Teams feel the pressure to simplify operations, reduce manual tasks, and integrate the various systems that keep their businesses running. Low-code integration and automation are quickly becoming must-have tools for organizations with limited IT resources seeking to achieve this goal. But many organizations still aren’t sure where to start with these tools or how to develop an implementation strategy for their business initiatives.
What we'll cover in this article: We’ll help you explore getting into low-code integration and automation. We’ll also look at how these tools can support more advanced use cases, like enabling AI agents to take on complex, multi-step tasks across systems. When you’re ready to dig deeper, our whitepaper offers a more detailed look at how these platforms work and the kinds of results they can help your team achieve.
What’s driving the need for low-code integration and automation tools?
Organizations today are under constant pressure to boost productivity and deliver faster time to value. A major challenge in meeting these goals is the sheer number of applications they rely on daily.
On average, enterprise companies use nearly 900 different apps, and almost half report using 1,000 or more. Small and medium-sized companies might have a smaller ecosystem to work within, but as the business grows, so does the complexity. Managing data and workflows across such a sprawling landscape is incredibly complex, and it only gets harder as you add more tools and systems.
This complexity creates real challenges for IT teams. When systems can’t easily talk to each other, it slows down projects, delaying time to value and limiting the scope of your more innovative initiatives. Meanwhile, IT teams are overwhelmed by the volume of data requests and technical work needed just to keep everything connected. Today, 86% of IT leaders expect workloads to grow, anticipating an 18% increase in the number of projects their organization will need to deliver.
Low-code integration and automation platforms help address these challenges by enabling more people outside of IT to build integrations and automate tasks. By democratizing innovative tools, everyone can participate, which accelerates the development of solutions, reduces the strain on IT, and enables organizations to get more value from their data. Just as importantly, low-code tools help establish the connected foundation that AI agents need to function effectively, making it easier to scale intelligent automation across the organization.
Low-code doesn’t just empower people; it enables autonomous AI
An AI agent is an autonomous solution that can independently carry out complex workflows and make decisions with minimal human oversight. To do this, AI agents rely heavily on connectivity across multiple platforms and systems.
To automate complex, multi-step workflows, they need seamless access to data and systems throughout the organization. Without strong integration, AI tools remain limited; they can analyze data but struggle to execute tasks that span different applications or departments. Already, 95% of IT leaders identify integration as a major hurdle to implementing AI effectively.
Overcoming these barriers is a key reason why low-code integration and automation platforms are gaining traction. By simplifying connectivity and workflow automation, these tools empower AI agents to do more, helping organizations boost efficiency and realize greater value from their AI investments.
Accelerating business workflows with low-code automation
To better understand how low-code integration and automation tools make a difference, let’s look at a common use case: speeding up business workflows. Manual processes (especially those that connect multiple teams) can be slow, error-prone, and tough to scale. This is particularly challenging for small and medium-sized businesses, where individuals juggle many responsibilities at once.
Take the example of a quote-to-cash process, a workflow that touches multiple departments including sales, finance, order management, and fulfillment. Traditionally, this process often relies on spreadsheets, emails, and disconnected systems to move from initial quote to final payment. Additionally, creating quotes, getting approvals, processing orders, and generating invoices all require touchpoints across multiple platforms, which can lead to delays, errors, and miscommunication. Without automation and integration, the process is slow, inconsistent, and difficult to scale.
Using a low-code automation and integration tool, operations teams can streamline the entire quote-to-cash process, connecting systems and automating tasks without needing to rely heavily on IT. Here’s what that might look like in practice:
- Customer quote details are automatically pulled from the CRM and synced with order management, invoicing, and ERP systems using drag-and-drop integrations
- Approval workflows for pricing and discounts are built with a visual interface, routing to the right stakeholders without manual follow-ups
- Once approved, the system triggers order fulfillment and billing steps across finance and inventory platforms automatically
- A centralized dashboard provides real-time visibility into quotes, order status, and payment progress, reducing delays and confusion across teams
With a low-code automation and integration platform, teams can connect multiple systems and streamline workflows using prebuilt connectors and a click-based UI. That means faster deployment, less switching between tools, and fewer data silos.
While IT could develop a similar solution manually, doing so would require extensive integration work and time-consuming custom development. Low-code tools remove that barrier, empowering business users to automate complex, multi-system processes like quote-to-cash on their own so IT can focus on higher-value initiatives.
And this is just a single use case. Our whitepaper includes many more examples across different departments and industries, showing how low-code integration and automation can drive efficiency and innovation throughout your organization.
How to get started with low-code integration and automation
If you’re ready to explore how low-code integration and automation tools can help your organization work more efficiently and unlock the full potential of your data and AI, our whitepaper is a great place to start. It provides a clear, detailed guide that covers everything you need to know, including:
- What low-code integration and automation tools really are
- Who can use these tools across your organization
- The key skills needed to build and manage integrations and automations
- The kinds of workflows and processes you can create
- Important features to consider when choosing a platform tailored to your needs
Whether you’re a part of IT, a business user, or a developer, this whitepaper will help you understand how to leverage low-code tools effectively and begin driving faster, more agile outcomes. Read Low-code Integration and Automation with MuleSoft and Flow: A Guide for Admins and Line of Business Users to get practical insights and take the first step toward simplifying integration and automation in your organization.
