Company managers have key leadership responsibilities that include increasing employee productivity, improving process efficiency and allocating budgets to achieve optimal business outcomes.
Historically, one approach to addressing these challenges has been the implementation of software systems through the IT department. Systems of this nature are usually deployed through structured IT projects. This, in turn, requires the allocation of the IT group’s budget and employee time. Access to technology implementation budgets can be problematic for managers as many departments and business functions make requests for these resources.
The Kintone Solution for Company Departments
Kintone is a no-code/low-code aPaaS (application Platform as a Service) that enables citizen developers to design and deploy enterprise-grade systems without the assistance of their IT department. Kintone’s cloud-based software ecosystem provides company managers with a direct path to increase their teams’ productivity, improve business process efficiency and implement departmental apps without the involvement of the IT group.
Please refer to the article Citizen Developers: The Experts in How We Succeed for a discussion of how Kintone applications are developed then deployed by the employees who will use them.
Kintone in the Corporate Environment
The term “shadow IT systems” is often applied to departmental-level applications and data-sharing systems that operate outside the company’s IT infrastructure. These systems are problematic to the IT group for several reasons. In many cases, the systems are “kludged together” through the use of spreadsheets, collaborative environments (such as SharePoint) and the unstructured use of enterprise system data.
This approach can lead to the unplanned build-up of departmental applications that are not secure. Data may be shared in ways that do not reflect IT security policies. User access may not be managed according to IT protocols. The assistance from the IT group may be required for application maintenance and ongoing development. “Let’s do it ourselves” becomes a one-off system that achieves what is necessary but in ways that are counterproductive to the overall IT environment.
Kintone provides the features that allow company managers and their teams to develop applications that are IT-group friendly. They can be successfully integrated into the company’s core IT infrastructure and comply with security protocols.
This video provides an interview with a Corporate Controller who discusses how a simple start in the usage of Kintone has grown into a multi-departmental system. This application of Kintone addresses the end user’s workflow, business process and data-access needs. This Kintone app also seamlessly fits within the firm’s overall IT strategy.
Budget Management: Departmental Expense vs. Capital Budget
The Kintone application development environment includes the tools and capabilities necessary for citizen developers to design and deploy enterprise-grade applications. These features include:
- A no-code application builder
- Excel file conversion into online Kintone spreadsheets
- Business process and workflow automation
- Dynamic workflow analytics and process status reporting
- Automatic app deployment to browsers and mobile devices
Kintone is priced on a per-user/per-month basis. Implementations that support ten, twenty, even fifty employees will usually fit within a department-level expense budget and not require a capital budget request or IT budget expenditure.
As one perspective, it would cost more for a team member or manager to take a three-day business trip once a month than it would cost to enable fifty team members to work within Kintone in that same month.
Please refer to this link for the good news on Kintone’s department-friendly pricing.
It is efficient and inexpensive for citizen developers to create apps that benefit the company!
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