Executive Study
Taking Automation to the Next Level How to Scale RPA from the Tactical to the Strategic
A Teknowlogy Group White Paper, Sponsored by Blue Prism Cloud, part of Blue Prism
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 2
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………….…………….……….3
KEY FINDINGS……………………………………………………………………..……4
PREPARING FOR LAUNCH…………………………………………………………...5
GETTING OFF THE GROUND………………………………………………………....9
SCALING THE HEIGHTS……………………………………………………………..17
CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS………………………………………....25
METHODOLOGY…………………………………………………………………...….28
ABOUT BLUE PRISM CLOUD ..……………………………………….…………….29
ABOUT TEKNOWLOGY GROUP……………………………………………………30
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 3
INTRODUCTION
Robotic automation (RPA) has already become a critical element of digital
transformation strategy across all industry sectors.
From banks to manufacturers to public sector agencies, the automation of specific
parts of the organization is viewed as essential to unlocking the agility, speed and
efficiency that they need to respond to rapidly changing customer needs and an
evolving competitive landscape.
But the use of RPA is about to enter an important and challenging new phase, as
many businesses look to move on from a period of experimentation to a focus on
achieving deeper transformation.
Many organizations have adopted RPA solutions at a tactical level, leveraging
software “bots” to handle repeatable manual processes. This has often been as
part of focused digital transformation projects playing out across different
departments and siloes, with little coordination.
This has led to a situation where many businesses are struggling with a fragmented
landscape of automation projects, making it difficult to stay on top of issues such
as licensing costs and bot utilization. A lack of a clear joined-up strategy also makes
it more challenging to get both line-of-business leaders and the wider workforce to
buy-in to an extended and more effective use of automation technology.
At the same time, automation technology is maturing and opening up new
possibilities to buyers, with RPA solutions increasingly incorporating machine
learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) to enable more predictive and proactive
approaches. We are now in the era of Intelligent Automation.
In order to understand how experienced automation users have successfully got
their early initiatives off the ground and explore the tactics they are deploying to
drive scale, industry analysts teknowlogy Group has undertaken a major new study
based on interviews with 100 senior business and technology executives at leading
UK organisations.
This report discusses the technology and operational challenges that these
stakeholders have faced, from how they developed the business case and
prioritized processes for automation, through to the governance structures they
have put in place to drive buy-in from all parts of the organization.
The report also offers practical guidance to senior decision-makers that are looking
to learn lessons in how to lay the right foundations for developing a truly scalable
strategy for automation.
Nick Mayes, Principal Analyst
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 4
KEY FINDINGS
UK businesses are aiming high with their automation strategies
60% of strategy leaders are aiming to automate more than 10% of their
processes within the next five years. This is double the current level.
Early automation initiatives have delivered on their promise…
55% stated that the results of their early automation initiatives met their
expectations, while 44% said they exceeded them.
…But the goals for automation initiatives are evolving
50% cite improving productivity and cost reduction as the main goals of their
early automation initiatives. But improving business outcomes and
accelerating speed to market will be key drivers for future initiatives.
Intelligent automation is seen as a game-changer
71% of automation strategy leaders believe that the use of machine
learning/AI technology in automation could have a transformational impact on
their business.
Business will take a hybrid approach to driving scale
25% already have a Centre of Excellence (CoE) in place to drive adoption
and standardization of automation across the organization, but 79% see
expanding their distributed teams as key to driving scale.
Complexity, licensing & utilization are the main technology challenges
to scaling automation
31% cite the cost and complexity of bot lifecycle management as the primary
challenge, with a quarter naming software licensing and low utilization levels
as the biggest issues they have faced.
Skills and stakeholder engagement are the biggest operational barriers
30% identify a lack of skilled resources as the main operational challenge to
scaling automation, with 24% citing a lack of engagement between business
and IT leaders.
Automation strategies are being driven from the top
55% of organizations stated that their CEO is involved in building the business
case for new automation initiatives.
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 5
PREPARING FOR LAUNCH: Choosing The Right Processes, Measures & Goals
Many large and medium sized UK organizations have been exploring the potential
of automation technology for several years.
Brands as diverse as EDF, HSBC, Unilever and Vodafone have put automation at
the heart of their future strategies as they look to re-wire what are often decades
old processes that underpin key moving parts of their business.
But how did these organizations get their early initiatives off the ground, and what
lessons can those businesses that are currently at an earlier stage in their
automation journey take away from this experience?
