{"id":3552,"date":"2020-08-19T10:30:13","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T09:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/litheit.wurk.house\/?p=3552"},"modified":"2023-12-07T14:09:16","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T14:09:16","slug":"rpa-where-next-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.litheit.com\/rpa-where-next-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"RPA \u2013 Where Next?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The RPA software market grew 63.1% in 2018 and 62.9% in 2019, according to Gartner. That\u2019s more than five times the growth rate of the enterprise software sector overall. What\u2019s more, expectations of outsize growth persist, despite the pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can RPA continue its stunning growth and remain the #1 fastest growing software segment? Based on the experience and plans of our own customers<\/a>, and on the perspectives of expert industry analysts, here is Lithe\u2019s current view of what to expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is the RPA Wave Subsiding?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The fastest growing of the leading vendors,\u00a0UiPath<\/mark><\/a>, had grown over 120% in 2019 and its trajectory seems unchanged. At end of April 2020 UiPath took in a $568m investment, valuing the company at $7b. In mid-July the Company took another $225m investment, at a valuation of $10.2b. Amid the worst global economic crisis in a century, RPA and UiPath appear to roar on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not only the current RPA market leaders who are confident of RPA\u2019s continued growth. Established tech giants have jumped from the side-line into the RPA game. Shrugging off the pandemic\u2019s impact, Microsoft accelerated its entry as an RPA provider by acquiring Softomotive in May 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, young tech firms are surfing the tide of investment money flowing to anything RPA. In June 2020 New York start-up Hyperscience took $60m from respected VC Bessemer to \u201cdo something RPA hasn\u2019t easily achieved\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So where does the surging RPA wave go next?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Waves Rising<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

RPA was initially seen as the tail end of a wave of process automation technologies that had washed over the corporate world for almost 20 years but was ebbing away. According to this narrative, RPA would do the small amount of process automation that remained to be done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new digital workforce of RPA software robots would automate the residual and previously manual\/human work of transcribing data between different enterprise systems via UI interactions. Small tasks, quick and easy to automate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It turns out there was a lot<\/strong> of task automation to do, and the population of software robots quickly became vast. Rather than the tail end of a wave, this was the start of something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The start of what? I\u2019ll highlight three of the rising RPA waves that Lithe customers <\/a><\/mark>are experiencing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Machine Learning (ML) for Smarter Robots<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The initial population of RPA robots did a great job, efficiently and reliably emulating the movement of human hands on a keyboard to automate repetitive data entry and extraction tasks. But they didn\u2019t have cognitive power. For example, they couldn\u2019t look at a document and understand its content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s new generation of robots, however, is equipped with cognitive ability via Machine Learning (ML) technology, and can recognize, read and understand documents \u2013 call it \u201cIntelligent Document Processing (IDP)\u201d<\/a><\/mark>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With IDP skills, the digital workforce is being applied to an immensely expanded scope of tasks that previously required human intervention in core business processes \u2013 loan origination, finance reconciliations, new account opening, insurance claim processing, citizen benefit administration, etc. This is the most popular new extension of RPA amongst Lithe customers today, whether they\u2019re using UiPath,\u00a0Kofax<\/mark><\/a>,\u00a0ABBYY<\/mark><\/a>\u00a0or other of the many who provide IDP capability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two other applications of ML and RPA are much talked of but, as of today, in less widespread use. First, \u201cpredictive analytics\u201d allows software robots to acquire that elusive human skill, good judgment \u2013 so, they can make good \u201cnext best action\u201d decisions automatically. Second, robots combine with \u201cconversational AI\u201d so the dialogue you have with an insurer, bank, service center, etc. seems more natural, less robotic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is early in their maturity cycle, but smarter robots are coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mining for Automation Gold<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

RPA robots have proven so tireless and beneficial that the job of finding them work has become a job in itself. The tool for the job is \u201cprocess mining\u201d. An already mature technology, process mining is a hammer that has found its proverbial nail in the wake of RPA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Process discovery is today often done by a team of consultants or process analysts, manually, using white boards, Post-Its and graphical flowcharting tools. Process mining automates this process of process discovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like a metal detector, process mining sees below the surface to find the actual <\/strong>process that is executing in a business. This technology is not a pipedream, it\u2019s available now. Customers are starting to apply it with the aim of quickly identifying new work their digital workforce can automate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Work is also underway to automate the creation of RPA robots based on task and process mining \u2013 some RPA software vendors already offer some of this capability. When ready, this combination of processing mining and RPA will not only automate the discovery of work but will also automatically create a robot to do that work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, this is early in its maturity cycle, but \u201cautomation of the automation\u201d is coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scaling RPA<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Soon after their early RPA successes, customers often stumble to replicate and multiply those successes. RPA is easy to get started with, but the need to manage, maintain and scale the new (and invisible) workforce of software robots soon becomes a new and urgent priority. For most customers this entails use of complementary technologies and application of program management disciplines, often via Centers of Excellence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which complementary technologies? Think of the digital workforce as an army of robots wearing blinkers \u2013 they see only the task they\u2019re built to execute and need to be told when to start and stop. This \u201corchestration\u201d of the robots is a necessary part of managing the workforce and many Lithe customers are now augmenting their RPA with orchestration technology (most commonly a BPM, business process management, tool). As we\u2019ve seen, process mining too is increasingly a popular complement that addresses RPA\u2019s scalability challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Governance of the digital workforce, in ways analogous to what a management and HR function does for the human workforce, is a growth area in many customers. Most are maturing beyond early project management to new Centers of Excellence, creating cross-functional committees, program management discipline, ROI and project prioritization, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Centers of Excellence are much less about technology than about management of human organizations as they adopt technology.\u00a0 While CoE\u2019s are not a new phenomenon, RPA\u2019s ease of use and speed of implementation have added a sense of urgency. So, CoE\u2019s are rightly getting more attention \u2013 everyone wants to maintain the momentum of RPA\u2019s success and CoE\u2019s help do exactly that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where Next for your RPA Initiative?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Business stakeholders have been impressed with the ease and speed of RPA implementation, at least in its early days. They welcome RPA\u2019s evolution so long as those same advantages are not lost in the transition. I\u2019ve highlighted some of the wave dynamics our customers are experiencing as\u00a0RPA\u00a0flows through their organizations. If you want help to navigate your own RPA success, whether you\u2019re just starting on your first projects or moving to next phases of an existing RPA initiative,\u00a0contact<\/a>\u00a0us and we\u2019ll do all we can to assist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Selected Sources:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gartner<\/a>. Market Share Analysis: Robotic Process Automation, Worldwide, 2019, 26 May 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gartner<\/a>. Magic Quadrant for Robotic Process Automation, 27 July 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forrester<\/a>. RPA Inquiry Spotlight, 2020. Forrester Inquiries Highlight Scale, Security, Governance, And AI Integration Issues May 11, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IDC<\/a>. The New Business Automation Toolkit. YouTube, 2 August 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everest Group<\/a>. Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) \u2013 Technology Vendor landscape with Product PEAK Matrix Assessment, 27 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n