Robotic Process Automation has already changed the way businesses work – with time-saving, and efficiency benefits already playing out in enterprises across the globe. Few would argue the success of RPA, with ‘bots’ making a significant impact on how businesses manage their processes. However, to date the lack of a ‘one shop fits all’ approach to RPA has hindered company-wide implementation. 2019 will be the year that the RPA market will finally see a dramatic and rapid maturation. But a tipping point is in the midst, and RPA vendors will either grow into their lofty market valuations or we’ll start to hear the hissing of a deflating bubble with warning signs of a ‘hype cycle’ crash.
In the last five years, RPA vendors have focused readily on the ‘demand’ side of the business – general market understanding of the business value and willingness of prospects to try RPA. Most would say the industry has succeeded on the demand side. But now RPA vendors need to shift focus to the ‘supply’ side of the equation -managing the demand by enabling customers with an to scale RPA to the enterprise and manage it effectively. For some, robotic process automation in 2019 will be make or break.
RPA predictions for 2019, from UiPath
Here are the key shifts in Robotic Process Automation in 2019
1) Organisations are going to demand more from their RPA vendors. It won’t be enough to just offer a proof of concept demonstration to get new business. Companies will demand more, and more importantly will want to see a clear path to scalability that delivers quantifiable results and ROI.
2) Biometric authentication becomes part of the equation – enhancing security, coupled with mobility and serverless computing that will provide a very powerful enterprise-secure RPA offering.
3) Companies will demand that their RPA solutions conform with regulatory requirements such as GDPR – a glaring necessity that will continue to drive the market forward with innovation.
4) Allowing businesses access to as many bots as organisations need, or want, means improved architecture. Serverless computing negates capacity planning and improved licencing models will improve the attractiveness of RPA to global enterprises.
5) RPA prices will decline due to competition, commodisation and the improvement in licencing models based around consumption, driving improved capacity usage levels for customers.
6) Large software vendors will continue to acquire RPA capability, wrapping in RPA to provide automation capabilities out of the box. This will leave RPA vendors that have built niche market plays around larger software applications with a need to be nimble to survive.
7) RPA vendors will align with the macro shift of moving from data collection to data analysis. Cognitive capture, NLP and AI algorithms that transform unstructured data into useful business insights that can be scored and delivered to support high level business decision making, will be a critical asset and differentiation of offering during 2019.
8) BPO vendors will make alignments with RPA vendors in a bid to reduce the risk of being re-shored. BPOs will work closely as partners, both as a consumer and reseller of RPA.
9) Business will embrace RPA within their internal organisation, creating new positions that will allow scalability to be a reality. Bot trainer, bot developer and RPA manager will be commonplace in the workforce. Companies will also begin to market their automation programmes in recruiting efforts to attract talent.
10) 5G rollout will promote greater mobility, as data becomes more accessible on mobile devices. Managing RPA bots from anywhere will become a reality, as RPA vendors create SDKs that give customers the ability to manage and interact remotely.
About Kofax
Kofax is doing its part to lead RPA innovation and support the Future of Work. Specifically, in 2019, Kofax is committed to bundling RPA-complimentary smart automation solutions onto the world’s first Intelligent Automation (IA) unified platform. The Kofax IA platform combines the newest Kofax RPA with market leading Intelligent-OCR AI, BPM, Ad anced Analytics, eSignature, Mobile, Cognitive Capture and Customer Communications. The platform is an “Intelligent Automation toolkit” for customers who demand an enterprise-scalable solution.
Next-generation robotic process automation leverages AI and machine learning
About Chris Huff, CSO, Kofax
In his role as Chief Strategy Officer, Chris develops and drives the company’s global strategic initiatives, Intelligent Automation (IA) thought leadership and cross-functional horizontal integration. Chris is intently focused on helping clients realize maximum return on investment by seamlessly integrating and delivering a single unified IA platform that leverages the vast array of intellectual property in the Kofax portfolio to include Robotic Process Automation (RPA), capture, intelligent-optical character recognition (I-OCR), machine learning, analytics and workflow orchestration.
Prior to Kofax, Chris spent five years at Deloitte Consulting where he led the U.S. Public Sector Robotics and Cognitive Automation practice during the emergence of RPA.