Industry analyst firm teknowlogy Group undertook briefings with 100 senior
automation strategy leaders at UK organizations with more than 1,000 employees
to better understand their progress. These stakeholders, which included CEOs,
Line of Business leaders and Heads of Technology, are overseeing the adoption
of automation at companies in sectors including financial services, manufacturing,
utilities and government. A more detailed breakdown of the sample of this study
can be found at the conclusion of this document.
One of the first aspects of building an automation strategy is to set out what you
want to try and achieve. The study found that cost reduction was the primary
motivation behind many of the first wave of automation initiatives, with 42% citing
it as the main goal, including 46% of participants in the life sciences segment and
45% of retail executives.
42%
of automation strategy
leaders stated that cost
reduction was the main
goal behind their early
initiatives.
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 6
What were the main goals of organizations’ early initiatives in automation?
The second biggest target for early automation initiatives was improved productivity
(31%), and this was the number one driver cited in the manufacturing sector (47%).
Rolls Royce, is one of UK manufacturing’s most forward-thinking organizations in
extending its use of automation beyond the production line and into other parts of
the business. The company’s treasury function, for example, has managed to
reduce the time it takes to close each month from four days to a matter of seconds,
by automating the collection of data from underlying financial systems.
Another key question for businesses preparing to tackle automation for the first
time is how to identify the processes to prioritise. For the majority (61%), the starting
point was to focus on the most under-performing processes, and this was the
particularly the case in the financial services sector (75%). Less than one third of
participants stated that they decided to start by focusing on those processes that
would deliver the fastest RoI or by providing employees with tools to experiment.
This is understandable. It is typically more straightforward for strategy leaders and
other key stakeholders to point to those parts of the organization that are broken
and to build a business case for automation based on fixing or streamlining the
component processes. But as we shall explore later in the report, the focus for new
initiatives is clearly evolving as usage matures.
How did organizations first identify the areas of greatest potential benefit for intelligent automation?
42%Cost
reduction
31%Improved
productivity
13%Improved business
outcomes
12%Improved speed to
market
© teknowlogy Group, 2019
Focused on most under-performing processes
Providing key employees with
tools to experiment
Leveraging existing use cases
at other businesses
© te
kn
ow
log
y G
rou
p, 2
019
61% 31% 21% 3%
Identifying areas that will deliver the fastest ROI
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 7
What type of processes were the focus for early automation efforts? Perhaps
surprisingly, two thirds (67%) of the participants said that they started out by
automating “critical business processes", rather than customer-facing processes
(20%) or non-core back office processes (13%).
This is an interesting finding. Of course, the definition of what is mission critical
varies from one company or industry to the next. Rather than testing the water by
automating low-impact, low-risk processes, many businesses have chosen to
initially look at more important aspects of the organization. This is in tune with the
earlier goal of cost reduction and the focus on the most under-performing
processes, but there are some interesting differences across vertical sectors.
In the financial services sector, an overwhelming 75% stated that they started their
automation journey by focusing on mission critical processes, with the repetitive
transactional nature of many parts of their day-to-day operations making them ripe
for automation. One UK bank has used automation software to automate the
process of processing payment protection insurance (PPI) claims. Despite having
a team of several hundred staff to tackle the claims, the bank faced a huge
challenge due to so much of its historical customer information being buried in
multiple legacy systems, including a lot of duplicate data. By automating several
aspects of the claims process, the bank has saved thousands of hours of manual
effort each week, and put itself on track to meet strictly regulated deadlines for
handling each claim.
In contrast, automation leaders in the retail sector have been much more focused
on automating customer-facing front office processes. More than one third (36%)
stated that this was the starting point for automation, as they looked to drive
improvement at the all-important customer interface. Key use cases in this area
include contact centre automation, chat bot operation, complaints handling and
trade planning.
What were the first processes that organizations selected for automation?
67%
Critical business
processes
20%
Customer-facing
front office
processes
13%
Non-core back
office processes
© te
kn
ow
log
y G
rou
p, 2
01
9
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 8
How do organizations measure the success of their automation investments?
How did organisations measure the success of the early automation initiatives?
Given that the business case was largely based on achieving cost reduction and
improved productivity, it is not surprising that cost savings (35%) and output
increases (41%) ranked as the major measures of success. This was the case
across major industry sectors, but as we shall see, as the business cases for
automation evolve, so will the way that organizations assess its value.
One of the clearest findings from the study was that automation strategy leaders
have an overwhelmingly positive view of the impact of their early initiatives. More
than half (55%) of participants in the study stated that their initial projects met their
expectations, whereas a further 44% claimed that they exceeded them.
