While we can agree that Robotic Process Automation is a disruptive technology, the question as to if it is Evolutionary vs Revolutionary is still up for debate. You be the judge as NYSE Euronext’s VP Wayne Ramprahsad, and ISG Alumni Partner/IRPA’s advisory board member Tom Young, discuss the subject. Your perception could mean the difference between quickly adapting to the changing technology or feeling fearful of adopting the unknown. No matter what your stance, robotic process automation will have a significant impact on your business.
Executive Interview Series with Elizabeth Tobey, Head of Marketing, Digital & AI of NICE RPA
NICE RPA's Head of Marketing, Digitial & AI, shares [...]
Whilst both Tom and Wayne predict robotics will lead to destabilisation of the status quo (particularly for the Indian service providers which have been built on what Cathy Tornbohm refers to as “cheaper fingers”), they are actually not that far apart.
Replacing cheaper fingers with robotic automation combines already existing technology (essentially user interface integration and workflow) in a new way. This is best described in The Second Machine Age by Eirk Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, in which they refer to the trend not as evolutionary nor revolutionary but as recombinant.
Further, RPA needn’t automatically mean reduction in workforce. We are in discussion with a firm which has 100 MBA graduates doing analytics in India where 50% of their time is spent on the mind-numbing task of moving data from multiple systems into the analytics system. RPA in this instance will free up that time for these (relatively) expensive resources to be used more efficiently.