The Future of Robotic Process Automation – Trends & Insights
According to AIMultiple[i], Robotic Process Automation (RPA) will achieve near-universal adoption in the next five years if its drastic growth continues. In fact, the global RPA market size is expected to reach USD 13.74 billion by 2028 at a CAGR of 32.8%[ii].
The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted enterprise business activities globally, resulting in a revenue loss in FY 2020. The decline in the enterprises’ revenue resulted in the need for cutting overhead expenses by automating repetitive processes. Market players like Salesforce and HubSpot leveraged this as an opportunity to introduce RPA to their businesses.
Over 78% of companies are already implementing RPA, whereas an additional 16% are planning to implement it in the next 3 years[iii]. It is automating business processes like never before and transforming the way businesses operate. With RPA, there are endless possibilities of what could be automated – from simple copy-paste activities to all the way up through complex data extraction methods such as scraping web pages and downloading files off servers.
Now that companies are nearing the end of the initial learning curve, next year is set to be the year when businesses begin to experience the true benefits of RPA and automation technology.
So, what does RPA have in store for enterprises and the business world? Let’s find out!
The What and The Why of RPA
RPA is a software technology that makes it easy to build, deploy, and manage software robots that emulate human action interacting with digital systems and software. It imitates the actions of humans in a faster and less error-prone way. RPA helps your teams to work on core business operations that require their creative and critical thinking rather than spending time on repetitive tasks.
Also, RPA plays a crucial role where integration might not be possible. For example, you might want to integrate two platforms that do not have available APIs or middleware for communication and that’s where RPA robots can come to your rescue.
They can work on these seemingly two independent platforms and work on them like actual users creating a virtual integration for end-to-end data flow. Also, RPA can help businesses:
- Drive rapid, significant improvements to business metrics across industries
- Build up quickly to match workload peaks and respond to big demand spikes
- Meet or exceed expectations for better compliance and improve business data security
- Increase employee engagement and enable them to focus on strategic work
Produce data for important analytics
Types of RPA Solutions Available in the Market
As RPA is slowly becoming a new dominant technology in the industry, more and more businesses are getting inclined towards inculcating RPA in their back-office tasks. This has led to exponential growth in the demand for RPA tools as well. There are different tools available in the market to implement RPA. Here are some of them:
1. UiPath
UiPath is an RPA tool for large-scale end-to-end automation. For accelerated business growth, it offers solutions to automate routine business processes. Its diverse features include:
- Drag and drop workflow
- Record and playback
- Advanced scraping option
- High security and robustness
2. Automation Anywhere
Automation Anywhere is one of the most popular RPA vendors offering powerful and user-friendly capabilities to automate business processes. This tool combines conventional RPA with intellectual elements like natural language processing and reading any unstructured data. Its features include:
- Intelligent automation for business tasks
- Rapidly automates complex tasks
- Create automation tasks like recording keyboard strokes & mouse clicks
- Auto-login runs scheduled & planned tasks at any time, even when the computer is locked
3. Keysight’s Eggplant
Eggplant is an AI-driven software platform that expands automation to your entire testing process. It has a universal fusion engine that allows the system to test any type of system from mobile to mainframe. Also, it can be hosted on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It allows you to:
- Reduce maintenance costs with scriptless testing modeling
- Generate actionable insights with AI-powered exploratory testing
- Streamline & efficient development with low code, UI-driven testing tools
- Provide full test coverage across any device
RPA in Real Life – Use Cases for Managers
With the growing need to increase productivity and reduce human error, it is evident why businesses are auditing their processes to see what they can automate. Here are some real-world RPA examples for managers:
1. Data Transfers
Transferring a huge volume of data to another system or simply updating backups can be time-consuming. However, RPA can automate the entire process. For this, you need to design a solution so it knows the required credentials, source, and destination, and the RPA tool will manage the whole process. Thus, it saves valuable administrative time, reduces human error, and eliminates frustrating bottlenecks caused when the transfer is carried out manually.
2. Process Payrolls
An RPA tool can extract meaningful information from timesheets and other inputs. Using this data, it calculates an employee’s pay and performs the necessary bank transactions. Also, payslips are generated automatically and accurately, eliminating the need for someone to do this manually. The process takes less time and the lack of errors ensures there are no security and compliance issues to worry about.
