If your organization is considering introducing more infrastructure automation, there are various tools available, including low-code solutions like Pliant or more traditional automation methods—and now is the time to choose which best aligns with your long-term goals.
Already, two-thirds of respondents say their organizations are at least piloting the automation of business processes. While this points to the increasingly widespread adoption of automation, it also highlights an important consideration for your organization: With more companies adopting automation, choosing strategic use cases for automation will be the differentiator that helps your company meet business needs more efficiently and stand out in your industry.
In this blog, let’s explore the differences between traditional automation and automating with Pliant. By the end, you’ll have gained a better understanding of how these two approaches could impact your organization as you select the right automation strategy for your needs.
Breaking Down Traditional Automation
Traditional automation has long relied on a conventional approach: hiring developers to create custom solutions. This method involves employing skilled programmers to write code tailored to specific business processes, a strategy that often necessitates significant time and financial investment.
While this approach can yield highly customized and efficient solutions, it also comes with several drawbacks.
First, the development process can be lengthy, delaying the time it takes to realize the benefits of automation. Custom code must be thoroughly tested and refined, which can extend project timelines considerably. Additionally, maintaining and updating these solutions requires continuous developer involvement, adding to ongoing costs and dependencies on specialized talent.
The traditional automation approach can also be inflexible. As business needs evolve, previously built custom solutions may require extensive modifications to remain effective, often involving the same level of effort and cost as the initial development. This rigidity can hinder a company’s ability to adapt quickly to changing market conditions or new opportunities.
So, while traditional automation through developer-created automations offers bespoke solutions, it also forces companies to contend with their resources and ROI in terms of time, cost, and adaptability. As businesses increasingly seek more agile and cost-effective automation strategies, this conventional approach may not always be the optimal choice.
The Pliant Advantage
Through its low-code platform, Pliant offers a revolutionary approach to workflow automation and IT orchestration, making automation accessible and efficient for businesses of all sizes.
Unlike traditional automation methods that require extensive coding and developer resources, Pliant’s low-code solution empowers users to create and manage automated workflows with minimal programming knowledge. It also comes with the flexibility to use developer skill sets for more extensive customization. This approach significantly reduces development time and costs, enabling quicker implementation and easier maintenance without compromising functionality.
One of the key features of Pliant automation is its user-friendly interface, which allows users to design workflows using drag-and-drop functionality. This intuitive design makes it easier for less technical teams to participate in automation initiatives, fostering greater collaboration across departments. Additionally, Pliant offers highly customizable integration capabilities, allowing your organization to support seamless connectivity across applications and systems for a smoother and more unified approach to everyday tasks.
Pliant stands out for its adaptability and scalability, catering to the evolving needs of businesses. As companies grow and their processes become more complex, Pliant’s flexible platform can easily accommodate new requirements without extensive reworking. By providing a more agile, cost-effective, and user-friendly solution, Pliant provides a leading choice for modern workflow automation.
Areas to Consider Head-to-Head
As you weigh the pros and cons of each approach to automation, it’s important to evaluate these key factors with significant impacts on business expenses, productivity, and scalability:
Speed and Efficiency
When comparing automation solutions, speed and efficiency are crucial. Traditional automation can be time-consuming due to extensive coding and testing. In contrast, low-code automation accelerates the development process with its drag-and-drop functionality and pre-built templates, enabling faster deployment and quicker returns on investment.
Cost Considerations
Cost is one of the biggest factors to take into consideration to get the most value for your organization. Traditional automation methods often involve high initial and ongoing costs due to the need for specialized developers and maintenance. Low-code platforms can reduce these expenses by minimizing the need for extensive coding and developer time, offering a more budget-friendly solution.
Skill Requirements and Accessibility
Traditional automation requires significant coding expertise, limiting accessibility to skilled developers. Low-code automation removes barriers to the process, allowing non-developers to participate in creating and managing workflows, broadening the talent pool and leading to greater collaboration. Learn more on this here.
Customization
Customization capabilities differ between the two approaches, with traditional automation offering highly tailored solutions at the expense of time and cost. Low-code platforms often strike a balance by offering customizable options through modules and templates, though they may be less flexible than fully custom solutions.
Scalability
For growing businesses, scalability is essential. Traditional automation can handle complex, large-scale operations but may require significant effort to scale. Low-code automation is inherently scalable, allowing businesses to easily adjust and expand their workflows as needs evolve.
Security and User Experience
Security and Compliance Standards
At Pliant, security is paramount. Passwords for local Pliant users are stored using a non-reversible salted hash (bcrypt), ensuring maximum protection against unauthorized access. This encryption technique is an industry-standard and an integral part of our security framework. Even if you prefer to sign in using third-party providers like Google or Microsoft, your password information is never stored on our servers. Instead, it’s encrypted and transmitted securely using the TLS cryptographic protocol, safeguarding it from interception during transit. With Pliant, you can trust that your data remains confidential and protected at all times.
Intuitive Interface and User-Friendly Design
Pliant’s interface embodies user-centric design principles, prioritizing ease of use and accessibility. Its intuitive layout and user-friendly features simplify navigation and task management, empowering users to accomplish their goals without extensive onboarding and training. By abstracting complex vendor APIs into intelligent action blocks, Pliant enables users to seamlessly drag and drop blocks, eliminating the need for manual coding. This approach accelerates the average time to resolution of business challenges and reduces the time to market for new service launches. With centralized administrative control and transparency, Pliant facilitates digital transformation, maximizing value across the entire technology stack in one unified platform.
Final Thoughts
Compared with traditional automation solutions, Pliant’s low-code automation platform offers engineers a streamlined solution for accelerating development cycles. By distilling complex processes into a drag-and-drop interface with action blocks, Pliant minimizes the need for manual coding, allowing engineers to focus on higher-level tasks. With its extensive library of pre-built integrations, Pliant also empowers engineers to rapidly prototype and deploy solutions, reducing time-to-market and increasing productivity.
Have more questions about how Pliant beats traditional automation, or want to see a demo? Get in touch today to find out how it works.
