2020: The year RPA becomes part of enterprise DNA – APAC Trends Report

2020 is the year RPA finally embeds itself in the DNA of business services.

A bold statement in light of the fact that, according to SSON’s 2020 survey, just under half of global SSO/GBS practitioners have actually implemented Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to date. However, the more important finding is that only 10% are not doing anything about RPA – with the remainder about to start. Given that we are now four to five years into RPA adoption, we’ve definitely reached – and passed – a tipping point.

Combine that with understanding that:

• two-thirds of global Shared Services are operating Centers of Excellence (CoE) predominantly focused on ensuring RPA solutions are effectively scaled
• the IEEE Standards Board last year published an agreed taxonomy for intelligent process automation software (which encompasses RPA) and no discussion around productivity or performance is complete without referencing the integration of automation tools, before it becomes even more clear that, as far as robotic process automation is concerned, we have turned a corner.

A critical factor is that Shared Services executives today recognize intelligent automation (IA) as an enterprise competency rather than a specific tool to fix a problem. This competency is what will make all the difference as process automation is deployed to support and drive the enterprise’s digital agenda.

This report highlights 10 critical trends that confirm RPA’s strategic value in modern enterprise services, based on a comprehensive survey of SSO/GBS executives across the APAC region.