{"id":4077,"date":"2018-09-21T21:04:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-21T21:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/projects\/horsesforsources\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/"},"modified":"2021-12-03T07:24:40","modified_gmt":"2021-12-03T07:24:40","slug":"7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven deadly misnomers why these billion dollar RPA valuations are insane"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

It’s not been possible to escape the wild world of RPA valuations these past few months, culminating\u00a0in the recent claim from UiPath\u00a0and its investors that the firm is worth $3 billion<\/a>, despite the reality that AA’s annual revenues this past year are ~$100m, Blue Prism’s ~$55m and\u00a0UiPath’s\u00a0~$65m (HFS\u00a0estimates).\u00a0<\/p>\n

As much as I would love to celebrate my friends Daniel Dines’, Mihir\u00a0Shukla’s and Alastair\u00a0Bathgate’s\u00a0untold wealth, I have done my homework with my\u00a0\u00a0analyst colleague\u00a0Elena Christopher<\/a>\u00a0and, while these three gentlemen and their teams will undoubtedly\u00a0become exceedingly wealthy from locking up the RPA\u00a0market<\/a>, valuations as high as $3 billion are, sadly, pure science fiction.\u00a0 I welcome\u00a0any of these three dudes to save a copy of this post and proclaim to me “I told you so” in a couple of years – and I will gladly accept a glass of their champagne – but we hate to burst this bubble with seven misnomers why RPA\u00a0is not your typical Silicon Valley software fantasy:<\/p>\n

1. RPA\u00a0directly replaces people.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong> <\/span>This is incorrect, its all about augmenting processes and the improving the quality of the workforce, not eliminating actual employees with bots.\u00a0 As our recent State of Operations Study with KPMG, across 381 Global 2000 operations leaders, illustrates, only 7% go into automation expecting direct FTE\u00a0reduction.\u00a0 Consequently, the C-Suites from 70% of these organizations are happy with the ability of RPA\u00a0to reduce reliance<\/em> on labor.\u00a0 Hence RPA\u00a0augments labor, it doesn’t replace it.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Click to Enlarge<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

2. RPA can scale rapidly to have a dramatic impact on enterprises in months. <\/strong>Incorrect. The vast majority of these initiatives are project-based, not scaled – only 13% of RPA\u00a0adopters are currently scaled up and industrialized,\u00a0according to new data from 590 enterprises worldwide.\u00a0 Most RPA\u00a0adopters are still tinkering with projects and not rushing towards enterprise scale adoption.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Click to Enlarge<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

3.\u00a0RPA\u00a0tools can achieve amazing benefits all by their<\/strong>\u00a0lonesome.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>Incorrect. RPA has to be driven by a motivated business line, and supported by capable IT.\u00a0 <\/span>This isn\u2019t the typical software sales model where licenses are sold en masse and distributed willy-nilly across the business.\u00a0 <\/span>Without a genuine buy-in and partnership between business units and IT, RPA fails.\u00a0 <\/span>There has to be a balance.<\/p>\n

4. RPA delivers intelligence.<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/span>Incorrect.\u00a0 <\/span>RPA is a gateway drug to digitize low-value processes and free up human-time to focus on higher value activities.\u00a0 <\/span>RPA is a catalyst to drive a more intelligent enterprise operations but is not intelligent itself.<\/em><\/p>\n

5. RPA will be a unique game-changing product in the market for years to come.\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong>Incorrect.\u00a0 <\/span>Most organizations take a couple of years to learn and understand how to incorporate the benefits of RPA, but after that it’s merely a tool in the enterprise toolbox.<\/p>\n