The feedback was most positive from executives in the utilities and public sector,
where 58% and 52% respectively said that their early automation projects had
delivered results that exceeded their expectations. In contrast, just 8% of financial
services executives gave this response, with over 90% stating that their initial
engagements met their expectations. This reflects the fact that banks and
insurance companies led the first wave of adoption of automation solutions over
the course of the last decade at a time when there was little precedent to inform
how they developed their strategies and business case.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Automation strategy leaders have a highly favourable view of the impact of their
early automation initiatives.
These first wave projects have been largely aimed at driving out cost and improving
productivity, and this has been reflected in the way that automation strategy leaders
have measured their success. The initial focus for automation strategies has been
on under-performing business critical processes, and it is encouraging that even
with a focus on important areas of the organization, many executives felt that their
initial expectations for what automation could deliver had been exceeded.
In the next section of the report, we will look at the factors that strategy leaders
believe were key to the success of their early initiatives, and how they tackled the
challenges they encountered on the first stages of their automation journeys.
41%Productivity/
output
increase
35%Cost savings
14%Process
simplification
1%FTE hours saved
© teknowlogy Group, 2019
11%Customer
satisfaction
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 9
GETTING OFF THE GROUND: Early Challenges and Critical Success Factors
Automation strategy leaders have had positive experiences from their early
initiatives, but what were the factors to which they credit their success?
The participants in the study suggest that positive outcomes are driven by a number
of different levers, rather than by any single solution. More than one quarter of
executives cite both putting the right governance structure in place and selecting
the right processes for automation as being of high importance, while 24% state
that engaging the right stakeholders in the decision-making process is also a key
success factor.
Again, there are some interesting differences across industry sectors. Some 42%
of executives in the utilities and financial services sectors cited the governance
structure as the top success factor, while for their peers in the transport and public
sectors, it was selecting the right processes for automation that topped the list for
close to a third of participants (30%).
Engaging the right stakeholders was seen as the top success factor by more than
a quarter (28%) of organizations in the public sector, but perhaps one of the most
interesting findings from the study is the level and diversity of management and
leadership that is involved in shaping automation strategies.
42%
of automation strategy
leaders in the utilities
and financial services
sectors view their
governance structure as
critical to the success of
their early initiatives.
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 10
What were the key success factors behind any successes in organizations’ early automation initiatives?
More than one half of automation strategy leaders (55%) stated that their CEO was
involved in building the initial business case for automation (including 66% of
participants from the financial services sector), while a further 45% said that their
COO or Head of Operations was involved. Technology leaders are also putting
their shoulder to the wheel, with 43% acknowledging the involvement of their Head
of Digital/Chief Digital Officer and 39% pointing to backing from the CIO or head of
the enterprise IT function.
This is a very encouraging finding. As organizations look to scale up their
automation adoption from a tactical to a strategic level, it becomes crucial to have
guidance and involvement for all the impacted areas of the business in order to
shape a strategy that benefits the wider organization, encourages consistency in
approaches and drives buy-in from the workforce.
As we have seen, getting the right governance structure in place was seen as one
of the most important enablers for success, and one aspect of this can be the
creation of a Centre of Excellence (CoE). This is typically established with the aim
of enabling different divisions and functions to create virtual workforces and realize
automation opportunities that improve efficiency, control and client experience.
Which stakeholders were involved in building the initial business case for automation?
Selecting the right processes for automation
Engaging the right
stakeholders
Building the right business case
Getting buy-in from the
workforce
Putting the right
governance structure in
place
© te
kn
ow
log
y G
rou
p, 2
019
29% 26% 24% 17% 12% 7%
Finding the technology
platform that best suited our needs
55%CEO
45%COO
43%Head ofDigital
30%CFO
© teknowlogy Group, 2019
39%IT Leadership
18%Line of
Business
Leaders
25%Head of Shared
Services
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 11
Just under a quarter (24%) of participants said that they had a CoE in place, with
adoption highest in the manufacturing, financial services and utilities sectors. One
major international bank said that the CoE has helped it to establish the “rules of
the game” in terms of what the organization wants to achieve with automation and
how it plans to achieve it. This has helped it take adoption beyond pockets of the
business to helping the whole organization change the way it works.
Where this CoE sits within this organization varies from one company to another.
For some, it resides in the group technology function (including more than 80% of
the participants in the study with an active CoE); for others it is part of a shared
business services division. But the most important factor is that it must be
centralized, and it must have the power to pollinate guidance, expertise and
direction across the organization.
Another financial institution stated that its biggest challenge has been balancing
the need to equip the workforce with the tools that they need to accelerate their use
of automation at pace, while ensuring it is done in a controlled manner. This is a
major undertaking, given that the organization is on track to have more than 1,000
robots running in its business within the next six months, supporting critical
functions such as clearing and settlement, client support and risk control.
