2021: The Year of RPA. Are You Ready?

Wondering if it is the right time to adopt Robotic Process Automation? Here’s how intelligent automation will shape the future of your organization in 2021.

Gartner predicts that the revenue from global Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is set to hit USD 1.89 billion in the year 2021. This is an astonishing 19.5% growth rate in a single year, as compared to 2020. This growth will be further accelerated due to new remote working norms brought in by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Gartner report quantifies this as double-digit growth through 2024.

The numbers are as promising as the technology itself. Intelligent automation is transforming traditional systems and processes andcreating an increasingly greater impact in the industry. And, 2021 - the year of RPA - will set a new benchmark in enterprise automation. Let’s see how.

2021 - The year that will leaders re-invent relentlessly with RPA

2021 will witness substantial expansion in RPA capabilities within organizations, promising a transformative future for enterprises. Remote working and gig economy - now further fuelled by COVID 19 - has forced leaders to innovate, and to be agile and resilient. Extended work from home has invited companies to adopt automation more than ever before for seamless operations. In fact, according to a study by NASSCOM, employee health and safety has now become a key driver for automation adoption as opposed to cost efficiency in 2019 and before. Forrester predicts that by the end of 2021, one in every four remote workers will be empowered with new forms of automation. Robotic process automation bots, combined with conversational intelligence and other intelligent automation is forecasted to handle business tasks that are often invisible to the home worker.

This is just the beginning as the trend will only see further growth in the coming years with large enterprises planning to increase their RPA portfolio capacity threefold by 2024. Banks, telecom services, and insurance agencies will lead the charge and evolve rapidly with RPA as the engine for transformation. This rapid adoption will be fueled by a large number of advanced legacy frameworks and the ability to integrate heritage frameworks as the key driver for RPA projects.

Challenges are Inevitable. But RPA will eventually win with strategic planning and approach.

Automation is a promise. But challenges are inevitable, as they often are in any new transformation journey. But benefits far outweigh the costs of RPA adoption. A Deloitte report on RPA suggests that “for a mid-table Fortune 1000 organization with around $20 billion revenue and 50,000 employees, automating 20% of estimated addressable activity through RPA could result in over $30 million of bottom-line impact each year.” The biggest challenge that organizations face in implementing RPA is the high project abandonment rate resulting from the lack of a well-planned feasibility assessment, complex revenue planning, and high costs. Therefore enterprises would need well-devised strategies in place to get past the teething issues in RPA adoption.

The good news is that alleviating challenges can be effortless with innovative RPA business models, promising quantifiable results. For example, RPA bots have enabled organizations like Dodla Dairy in streamlining finance processes and ensuring payment to dairy farmers and employees during the COVID lockdown. Processes that otherwise needed human interference were simplified with automation. More and more organizations are recognizing such operational and cost benefits of RPA and marching forward on their automation journey rapidly in 2021.

RPAaaS will fuel automation adoption among the most conservative players

The promises of RPA might seem intimidating to begin with, given the intense changes it brings in the traditional ways of working. But the RPAaaS model protects organizations from these challenges and ensures a successful and seamless automation experience. This shift in business model will drive vast possibilities for organizations in 2021, enabling them to get the best out of their RPA initiatives, without any upfront investments.

RPAaaS is designed to substantially reduce the time to deploy, while also improving ROI. RPAaaS will enable a straightforward, high-impact, and low-cost adoption of automation technologies. Organizations will be able to manage their investments based on how and when they want to scale up. Maintenance of RPA projects and processes will only require minimal effort, while the cost for infrastructure and software upgrades will reduce substantially.

Is Your Digital Transformation Still On Course?

The digital transformation of an enterprise is meant to deliver high productivity, greater efficiency and ease of management. The traditional approach with disparate projects tied to narrow goals, do not often add up to deliver desired outcomes.The siloed, fragmented approach often delays, if not derails SAP transformation projects. Beyond the cost implications, the onus on your teams is far greater. The best minds in your teams spend more time project managing, than actually adding value to your overall digital transformation vision. The common pitfall for any transformation program, and more so if it is business critical ERP, is lack of holistic vision and meticulous execution. You need not learn it the hard way, there are precedents to make you outsmart the possible challenges.

Now is the right time to adopt RPA with Cloud4C

The 2020 pandemic has demonstrated the true potential of automation as well as how it is equipped to prepare organizations for the unknown. Simultaneously, automation experts such as Cloud4C are equipped to partner with organizations on their automation journey with result-oriented strategies and business models. The year 2021 is pivotal in accelerating automation across industries and now is the time to get into the game.

RPA combined with AI and other technologies are creating significant solutions for functions and processes across industries. And the time to wait is well and truly over.

Cloud4C is prepared to partner with you on your automation journey with RPA and RPAaaS. Check out our services here.