Organizations are increasingly turning to automation for process efficiency and cost reduction. Demand is driven by factors such as faster throughput, increased capacity, better quality and regulatory compliance. Unsurprisingly, there is much demand for Service Delivery Automation (SDA) technologies, such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA), but adoption can raise many questions and challenges for both those starting out on new projects and those wanting to automate higher level processes that are more complex and aggregates of other processes. The questions that are often asked include - where to begin? How to choose the automation solution? How to deploy? How to scale and move up the business value chain by automating higher level processes?

Content

This report introduces a software category called “Accelerated Robotic Automation (ARA)” that has built-in capabilities for automating specific enterprise business functions or complex processes such as order-to-cash. It compares and contrasts RPA and ARA drawing on insights from interviews with several users of these technologies as well as on-going Everest Group research. It provides Everest Group’s take on key factors to consider when choosing between these technologies, including:

• The characteristics of RPA and ARA
• The software that supports the processes to be automated, e.g., legacy or enterprise software
• Departmental vs. corporate-wide automation initiatives
• The need for operations standardization and transformation
• Budget and ongoing funding
• Other organizational considerations such as IT resources requirements

Membership(s)

Service Optimization Technologies (SOT)