6.<\/strong> We will still be talking about \u201cRobotic Process Automation\u201d in two years time.<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/span>Very unlikely.\u00a0 The narrative is already shifting to a broader Intelligent Automation roadmap.\u00a0 <\/span>RPA is very good at breathing new life into legacy processes and technologies but isn\u2019t driving genuine digital business model transformation. RPA\u00a0helps\u00a0digitize the underbelly<\/em> that supports the ultimate digital business outcomes by digitizing manual processes and fixes system integration points.\u00a0 It is a gateway to achieving\u00a0front to back office workflows\u00a0that are critical for digital business to service the needs of their customers in real-time. However. once RPA has performed these tasks, the real challenge for enterprises in going beyond<\/em>\u00a0simple\u00a0RPA\u00a0to drive real intelligence into the processes. Hence, RPA\u00a0is a gateway to creating basic digital infrastructure across the organization, but other AI tools are needed in the future to help organizations anticipate<\/em> their customer actions before<\/em> they happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The more intelligent<\/em> your business operations, the more you can stay ahead of the game, but none of this is possible if your processes are not automated effectively to create this knowledge for your business operators:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Click to Enlarge<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Once the digital baseline is created, enterprises need to create more intelligent bots to perform more sophisticated tasks than repetitive data and process loops.\u00a0This means having unattended and attended interactions\u00a0with data sources both inside and outside<\/em> of the enterprise.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

7.<\/strong>\u00a0Valuations of $2\/3 billion per firm are realistic.\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong>Incorrect.\u00a0 <\/span>While software vendors such as Mulesoft and Marketo have recently fetched insane multiples of $5bn-$6bn, these are very established IT applications that augment multi-billion dollar industries.\u00a0 <\/span>RPA tools are supporting backend automations that require a very unique combination of business\/IT aligned delivery, as opposed to being front-end apps that can be sold to IT budgets en masse.\u00a0 <\/span>RPA is a BandAid, not your new enterprise platform.\u00a0 These are not the typical products an SAP or Oracle can easy ingest into their apps portfolios – the needs are too process heavy, too consultant dependent to fit their sales models.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Bottom-Line:\u00a0 Let’s love RPA\u00a0for what is it, not what some people, who do not understand it, pretend\u00a0it to be<\/span><\/p>\n

RPA\u00a0has dramatically altered the narrative among middle\/back office process owners.\u00a0 We predict a market approaching $2 billion this year alone and growing fast as traditional process outsourcing models are hugely impacted.\u00a0 We’ve even gone as far as declaring RPA\u00a0the “new outsourcing”<\/a>.\u00a0 RPA\u00a0has been a major game changer in the world of operations and outsourcing….\u00a0but $3 billion valuations of software firms barely hitting $50m in revenues?\u00a0 We don’t think so… let’s learn to keep nurturing this great business and not squeeze it until it breaks.<\/p>\n

While the industry is busily adding fancy new words to their r\u00e9sum\u00e9s and job titles, we have to remember that our technological journey is gradual<\/em>.\u00a0 Change comes slowly and incrementally and you can’t just rip off the proverbial Band-Aid, hire a bunch of Millennials and Gen-Z kids… and it’s mission accomplished. As the Hyper-Connected journey illustrates, it took 30 years to get where we are today – and that’s because both front and back offices needed to go through major, secular changes to become efficient and digitized.<\/p>\n

But the next phase is not a trade-secret – this “Future of Work” is merely a\u00a0phased transformation of the present<\/em>.\u00a0 Dumb robots evolving into intelligent assistants… ineffective\u00a0supply chains plagued with manual breakpoints becoming fluid, autonomous and intelligent\u00a0– with the ability to interact with other supply chains.\u00a0 Quantum computing and blockchain\u00a0emerging to challenge the very logic of TCP\/IP and computing architectures. But to get there, we need to be experimenting, tinkering, exploring and disrupting with the kit that available today to get our organizations in a place where all these far-flung innovations can have some real possibilities.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

