New research has forecast a significant leap in business investment in robotic process automation (RPA) – from a $216 million market in 2017 to an $870 million one by 2020.
RPA could be very useful to industries with large customer support and request processing requirements such as banking and telecommunications, with finance and insurance operations expected to be the fastest early adopters.
According to the
Telsyte ANZ Robotic Process Automation Study 2017, six out of the 10 Australian and New Zealand organisations surveyed are already using or investigating RPA, and most organisations are still at the basic stages of adoption,
Gizmodo reported.
More than a third of the organisations (38%) with more than 500 employees have already been undertaking an RPA program, which Telsyte noted shows that automation is “becoming a cornerstone of many businesses’ transformation strategies.”
Foad Fadaghi, Telsyte MD, said there is a “clear” business case for RPA and that it is “not simply about cost cutting.”
“It can drive innovation and change the way organisations conduct their business altogether,” Fadaghi said.
“Complexity has a positive correlation with automation costs and targeting lower-complexity processes initially can result in better initial returns,” he added.
The study also showed that 57% of businesses would tap an IT service provider for RPA, the report said.
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