Taking Stock of RPA

HfS’ inaugural Intelligent Automation Blueprint has outlined the state of the nation in Intelligent Automation and drawn very distinctive lines into the sand. We are seeing the exponential growth of the deployments setting in. However, this growth occurs largely below the radar as the market communication and stakeholder management around the notion of automation remain unusually coy. This is largely due to the not yet fully understood impact on revenue models on the supply side but also to emotional responses to notions of robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Yet, the notion of what RPA is meant to represent is starting to shift in line with that maturation. It is moving beyond the extraction of data from heterogenous systems and the ability to capture, schedule and execute process steps in a studio, drag and drop style. All tool providers are expanding the capabilities toward operational analytics and AI while service providers are pushing service orchestration and broad automation frameworks. As a result, the go-to-market and the stakeholder management is evolving from notions of task automation and a narrow, shortterm cost focus toward an emphasis on transformation and end-to-processes. Unsurprisingly, this has led to significant shifts in the competitive landscape.