Just over a year ago, many people registered their predictions for 2021 - across many topics of course, but also in the realm of RPA and Automation. One article in the Enterpriser Project publication made 5 predictions for RPA in 2021, after collecting them from various contributors. Let’s take a look at their five predictions and see how they fared:
Adoption shifts to measurement and (re)evaluation
Signavio’s Alex Day was predicting that the question of 2021 would be “how effective these RPA initiatives have been”, rather than pushing forward on big implementations. I think the hypothesis was strong - given many companies had adopted some form of RPA, but with perhaps more of a focus on getting started than on measuring RPA projects for their meaningful results. And there was a real concern that the RPA bubble could burst if it turned out that RPA automation efforts were focused on the wrong things, or didn’t deliver the promised results when focused on the right things.
But in 2021, RPA (and automation of all kinds) delivered results. In fact, rather than a focus on pausing to measure the results, what we saw in 2021 was a renewed focus on Automation at scale. Around the world, labor markets were impacted by COVID in so many ways:
So many tragic deaths
So many more with serious illness
So many people taking care of ill family and friends
So many businesses and cities and countries implementing forms of shut-downs or remote work or safety protocols that impacted all of us and our ability to work together.
A reduction in immigration to some countries (possibly all), which also decreased available labor in some markets.
There was no labor market untouched by COVID last year. And so businesses, rather than take a step back to measure twice and then to cut once, focused on doubling down on their automation investments with urgency. And what I infer from this is that the returns from automation were good enough to pass the test with flying colors.
I think this concern that RPA won’t deliver results sufficient to keep the train rolling comes primarily from people with a background in process orchestration technologies or software architecture, and it is just hard for people from that background to view RPA as anything more than a temporary fix or duct tape on a leaky pipe.
I don’t see 2022 being much different. We’re getting great value from RPA, and we’re delivering the biggest programs we’ve ever done at a BP3. And further measurement will only confirm the value that automation is creating in our businesses - so while it is welcome, it should come alongside the implementations, rather than as an impediment or brake.
2021 will have a much heavier focus on process
This prediction starts with one of my favorite jokes about RPA from 2018 - that there are no robots, and no process, but there most certainly is automation. One out of three isn’t half bad.
This prediction, however, hits the mark directionally, but not quite qualitatively. I’d argue that there was *more* focus on process in 2021, but not enough to call it “much heavier”. Many adopters of RPA are finding that they are hindered by not understanding the processes that they are automating. This can lead to wasted effort (waste), or missed opportunities to create value. I think that Day was right to point to a closer alignment of RPA and business process management (BPM) techniques in the future. However, 2021 still barely scratched the future of this potential.
What I’ve observed is that clients who start with RPA need to build a lot more automation with RPA before they start thinking about orchestrated process. And the reason is the starting point. You can start getting value with RPA without understanding process. You can get started by just focusing on one person, or one team, and the work that crosses your desk. That is a very different starting point than the how one starts out automating an end-to-end business process like loan origination. And you can’t make that leap to early, or too suddenly, without losing your audience.
If you’re starting from a very tactical point, it takes time to develop the context and perspective that informs a decision to be more focused on end-to-end processes, but we will all get there in the end.
RPA use cases increasingly expand beyond finance and accounting
This prediction by Knisley of FortressIQ was very much proven true in 2021 (if not before). Healthcare providers, life sciences, manufacturing, distributors, and more have all made RPA and automation a central theme of 2021 investment. So I’d chalk this prediction up as a home run (possibly because it was already true with our clients when he made it!). And I expect the trend to continue into 2022 and beyond.
Data privacy becomes a bigger concern for RPA
The prediction was that, as more and more data is gathered in an automated fashion - and more activities are also automated- the responsibility to protect data becomes more and more important.
This felt like a safe bet for the RPA business coming into 2021. Data security in general is getting more news coverage, and more concern from corporations. It stands to reason that this scrutiny would extend to RPA software and programs as well. I think this concern has been front and center for a long time with RPA. However, RPA vendors, under pressure from clients and investors, have made enough progress to prevent data privacy from being a concern that blocks adoption. It is now a concern that drives best practices in implementation and deployment - in order to protect that data.
I’m encouraged by the progress that RPA vendors have made in privacy and security over the last 4 years.
RPA gets tighter with complementary technologies.