The company’s automation strategy leader has tackled this by creating a central
control framework, that manages the implementation and use of robots across the
business, providing clear guidance and controls to manage the firm’s risk. It has
implemented a federated operating model to empower business-led automation
while driving scale and value realization. The CoE hands over the keys of building
the business case for automation adoption and implementing specific projects to
the business leaders, but it ensures that while the actors change, the rules and the
tools stay the same.
Have organizations created a dedicated CoE to support automation? It so, where is it located?
No Yes Within another centralized
function
© te
kn
ow
log
y G
rou
p, 2
019
76% 24% 83% 17%
Within a group technology
function
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 12
Another key finding from the study is that organizations are building significant
internal resources to drive their automation strategies forward. Some 44% of
participants stated that they had a team of between 10 to 50 employees tasked
with driving the use of automation within their organization. As would be expected,
larger businesses have bigger teams. More than 70% of companies with over
10,000 employees have dedicated automation units consisting of in excess of 50
employees. The reverse is true for smaller companies, with three quarters (75%)
of organizations with between 1,000 to 5,000 employees having automation teams
of fewer than 50 staff.
Attracting and retaining the right skills relating to business processes and
automation technology is crucial to any project success, but it is not viewed by
strategy leaders as one of the more significant challenges that they faced with their
early initiatives. Less than a quarter of executives (22%) flagged up access to skills
as one of the major hurdles that they had to overcome. In contrast, building the
business case was named as a major challenge by 44% of participants, with low
adoption and usage levels (34%) and engaging process subject matter experts
(SMEs) (25%) viewed as the other two biggest obstacles.
Building the business case for exploiting a relatively new technology is never easy,
particularly when attempting to quantify the potential cost savings or productivity
gains with what can be limited insight into existing baseline levels. But it is
particularly interesting to see that a significant number of automation strategy
leaders struggled to get buy-in from the SMEs within their business.
This can be one of the most sensitive aspects of the automation journey. The
knowledge that the SMEs carry in terms of what parts of a process work and which
don’t is hugely valuable in building the business case and strategy. But at the same
time, the initiative may fundamentally change their role and they need to be given
the right incentives to adapt. One utilities operator has addressed this by creating
a new set of “Automation Champion” positions which, supported by a clear career
progression plan, gives some staff the opportunity to move into more diverse,
cross-organisational roles.
What were the key challenges that organizations faced in their early automation initiatives?
44%
Building the
business case
34%
Low adoption/
usage levels
25%
Engaging
process subject
matter experts
22%
Access to skills
12%
Complexity of
automation
technology
© te
kn
ow
log
y G
rou
p, 2
019
13%
Buy-in from both
technology and
business leaders
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 13
Just 13% of participants stated that the complexity of the automation technology
that they deployed was a major obstacle to their early initiatives. Digging a bit
deeper, 55% of automation strategy leaders said that the experience of designing
and implementing an automation solution was easier than they expected, with just
9% stating that they found the going tougher than they had envisaged (including
12% of participants from the public sector).
This is a far-cry from the problems that businesses have suffered over the years in
introducing new technology platforms into their organization, from ERP systems
through to customer relationship management automation software. The leading
automation platforms were created during the modern era of digital transformation,
where ease of configurability and integration, and a compelling and intuitive user
interface are essential.
What criteria did executives use to select their automation platforms? Cost was
named as one of the top factors influencing the final decision by 61% of
participants, but it was interesting to see that a cloud-based delivery model was
viewed as a key factor by more than half (58%), including two-thirds (66%) of
organisations in the financial services sector.
Automation platform vendors have been shifting towards cloud-based delivery for
some time, as buyers embrace the flexibility and scalability that as-a-service
solutions can offer. This is part of a wider shift that will see cloud-based software
account for 52% of total software spending in the UK within the next five years, up
from a current level of 35%, according to teknowlogy Group’s latest forecast.
The other major shift playing out in the automation platform market is the growing
use of machine learning and artificial intelligence technology to drive enhanced
insight into process performance and enable a more proactive approach to process
optimization. Less than one third of strategy leaders said that this was a factor that
influenced their initial platform selection, but as we shall see in the next section,
this looks set to become an increasingly important aspect as automation strategies
enter a new era.
What factors influenced organizations in their selection of an automation platform provider?
61%Cost
58%Cloud based
delivery
model
52%Flexibility &
scalability of
solution
© teknowlogy Group, 2019
54%Technology roadmap
29%Cognitive/ AI capabilities
46%Relevant industry
references
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 14
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The study found that the large majority of automation executives considered their
early initiatives to be successful, but they do not believe there is a single magic
bullet to getting it right.
