Next-gen RPA bots automating job roles, not just tasks

From automating tasks to automating jobs: Challenges ahead

There are, however, challenges ahead for enterprise use of RPA software.

Stoudt-Hansen said Gartner predicts that more RPA providers will offer consumption pricing than in the past and each model will be different, making it difficult to compare providers' offerings. In addition, enterprises will struggle with RPA projects based on their own lack of analysis, guardrails or governance -- even if the products themselves are billed as plug-and-play or fully ready for deployment.

"This is where organizations are going to need to develop centers of excellence and processes so that they can scale in the future," she said.

Recruiting, accounts receivable and accounts payable are standard processes -- so those are good targets [for RPA job bots]. But there aren't as many good targets as you would think.

As for enterprise executives looking to use RPA bots to actually automate job positions, they will find they have few options at this point, PwC's Likens said, explaining that there are a limited number of positions standardized enough to make good candidates for automation.

"Recruiting, accounts receivable and Accounts payable are standard processes -- so those are good targets. But there aren't as many good targets as you would think," he said. "We're still seeing a lot of these one-process automation [implementations]. Those are the low-hanging fruit."

Efficiency gains vs. transformation

Indeed, Likens said most organizations are deploying RPA bots to automate tasks -- not replace whole jobs with digital workers. Such RPA deployments are more likely to bring efficiency gains -- but not transformation -- because most organizations are automating existing processes without actually optimizing them as part of the RPA initiative.

Similarly, Stoudt-Hansen said organizations that want to maximize the returns on their RPA investments must focus not simply on the immediate value that automating a single task can bring, but rather on understanding how to re-engineer processes for automation, how to scale their automation technology and how to integrate automation into other systems and processes. Doing that hard work, she said, is where organizations can see the bigger ROI.

Likens said that, as RPA bots increasingly incorporate AI, with AI examining processes to determine the most efficient way to get from start to finish, their impact will grow.

"There's value in automating processes and digitizing what humans do," Likens said, referring to the current focus on automating existing processes. "But we've created a lot of processes that aren't that great, that aren't the most efficient way to get things done. Intelligent automation -- letting machines look at a beginning and an end and figure out the middle -- is the next level."

Indeed, RPA deployments are already building the foundation for that intelligent work by collecting volumes of data on processes, he added.

Deconstruction of job roles

Automation Anywhere's Srigopal said his company developed its Digital Workers with the expectation that business unit leaders -- and not necessarily IT professionals -- would lead automation deployments. (The Digital Workers are housed in Automation Anywhere's Bot Store, opened May 2018 to AI and machine learning developers and touted as the world's first bot store.)

While some enterprise customers might use RPA bots to fully automate some positions, Srigopal said that, more often, they're using bots to augment their human workforce.

"We see this as being a digital persona that automates the repetitive work that a function does so their [human] workers can be redirected to more higher-value tasks," Srigopal said, who argued that this precision automation reflects a change in how work will increasingly get done in the enterprise.

"[Organizations] are moving away from whole jobs done by people to deconstruction of job roles into skills, with some skills done by humans and some skills done by software. Our Digital Worker fits right into that."

Likens, however, said organizations are a long way from building workforces that seamlessly combine human and digital talent. Instead, he said, they'll continue to identify tasks that can be automated through RPA bots and will move toward deploying digital workers for standardized processes. Companies will buy off-the-shelf solutions for tasks, processes and even positions that are performed in standard ways across organizations and customize automation solutions for those processes that are unique to their own enterprises.

Digital personas for hire, role of CIO

Cay Gliebe

Cay Gliebe, senior vice president of marketing and product management at OneSource Virtual, a Dallas-based company offering consulting and services to clients using Workday software, said her company is looking to build, host and maintain digital personas that will be available for its own clients to hire.

"The plan is to have a digital workforce library, and customers can subscribe to it," she said. She expects to have digital workers available later this year.

Gliebe said she opted for Automation Anywhere because it enabled marketing to take the lead on this strategic offering, with support from IT. She hired an RPA product manager and three RPA analysts to run with this initiative.

Randy Black

Randy Black, senior vice president of R&D at OneSource Virtual, said the company has invested in web services and automation technologies throughout its 10-year history, making it well-positioned to capitalize on these new class of new RPA job bots.

Black, who oversees IT operations and services, pointed out that his technology team built and now supports the development, test and production environment for automation solutions, utilizing its own skills in integration, security and cloud to enable the work being done by Gliebe's team.

PwC's Likens dismissed the idea that IT will be shut out of automation deployments in the future, even as the technology evolves and adds more intelligence. IT needs to partner with the business, particularly around developing the infrastructure to support RPA bots, as well as providing the infrastructure and governance for scaling, securing and managing the bots as they proliferate in organizations.

"There's still a very strong role for CIOs to play to create the foundation for digital labor," he said. "You need IT to make sure it's sound and solid."