No/low-code solutions mitigate all these issues. They allow tech-savvy end-users to create apps on top of databases that look like spreadsheets, but have constraints (i.e. you cannot enter text in a date field). They can share these apps with colleagues who can add/change/remove data with forms, and build dashboards on top of it all. The data can be freely imported into other tools for forecasting, etc. No more scraping PDFs to find data, or manually copying data from emails.
No-code has the potential to revolutionize the way we work to the same extent as the humble spreadsheet. This week I discovered a great option that I’ll be trying out: Budibase. It’s open-source, which means it’s free to host it yourself (for unlimited apps) and they only charge for enterprise support. They also have a great trial account (that they host for you) that can run up to 4 apps.
If you want to stay ahead of the pack in terms of IT skills, no-code app development will be something to get into sooner rather than later.