Powerful custom apps were once the domain of large businesses with big budgets, but Progress Rollbase opens up new opportunities for small and midsize companies.
When you’re a midsize business going up against a much larger corporation, the deck can feel a little stacked. How can your team of developers compete against the army of employees and larger budget at the bigger company? After all, you might think, without that army and budget, it’s impossible to create the kinds of custom applications your clients are looking for.
The truth is, while this might have been the case once, midsize shops are much better positioned to compete with larger enterprises on this front than ever before. Low-code platforms like Progress Rollbase utilize user-friendly interfaces to make custom application creation simple, whether you’re a programmer or not. Rollbase combines an easy-to-use drag-and-drop, point-and-click interface with industry-leading features like business rules, application integration and data connectivity.
Needed: An Agile Low-Code, Low-Cost Business Tool
In the Asian business market, the barrier of cost still prevents many smaller organizations from competing technologically with larger firms. Kingslake, a software development consultancy, saw this imbalance as an opportunity. Kingslake knew if it could deliver an agile tool to create business management software, which didn’t require extensive coding, costly licenses or infrastructure, the firm would attract many new customers.
Based in Sri Lanka and with 25 years of cross-industry experience, Kingslake had an expert understanding of the local market and knew exactly what was needed to be successful. The customers Kingslake had in mind would have limited budgets, so the process would have to be streamlined and affordable. Due to the regulatory environment, it would also require hosting in-country (as opposed to the U.S. or Europe) so that users could pay in local currency.
Kingslake envisioned a platform that would enable smaller companies to create their own custom applications on even footing with corporate giants—without having to implement a full enterprise system and within a short timeframe. And so “SmartApps,” powered by Rollbase, was born.
A Collaboration to Enable Frictionless Local Hosting
Rollbase offers a public hosting solution for customers to use and deploy apps quickly, but as it was based in the U.S., it wouldn’t work for SmartApps. Rather than give up, the Rollbase team encouraged Kingslake to explore an approach where it could host a cloud instance of Rollbase locally.
To do so, Kingslake partnered with Dialog, a leading broadband and fixed-line provider in Sri Lanka. While Kingslake developed SmartApps on top of Rollbase, Dialog engineers worked closely with Progress to install a local Rollbase instance at its data center and integrate it with their key business infrastructure.
Scalable and Flexible Services
Once Kingslake, Dialog and Progress had implemented everything, SmartApps enjoyed a successful launch. With minimal overhead or coding, innovators can jump in and speed their solutions to market, and Kingslake was able to provide services to developers for a fraction of the cost.
As an example of what it can do, consider an early adopter of SmartApps that employs over 5,000 workers. This company provides vans to get employees to and from work, but with no system to plan rides, it was impossible to keep track of who was coming to work or optimize the number of vans in use. With SmartApps, the company quickly developed a van-sharing, route-planning, clock in/out application for workers that helps optimize van usage and ensure workers get home safely. Acquiring a commercial transport management application to accomplish the same thing would have been cost-prohibitive.
A Tradition of Support
Kingslake has been a Progress partner for years and the reliable and consistent support from Progress was a key factor in the consultancy’s decision to use Progress Rollbase. We’re dedicated to the success of our customers and partners, and if you have any questions, we invite you to contact us with them.
To learn the full story of Kingslake, Dialog and SmartApps, you can read more here or watch the video below.Adam Day
Adam is a Director of Product Marketing at Progress. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.