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Shay Antebi is the Chief Technology Officer of
Kryon
, a leader in robotic process automation (RPA) solutions for enterprises.
Getty
We are standing at the doorstep of a new era in robotic process automation (RPA). The world is recovering from the catastrophic events of the past year and easing into the new normal of a post-Covid economy. It is a reawakening in several ways. We're just now coming out of the dormant state many of us found ourselves in during lockdown, but it also marks a resurgence in the need for smart automation as people return to work, school, travel and conducting global business.
Organizations want the ability to improve process quality, speed and productivity. And RPA has the power to address all three of these. But to truly live up to the hype, the providers in the automation sector must deliver on their promises and continue to innovate. RPA is still a very young industry in which solutions that were viable three years ago now seem outdated. Our work is far from over.
Heralds Of A New Age
We’ve seen a slew of high-profile partnerships and acquisitions, from
Google’s
coupling with Automation Anywhere to
Microsoft's
and
IBM’s
consumption of Softomotive and WDG Automation, respectively. These are unmistakable signs that the behemoths are betting high on RPA, and everyone else should pay attention.
It is not just tech companies that see the growing need for intelligent automation solutions but analysts as well.
Gartner
predicts RPA software revenue to reach nearly $2 billion this year, while a recent
HFS report
observed organizations are shifting away from viewing RPA as a cost-saving tool and toward viewing it as a vital requirement in a work-from-anywhere global economy.
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Within the RPA vendors, UiPath has aged out of its fledgling startup status into a
well-funded leviathan
with a $35 billion valuation and recent IPO. The funding points to confidence in RPA’s growth but also places it at the mercy of many masters. Whether focusing on meeting shareholder demands will distract from innovation and putting customers first remains to be seen, but we’ve seen this movie before.
From Strategy To Safety Net
For many companies, RPA has been part of efficiency and cost-cutting strategies, but imagine for a moment the pandemic without automation. Using RPA to handle sharp increases in workflows as the world reacted to Covid is only part of the story. It’s what those workflows accomplished that matters. As our CEO mentioned in a recent
CMSWire
article, "RPA rapidly processed millions of travel refunds streamlined forbearance requests on loans and mortgages, and helped people receive their Covid test results and made vaccination appointments faster."
While we hope that the worst of the global health crisis is now behind us, what the pandemic has shown is that disruption is always lurking, whether from extreme weather, political unrest or unforeseen events. And when that disruption strikes, the need for automation will be there as well.
The Big Picture
It is time to stop viewing RPA as merely a tool to cut costs or streamline a department and instead see it as the foundation for the booming business of the future. For a near-flawless example of big-picture RPA, we need only to look at the human body. While you are concerned about your upcoming presentation on the way to your morning meeting, your body is performing extremely complex calculations that keep you upright, mobile and balanced. It is also regulating your breathing, blinking, temperature, hunger, thirst and a host of other automatic processes we need to survive.
This is how RPA should be implemented — as native to the organization and constantly running behind the scenes to optimize performance. Automation has never been more accessible. User-friendly UIs and design wizards, plus cloud-based services, make RPA attainable to all employees regardless of skill level or location. All that is required is that we change the way we perceive automation and broaden our vision of what it can do, not just for our business but for our quality of life.
Robotics Powering People
Regardless of position or industry, we have all performed tasks that we felt did not make use of any unique talent or skill. It is not a great feeling. RPA empowers employees by allowing them to focus on areas where they make the most impact: projects requiring reason, judgment and creativity. It’s an opportunity to create more fulfilling roles for employees, resulting in happier staff who want to stay with the company. Organizations should devote resources to professional development to upskill and reskill workers for judgment-based roles.
RPA is no longer a domain for only experienced software developers. Advances in user-friendly, low-code/no-code design are making bot creation and deployment more accessible to citizen developers and business users. Of course, bot creation and development are only one part of the solution. Process discovery, management and analytics are all required to realize the full value of any RPA deployment.
As RPA becomes more widespread, interest from line-of-business managers and business buyers will increase. Gartner
predicts
that by 2024, half of all new RPA deployments will originate with business buyers who are outside the IT department. This means that providers must perfect their low-code UI for the RPA business user.
What The Future Holds
Robotic process automation is not going away. In fact, the demand for automation is now moving downstream from larger enterprises to the small and medium enterprise (SME) market. A recent survey from Xerox revealed that
80% of SMEs
indicated that the ability to automate processes is key to their survival.
The integration of automation into our daily lives is inevitable, and we should welcome it. Imagine being free of all the necessary but mundane tasks at work and at home, able to repurpose your time into personally and professionally satisfying projects. What could you achieve?
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