The prediction was that process and automation layers of RPA would become more integrated with other technologies, such as: process mining, AI, and computer vision. And that eventually, within the next 1 year to 3 years, the enterprise will be able to rewrite itself with AI and automation.
I think if we’re viewing this in the lens of an RPA software vendor, of course each vendor is pursuing closer alignment of RPA and adjacent technologies in order to expand their businesses from the core of automation. And many process orchestration (BPM) vendors have bought RPA software firms to bring RPA closer to their offerings as well. By. Its very nature, RPA wants to be integrated with adjacent technologies.
For example, all of the RPA vendors are providing advanced hooks into cloud AI frameworks. Some of them will provide some level of “standard” integration with the biggest enterprise walled gardens: SAP, Salesforce, Oracle, etc.
DeWitt’s prediction that all of the integration would just happen in an entirely automated fashion feels premature, however. This is approximately claiming that software will be writing software. And, it did not happen within the next year, so I think we can chalk this one up as a missed prediction, but with some elements that are accurate in the build up.
So what about my own predictions? Well, I didn’t wade into the prediction game for 2021. For 2022, here’s what I think is happening:
The RPA vendors are continuing to diverge. In some markets, the vendors tend to converge - to the point where they are difficult to distinguish from each other in analyst evaluations. But strangely, in the RPA market, the software vendors appear to have invested in different directions, and partnered with different software vendors. And this has led to diverging approaches to automation.
RPA services overall are growing - and within specialist firms, it is haves and have-nots. The haves are growing, the have nots are struggling. There’s an increasing focus on quality with some clients, and cost with others. Both of which put pressure on smaller specialist firms.
We have a lot of opportunity to create value with automation. COVID and its after-effects continue to cause labor shortages and dislocations that make automation ever more important to our clients. For our business at BP3, we intend to build the best automation specialist firm we can to serve those needs.
Predictions are tough, so I have sympathy for those that don’t pan out!
Too specific and they’ll be wrong
Too general and they can be right, and yet not useful.
The most useful predictions allow you to plan and act early to skate to where the puck is going.
So I’ll close with this: if you focus on what makes you special and differentiated that isn’t technology, then the technologies can change, and you are still who you are at the core - able to move from one technology ecosystem to another bringing your differentiated value and experience with you.
One of the defining differentiators for me is to see the world through a process lens. (Picture rose colored lenses except instead of the tint, you see BPMN diagrams…)
Something truly amazing is happening in the Rainey Street District just outside of downtown Austin. Only 20 years ago, this was a small neighborhood of bungalows that was slightly on the run-down side. Then a bar opened on the street, and locals discovered it and gradually the whole neighborhood transformed into a destination of bars and restaurants on a previously sleepy street. Big trees provided shade, and the whole ambiance was quite nice during the day and a little claustrophobic on weekend nights…
Today, high rises are going up like weeds, and those bungalows are outnumbered and visually dominated by these tall buildings. It really is becoming integrated in a way with downtown living and life - like a residential offshoot of the central business district.
This article in the Austin Business Journal attempts
to capture the zeitgeist of what is happening:
“Earlier this summer, we were pretty darn proud to bring our readers the first-ever look at 80 Rainey Street, a 644-unit apartment and retail tower planned by local developers Lincoln Ventures for an assembly of properties between 78 to 84 Rainey Street currently occupied by a food truck park. We find this plan remarkable not only for its unique location — sitting mid-block in the heart of Rainey Street itself, not on a corner like many of the area’s recent towers — but also in its efforts to preserve and integrate both of the historic bungalows currently sitting at either end of its site into the project’s design rather than removing them.”
The ABJ goes on to say “The gang’s all here, and the 3D massings actually look pretty close to the real towers, both existing and planned. It’s a shocking reminder of how far the Rainey district has come even in the last few years — recall that when 70 Rainey opened in 2019, it was the tallest tower in the neighborhood, and now it barely stands out in this lineup.” And there are concerns about the neighborhood risking losing its cachet as an entertainment district. Which feels valid. But, these toward are going to be full of people who might like to eat and drink a short walk from their buildings, so it feels like there is hope for a good combination.
It has been fascinating and inspiring to watch this transformation play out. I’ll probably be okay with it as long as I can still find Little Lucy’s donuts on the street…!