Summary:
The pandemic has forced businesses to automate mundane tasks like data entry or filling out forms. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has use cases that automate these tasks and helps companies get more productive and generate revenue. Currently, RPA provides robots that perform these mundane tasks so that employees can proactively focus on high-priority tasks and be more productive. Trends like intelligent automation, elimination of paperwork, global adoption of RPA, the advent of RPA 2.0., and RPA integration will gain a lot of publicity in the coming days.
Introduction
Automation in any business is an essential requirement these days. Companies that implement automation save time, money, accelerate their business process, generate accurate data, and secure the entire process. When companies are trying to implement automation, there are inevitable roadblocks that they come across.
Suppose you are a decision-maker of your company and you want to use automation software for the business. When you install the software in the system, the system cannot communicate with the software to enter, transfer, or manage data automatically. Instead, it may require you to enter data manually or rebuild your system entirely.
Well, this may consume a lot of your time. But, every problem has a creative solution. You don't have to ask your employees to enter data manually or revamp your business process. Instead, you can hire a "robot" to enter the data. The robot will enter the necessary data into the automation software for your future use. The process of using such a robot is called Robotic Process Automation (RPA).
In this article, let's understand more about RPA, how companies are implementing this technology to enhance their productivity, and how the future of RPA looks.
What is Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?
Robotic Process Automation is a software technology that uses a combination of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to manage high-volume, repeatable tasks done by humans. RPA can perform various functions like addressing queries, making calculations, maintaining records, handling calculations, etc.
Are you wondering the robots are here to take away your jobs?
If so, then it's not true. Robots don't want your jobs; they complement daily work routines and enhance their working capacity rather than replace them. In Layman Terms, it is a process to carry out functions that ask an employee to perform multiple tasks in a specific order.
According to Grand View Research, the market value of RPA is expected to reach $1.1 Billion and witness a CAGR of 33.6% from 2020 to 2027. The above value indicates the current market value of RPA. Also, Deloitte predicts that RPA will have near-universal adoption in the next five years.
Is there a need for RPA?
The hard truth of the present is that recession is forthcoming, unemployment is at the lowest point, and there is a shortage of skilled workers. No matter what the technological advancements, there will still be manual white-collar tasks.
To survive in this competitive market, companies need to do something. They can reduce these manual tasks, upgrade their skills, or build an ecosystem where employees' skills are helpful per the robots.
The need for RPA in the Post-COVID world
As everyone is slowly returning to normal, businesses have to think about covering up the economic effects caused by the crisis. Experts say that the pandemic has created a lasting and fundamental change in the work culture of many companies. Also, it is challenging for many companies to return to the same phase in a short or medium period.
To stay competitive in the present conditions, companies will have to deploy suitable RPA solutions for their organization. The use of RPA solutions will benefit the companies in terms of scalability, flexibility, and diversity.
Future Predictions for RPA
Various researches conducted in recent times predict that Robotic Process Automation is on the steeply rising curve. Gartner reports predicts that the RPA spending will reach $2.4B up to 2022. It is also said that 60% of Global Companies will invest in RPA tools by the end of 2021.
After a basic understanding and the current market predictions, let's dive into the expert predictions.
Expert Predictions on the Future of RPA
1. Global Adoption of RPA
The future looks adverse when we look at the financial markets. These dire situations have led to the increased RPA adoption. The new emerging automation technologies will help in overall automation adoption by next year. Technologies like machine learning, Artificial Neural networks, and Natural Language Processing have been making massive growth. However, RPA tools are gaining a lot of traction in web-based platforms. RPA tools benefit from cognitive skills, understanding unstructured data strains, and integrating them with existing systems.
2. The inception of Smart Process Automation
Smart Process Automation (SPA) is nothing but a wing to RPA. It means earlier RPA could automate structured data with a pre-defined set of rules. But the evolution and easy integration of Machine Learning -SPA serves as an alternate to RPA's If-Then rules and statement. In essence, SPA allows RPA bots to benefits from a complete automation sphere that includes Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Machine Learning, etc.
3. Automating paperwork
Enterprises that switch to RPA can eliminate repetitive tasks, activities and other time-consuming tasks performed by the employees. There are rapid advancements in the automation technology, so the robots can reskill and arm the human effectively. Reports predict that by 2025, there will be numerous easy-to-deploy RPA models with pre-built functionalities that will potentially automate a wide range of paperwork in the organization.
4. RPA will be the epicenter for automation
At Ericsson, David Hunter, the head of automation, outlines RPA as 'The YouTube for Automation.' As per his claims, the organization is planning to implement an RPA bot for every employee. Ericsson will be one of the early players to implement RPA at a grand scale. As Youtube is a repository for videos and content creators, RPA will also be for automation and automated bots.
5. The advent of RPA 2.0.
To define RPA 2.0, it is nothing an advanced version of RPA wherein you take your normal RPA, add robots, AI, ML, Digital Transformation, and your remote workplace. The pandemic has led the entire IT industry to work remotely. Implementing automation at the right places will enhance business processes. As a decision-maker, you can either spend multiple hours identifying the pain points and business processes that can generate high ROI or hire RPA service providers and let the experts work for you. The best way to implement RPA for your business will be to integrate SPA with communication. It will help you unlock the potential for enhanced productivity, innovation, and efficiency throughout the business processes.
6. RPA will be the new ERP
Cloud deployment is gaining a lot of traction these days. Considering it as an advantage, Robotic Process Automation will play a prominent role in ERP software. Integrating RPA with ERP helps manage business processes in a centralized manner. With a centralized platform, your employees need not waste their time searching for data in different systems. Additionally, it will also offer better customer experiences. This integration can also activate one task after the other. You can seamlessly manage and streamline business processes.
7. Vendor Differentiation
As businesses are widely accepting the technology, the number of RPA tools is increasing rapidly. Currently, there are more than 150 RPA vendors with their platforms to fulfill industry-specific needs. The trending RPA tools in the market are RPA Automation Anywhere, RPA UiPath, and BluePrism RPA. The focus is on innovation to build software robots. Vendors concentrate on design, process approach, and profitability factors to bring unique RPA tools into the market. When you're planning to incorporate RPA tools relevant to your business, choose a vendor with whom you can build a long-term relationship.
After having detailed knowledge about the future predictions of RPA, let's have a look at how will RPA be in the post COVID world.
Wrapping Up
With the current crisis, companies have to incorporate RPA bots and intelligent automation solutions into the organization. Robotic Process Automation has the potential to transform your business for a better, interconnected, and intelligent tomorrow.
RPA will help you lessen the administrative workload, enhance remote working possibilities, nearly eliminate paperwork, automate the majority of your tasks, and allow you to focus on high-priority tasks. The pandemic is a great situation where you can experiment with the potential of RPA. It is nothing but a replica of human action. The future looks entirely about robots.
Even if robots handle most of the tasks, there will still be a need for human work. The use of robots will enhance the quality, deliver the product on time, ease the tasks performed and enhance the organization's productivity.