3. Onboarding
There is usually a set of processes to follow when new members join the team. An RPA software can automatically provide and collate the crucial information needed from a new hire, so onboarding is fast and effective. Automated onboarding leads to a more efficient way of processing new starters and allows employees to focus on other aspects of their roles.
4. System Set-up
As a crucial part of the onboarding process, a new hire will need to access their email account, software licenses, and computer devices. RPA can deliver this with minimum human intervention. You can entirely automate the necessary setup because the process stays the same. Automating these system setups using RPA is more efficient, accurate, and convenient, allowing the IT teams to focus on other important tasks.
6 RPA Trends for 2023 & Beyond
Automation technology is constantly evolving, making it challenging to understand which innovations can benefit your business today and in the future. Therefore, a great way to remain competitive and relevant is to keep an eye on the newest and upcoming trends. Here are the newest and upcoming RPA trends that we think will play a crucial role in your business success:
1. RPA Will Become a Mandate for CIOs
In any business where digital initiatives are being accelerated, the CIO is entrusted with the responsibility of improving IT performance. The list of responsibilities also entails identifying the latest technologies and tools that businesses can embrace to excel in the digital space. And that makes RPA implementation a mandate for most CIOs. According to Deloitte’s Global RPA Survey[iv], 53% of respondents have already started their RPA journey. And this is expected to increase in the next two years. From the findings, it is clear that RPA will become a mandate for CIOs keen on digital transformation.
2. Low-Code Platforms Will be on the Rise
To avoid the complexity of various marketing tools and boost productivity, low-code automation will gain popularity in the coming years. A low-code platform enables users to build applications and software with minimal coding. At the heart of such low-code platforms is RPA. They take the form of workflows that can be triggered with drag-and-drop actions. And the end result will be a drastic reduction in efforts for developers and non-tech users. Low-code software will allow users to create websites quickly, analyze data effectively, and save costs and time.
3. RPA Will be the Heart & Soul of Automation
Automation may seem like a technical field, but in 2023 and beyond, RPA will stand out among other platforms as the heart and soul of how businesses start to implement their automation systems. Most businesses are implementing RPA to streamline their workflows and save time and money. RPA technology integrates complex automation systems including Intelligent Document Processing and AI. For example, organizations can incorporate RPA to process order forms and deliveries and add AI functionality to suggest products to customers. In the coming years, RPA will take on the platforms that need richer user interfaces and a higher level of AI, allowing businesses to integrate RPA into their established processes better and use it to manage existing technologies.
4. Semantic Automation Will Revolutionize RPA
How can you make automation even faster and easier? Semantic automation is the answer! It is basically a liberation from rules-based development processes where robots observe processes and emulate them without following predetermined rules. Thus, semantic automation frees up developers’ time, makes automation easily accessible to all, and enables easier scalability. Although semantic automation is not entirely new, it will take center stage in the development industry as a key RPA trend in the coming years.
5. IPA Will Continue to Grow
The global Intelligence Process Automation (IPA) market is expected to reach USD 37.63 billion by 2030[v]. IPA blends the rule-based automation capabilities of RPA with the sophistication of AI and trial-and-error learning capabilities of machine learning and fundamental process redesign. Although it is still relatively new, IPA is set to grow rapidly due to the upswell of RPA adoption on a global scale.
6. Global Business RPA Capacity Will Continue to Increase
As RPA technology continues to grow, businesses are actively looking for ways to improve add-ons and advanced features to their portfolios to accommodate the changes. This will likely come in the form of new and updated licenses and larger core capabilities to handle the higher influx and processing requirements. The expectations for organizations to be present across all devices and technologies is the driving force for the increase in the capacity for their RPA portfolios. RPA streamlines efficiency in these key areas of growth which will result in a higher degree of company-wide RPA adoption in 2023.
The Bottom Line
Implementing or accelerating automation will continue bolstering business success in 2023 and beyond as RPA is becoming the bedrock for modern business processes in the digital world. In the coming years, businesses that are not leveraging RPA and automation technologies will quickly be left behind as they will not possess the ability to compete equally.
If you’d want to know more about all the amazing things you can do with RPA, just drop us a line at [email protected] and we’ll get back to you!
Statistics References
[i]Research.aimultiple.com
[ii]Businesswire.com
[iii]Nanonets.com
[iv]Research.aimultiple.com
[v]Globenewswire.com