In the wake of Blue Prism’s successful IPO, industry stakeholders might be forgiven for reiterating the virtues of RPA. However, an attendee at the recent HfS European Services Buyer Summit in Cambridge, UK, provided an eloquent retort to these notions: “RPA is like Tofu. It has no flavor. The supply side has to be innovative as to how it is packaging it.”
A narrow focus on RPA is missing both the direction of travel for the broader notion of Intelligent Automation as well as the necessity of changing the mind set when advancing toward the As-a-Service Economy. Repeated references linking RPA to swivel chair tasks are a point in case. For those tasks, humans take inputs from one set of systems, such as email or spreadsheets, process those inputs using rules and then enter outputs into systems of record, like ERP or CRM systems. Back in 2012 when HfS brought the notion of RPA to the attention of the industry, the focus on these low-level tasks was as important as it was adequate. In 2016, we have to broaden the perspective to leverage the multitude of approaches on the HfS Intelligent Automation Continuum that is becoming ever busier.
Even within HfS, we have, at times, heated discussions around these issues. The latest example was around the blog on the necessity for Robotic-BPO to break the mold of legacy F&A engagements. Crucially, the framework for the discussions should not be confined to the world of BPO or operations. They should focus at service delivery at large and start with use cases - not organizational stovepipes. As one attendee in Cambridge put it aptly: “Service providers should be mixologists to unlock value of Intelligent Automation. It is about the experience as well as ingredients.” Thus, propositions have to be a blend of change management and integration with other process as well as automation tools to provide a user experience that can demonstrate a tangible business impact. This is not to suggest that the leading RPA tool vendors are not evolving beyond the topics that we have discussed above. Most of them are striving toward enterprise level control centers that will increasingly be underpinned by broad cognitive and analytical capabilities.
We believe that the current Continuum needs to be adapted and expanded. On the one hand, there is a plethora of approaches beyond the broad buckets of RPA and Autonomics. We are currently talking with vendors that are focusing on ERP integration, service orchestration, workload automation just to name a few. On the other hand, we believe the direction of travel is toward vertically infused insights. In the words of another attendee:” Automate as fast as you can. There is no other way to deal with the exponential data explosion we are in the middle of.” Automation and industrialization are the prerequisites to advance to a position being able to leverage this data on an industrial scale.
Consequently, we have to go back to emphasizing the Continuum of Intelligent Automation. The Continuum is a placeholder for a disparate set of automation approaches that are both overlapping and interdependent. There is neither a silver bullet nor a short cut today that includes all capabilities. Organizations have to work toward orchestrating those innovative approaches as part of a service delivery strategy that goes beyond the organizational stovepipes and traditional business units. The starting point for the discussions needs to be the use cases irrespective of IT or business process centric scenarios. Only then, the true value of Intelligent Automation will be unlocked.
As we continue our internal discussions and work hard to evolve our thinking and models, we would encourage you to both challenge us in our assumptions as well as discussing your approach to Intelligent Automation. Should you be interested just drop me a line at tom.reuner@hfsresearch.com.