So let’s have less talk about the future of work and focus on the present<\/em>… we know where we are and what we need to do.\u00a0 So let’s do it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s not been possible to escape the wild world of RPA valuations these past few months, culminating\u00a0in the recent claim…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[852,90],"tags":[303],"organization":[],"ppma_author":[19,27],"class_list":["post-4077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-intelligent-automation","category-robotic-process-automation","tag-enterprise-irregulars"],"yoast_head":"\nSeven deadly misnomers why these billion dollar RPA valuations are insane - Horses for Sources | No Boundaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Seven deadly misnomers why these billion dollar RPA valuations are insane - Horses for Sources | No Boundaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It’s not been possible to escape the wild world of RPA valuations these past few months, culminating\u00a0in the recent claim...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Horses for Sources | No Boundaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-09-21T21:04:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-12-03T07:24:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5ba55cbc63f73636864224.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"631\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Phil Fersht, Elena Christopher\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@pfersht\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Phil Fersht\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/\",\"name\":\"Seven deadly misnomers why these billion dollar RPA valuations are insane - Horses for Sources | No Boundaries\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5ba55cbc63f73636864224.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-09-21T21:04:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-12-03T07:24:40+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c4f084ff7ad43632f537b3b30918e69f\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5ba55cbc63f73636864224.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5ba55cbc63f73636864224.png\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":631},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Seven deadly misnomers why these billion dollar RPA valuations are insane\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/\",\"name\":\"Horses for Sources | No Boundaries\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c4f084ff7ad43632f537b3b30918e69f\",\"name\":\"Phil Fersht\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/86ee0c0ac2d033eed87f327162eb27f7\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/phill-150x150.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/phill-150x150.png\",\"caption\":\"Phil Fersht\"},\"description\":\"Phil Fersht is\u00a0a world-renowned analyst, writer and visionary in\u00a0emerging technologies, automation, digital business models, and the alignment of\u00a0enterprise operations to\u00a0drive customer impact and competitive advantage\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/hfsresearch.com\/team\/phil-fersht\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/pfersht\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/pfersht\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/author\/phil-fherst\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Seven deadly misnomers why these billion dollar RPA valuations are insane - Horses for Sources | No Boundaries","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Seven deadly misnomers why these billion dollar RPA valuations are insane - Horses for Sources | No Boundaries","og_description":"It’s not been possible to escape the wild world of RPA valuations these past few months, culminating\u00a0in the recent claim...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/","og_site_name":"Horses for Sources | No Boundaries","article_published_time":"2018-09-21T21:04:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-12-03T07:24:40+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":631,"url":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5ba55cbc63f73636864224.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Phil Fersht, Elena Christopher","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@pfersht","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Phil Fersht","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/","url":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/","name":"Seven deadly misnomers why these billion dollar RPA valuations are insane - Horses for Sources | No Boundaries","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5ba55cbc63f73636864224.png","datePublished":"2018-09-21T21:04:00+00:00","dateModified":"2021-12-03T07:24:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c4f084ff7ad43632f537b3b30918e69f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5ba55cbc63f73636864224.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5ba55cbc63f73636864224.png","width":1200,"height":631},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/7-deadly-misnomers-rpa_092118\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Seven deadly misnomers why these billion dollar RPA valuations are insane"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/","name":"Horses for Sources | No Boundaries","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c4f084ff7ad43632f537b3b30918e69f","name":"Phil Fersht","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/86ee0c0ac2d033eed87f327162eb27f7","url":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/phill-150x150.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/phill-150x150.png","caption":"Phil Fersht"},"description":"Phil Fersht is\u00a0a world-renowned analyst, writer and visionary in\u00a0emerging technologies, automation, digital business models, and the alignment of\u00a0enterprise operations to\u00a0drive customer impact and competitive advantage","sameAs":["http:\/\/hfsresearch.com\/team\/phil-fersht","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/pfersht\/","https:\/\/x.com\/pfersht"],"url":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/author\/phil-fherst\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":19,"user_id":3,"is_guest":0,"slug":"phil-fherst","display_name":"Phil Fersht","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Phil-Fersht-HFS-Updated.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Phil-Fersht-HFS-Updated.jpg"},"job_title":"","first_name":"Phil","last_name":"Fersht","user_url":"http:\/\/hfsresearch.com\/team\/phil-fersht","description":"Phil Fersht is\u00a0a world-renowned analyst, writer and visionary in\u00a0emerging technologies, automation, digital business models, and the alignment of\u00a0enterprise operations to\u00a0drive customer impact and competitive advantage"},{"term_id":27,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"elena-christopher","display_name":"Elena Christopher","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Elena_Christopher_0334_Web.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Elena_Christopher_0334_Web.jpg"},"job_title":"","first_name":"Elena","last_name":"Christopher","user_url":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4077"},{"taxonomy":"organization","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/organization?post=4077"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=4077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}