
The research indicates that organizations need a better way to develop their internal tools/apps—rather than depending entirely on engineering.
Internal's no-code approach makes it easy for non-developers to build powerful internal apps on top of existing databases, APIs, and business applications—but is flexible enough to meet the security, customization, and extensibility requirements of engineering and IT teams. New features such as the new no-code app builder interface provide an intuitive drag-and-drop experience, flexible layout, and easy-to-use configuration panel for building complex apps —without writing a single line of code or SQL.
The survey also asked respondents about their security concerns. Close to 95% of IT/engineering leaders are generally concerned about their employees having access to their customers' data. Internal allows you to manage permissions centrally—versus permissions for every app. This makes it far easier to control and monitor who has access to data. Additionally, Internal's new permissioned data flows give the manager unprecedented control over application inputs and outputs, ensuring each user only has access to the data they need to do their jobs.
Why Companies Aren't Adopting No-code/Low-code
Why haven't organizations adopted low-code/no-code technology to build internal tools, given its numerous benefits? Sixty-eight percent of respondents said the number one reason is because the business requires customization beyond what low/no-code can provide. Additional reasons—cost (23%) , unfamiliarity with the technology (19%), and the boss won't approve (20%)—were not nearly as significant.
Customizability and extensibility are key requirements that must be met before many organizations can switch to low-code/no-code platforms. Organizations will need to build a variety of tools to fit their unique business requirements, and these tools often need to plug into the company's existing data, APIs and business logic.
"While Internal takes a no-code first approach and allows anyone to build tools, it also provides new developer tools that give engineering teams the option to extend apps with code," said Bob Remeika, Internal co-founder and CTO. "This includes the ability to connect APIs, implement custom API authentication flows, and manipulate requests and return values using Javascript. In addition, Internal now makes it easy to deploy apps to environments such as staging and production."
Businesses are invited to sign up for a free trial; go to http://www.internal.io to get started.
About Internal
Internal empowers non-coders and coders to build powerful internal apps on top of their databases, APIs, and business applications. By combining an intuitive, no-code first interface with robust developer tools and granular access controls, Internal makes it possible to build internal apps faster and more collaboratively without requiring engineers end to end. Founded by Arisa Amano and Bob Remeika, Internal is headquartered in San Francisco. Learn more about us at http://www.internal.io.
Media Contact
Kourtney Evans
Bospar for Internal
[email protected]
Media Contact
Kourtney Evans, Bospar, +1 (323) 497-9506, [email protected]
SOURCE Internal
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