Understanding Partnering Strategies in the Low-Code Platform Ecosystem

Abstract

Low-code platforms (LCPs) allow the development, testing, and deployment of software applications with minimal manual coding by using pre-built software components and visual design tools. LCPs frequently enter into technology partnerships to offer extensive capabilities required for software development. In this study, we identify and characterize these technology partnerships to understand and develop the structure of the LCP ecosystem. We model the LCP ecosystem and identify nine types of technology partnerships. In doing so, we advance our understanding in three key areas: (1) provide insight into the evolving LCP ecosystem, (2) reveal that LCP vendors use various technological partnerships and strategies across different capability areas with varying partner network sizes and capability compositions, and (3) demonstrate the value of ecosystem visualization. Collectively, our findings can help LCP users and developers to understand the foundational, competitive, and niche partnership strategies and enable LCP vendors to innovate and collaborate effectively.