The rise of RPA is nothing short of spectacular as the market closes in on $2bn this year. It has captivated the attention of the digital operations executives with the promise of cost-savings beyond labor arbitrage, cost avoidance by extending the life of legacy IT, quicker implementation than traditional IT projects, business-user friendliness, auditability and compliance, straight through processing, and let’s be honest – terrific marketing!
And here is the actual report: Completely free to celebrate our first “HFS TOP TEN REPORT”
However, confusion around RPA deployments is also rife. There are growing questions whether RPA can deliver on the promised ROI and outcomes. Most RPA initiatives continue to be small and piecemeal. Truly scaled RPA deployments are rare. The industry is still struggling to solve challenges around the process, change, talent, training, infrastructure, security, and governance.
With the mission to demystify this confusion and uncover the truth to successful RPA deployment, we conducted a first of its kind RPA CX research to develop the list of “HFS Top 10 RPA Products” (See Exhibit 1). The research is based on interviews over 350 clients and product partners across the ten leading RPA products across:
- Ability to execute based on product functionality (Ease of integration with legacy IT, Unassisted automation functionality, OCR functionality, Scheduling functionality, Development tools, Exception handling, Required set-up coding, Ease of product configuration); integration and support (Service extensions and connectors, Documentation, Certification program, Training and customer support, Experience in serving multiple geographies, Adoption across multiple industries, Required IT skill-sets), and security and governance (Uptime and SLA commitments, Version control and upgrade management, Centralized controls, Regulatory compliance, Enterprise security, Disaster Recovery (DR) and Business Continuity Planning (BCP))
- Innovation capability based on flexibility and scalability (Accommodating process / environment changes, Licensing model flexibility, Ability to handle multiple processes, Workflow templates and library of processes, Handling multiple inputs) and embedding intelligence (Processing structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data, Operational Analytics, Dashboards, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities)
- Voice of the customer based on the RPA products ability to drive business outcomes (Realizing cost savings, Speed-to-market, Overall satisfaction, and Client reference ability)
Key highlights from the HFS Top 10 RPA Provider assessment
- Overall RPA Client Experience has been ‘Good.’ The aggregated average CX scores across all assessment dimensions is three on a scale of 4 implying a good overall experience. For most clients, RPA has created value in addition to reducing costs (just not as much and as fast as they heard in the first sales pitch!). For almost all the RPA products assessed, security, controls, accuracy, integration, and out-of-the-box functionality performs as promised. Basically, RPA works!
- Getting RPA “production ready” is not as easy as promised. The client experience with the amount of coding/configuration required is rated amongst the lowest. Management of version control and upgrades as well the training and support offered by RPA providers was also sub-par. The primary reason behind this is a classic expectation mismatch – the RPA providers oversold and overpromised, raising the client expectations beyond normal, that then resulted in less than required client investments towards process and change management. The disappointment associated with RPA is not about the technology itself.
- RPA is not very smart (at least as of today). The dimension around embedding intelligence in RPA was rated amongst the lowest by clients. There is considerable confidence in RPA’s ability to process structured data but drops down significantly when asked about unstructured or even semi-structured data. Clients are not convinced about the Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities of their RPA products. The good news is that most RPA providers recognize this and are investing in building out capabilities especially around Machine Learning (ML). At HfS, we believe that the holy grail of service delivery will be at the intersection of the Triple-A Trifecta – Automation, AI, and Analytics
Bottomline. RPA works but is not a magic wand. Best practices are emerging
Based on our in-depth conversations with the RPA clients, we developed a set of best practices that you need to keep in mind when implementing any of the RPA products:
- RPA is not a silver bullet. Keep expectations realistic
- RPA cannot automate everything. Choose the use-case wisely
- RPA success is not about technology. Treat it as a change agent
- Automated processes are still processes. Invest in documentation, especially as for complex automations
- RPA vendors are product companies. Do not expect them to behave like service providers
- Do not side-step your IT folks. RPA success requires IT-business collaboration
- RPA products are still nascent. Do not short-change security and testing
- RPA is not a one-time exercise. Change management and ongoing governance and the keys to continued success
- RPA is not the holy grail. Business outcomes driven by integrated solutions are
- RPA does not solve your data issues. Data-centric mindset is the key
- RPA offers more than cost savings. Think beyond cost-reduction and figure out how to measure success
And here is the actual report: Completely free to celebrate our first “HFS TOP TEN REPORT”
Posted in : intelligent-automation, Robotic Process Automation
A few surprises here, Thoughtonomy at No. 4 and not finding AssistEdge in the Top 10. I am eagerly waiting for a similar ranking of Top 10 RPA adopters.
A few surprises here, Thoughtonomy at No. 4 and not finding AssistEdge in the Top 10. I am eagerly waiting for a similar ranking of Top 10 RPA adopters.
@Michael Lawrence – has a couple of experiences with clients using AssistEdge… pretty mixed feedback to be honest. Not surprised it didn’t make the Top 10 for client adoption. We need to see how focused Salil’s focus will be there…
PF
Interesting about RPA success mostly piecemeal. Does the industry need to get better at linking the benefits through to end-user CX rather than just focus on quality/efficiency/cost out? Then it’s more encompassing and compelling for a CEO to convince board of that RPA opportunity deserves to transformational rather than piecemeal?
Thank you for interesting report. One thing which might be in the interested of others too. How do you see the joint future of the RPA and the test automation tools ? I would assume that there could be synergies found with these to technologies.
Great piece! Ever since I started my work at AA Japan office, this site turns to be super helpful. To be honest, as someone who works in AA, I tend to have a more bias view. Posts like this, and through talking with consultants who have experience deploying different software helps a lot! Thank you!
The link to the free report shows 404 Error though…. Anyone has the same problem?