A diverse set of stakeholders need to be involved from the start. Successful
initiatives are being supported by the involvement of both business and technology
leaders, with more than half gaining backing from the highest level within the
organization.
Selecting the right processes to target and building the right business case are of
course important factors, but the top priority for businesses starting out on their
journey should be to put the right governance structure in place.
Some organisations are addressing this with the creation of an automation Centre
of Excellence (CoE), which can be a valuable asset in helping the organization take
a consistent, efficient and effective approach across the business.
Technology is not seen as a major barrier to getting started with automation, and
while selecting the right platform partner is considered an important success factor,
many are taking advantage of the increasing availability of cloud-based solutions
in order to create a more flexible, scalable and accessible technology foundation
to support their strategy.
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 15
LESSONS FROM THE FRONT LINE A Governance Model for Scaling Automation
Developing the right governance structure was highlighted in the study as perhaps
the key ingredient in a successful automation strategy.
One organization that has first-hand experience of ensuring that its approach to
governance can adapt to the changing needs of the business is Utilita, one of the
fastest-growing energy suppliers in Europe. Using its smart meter technology,
Utilita has helped to put more than 800,000 customers in control of their energy
usage and spend and estimates it has saved Britain’s households more than
£500m since 2010.
Utilita is currently several years into a long-term Intelligent Automation roadmap as
part of an overall IT Transformation strategy that moves technology from being a
support service into being the heart of the company’s ability to create long term
sustainable differentiation within the marketplace. Specifically, automation is
driving momentum behind increasing levels of business efficiencies that in turn
allow it to provide outstanding customer service.
The initial phase of the project focused on reducing the manual effort in highly
routine tasks. Early success was achieved by automating the ordering of new pre-
payment top-up cards. Previously the Revenue team carried out the process
manually: checking various systems, they would validate information before
sending an email to the card processing company detailing the payment request.
The automation team then focused on automating a range of field services
processes including scheduling appointments for field engineers to perform installs
and meter checks. The company is also using automation as a way to speed up
the way it processes and responds to customer queries, with virtual workers being
trained to read customer email correspondence and to use Natural Language
Understanding and Sentiment Analysis in order to determine the contents.
“Automation is now
considered as a viable
option for a greater
number of change
requests and projects
that are raised with IT
from the full spectrum of
the business. It
becomes an important
way in which to ensure
swift and effective
response to our internal
stakeholders,”
Glyn Turk, Head of IT
Development
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 16
Automation has also proved critical in enabling Utilita to rapidly take on customers
at a time when a growing number of challenger providers are struggling to scale.
Utilita recently onboarded approximately 31,000 customers from the failed Scottish
provider, Our Power, and a further 29,000 from Manchester-based Eversmart. In
both instances the use of digital workers to support the verification of details and
set up of new accounts within a whole new range of CRM and billing systems was
critical to being able to complete the acquisition efficiently.
The key goal behind the setup of the automation initiative was to support the
company’s transformation programme and increase Utilita’s agility. In order to
establish a strong connection with the business and stay focused on driving
business outcomes, the Automation Centre of Excellence was initially led directly
from the Business Operations team. As the programme gathers pace and scales
it has now been folded into IT Development. The programme is being led by Glyn
Turk, Head of IT Development, who states: “By placing the Automation team into
IT development, we are making sure that the automation team have access to a
wider range of tools, resources and programming expertise. This in turn helps them
integrate automations more fully with the bespoke software stack Utilita has
developed in-house. The move also means that automation is considered as a
viable option for a greater number of change requests and projects that are raised
with IT from the full spectrum of the business.”
The evolution of the programme brings the capabilities of the automation platform
into the heart of a wider IT transformation and connects it to investments in AI and
next generation architecture of systems. Rather than being seen as a standalone
technology, it becomes integral to the design of key initiatives such as enabling and
promoting customer self-service through mobile apps and online platforms.
Beyond IT, Utilita is also looking to establish a new business framework that will
further spread benefit across the organization. The plan involves creating a
framework in which a wider number of people in the business can create simpler
automations while the Centre of Excellence expert group focus their skills on more
complex, high impact processes that maximise returns. A training programme is
now underway with one business function at a time being invited to join two-to-
three hour training sessions. Following the introductory course, members of the
Automation CoE team up with their colleagues in a buddy system to help them set
up their first digital worker task. Once the business users are up and running
however, no support will be needed other than the review and approval of
automations before they are put into production.
An important factor in the success of Utilita’s automation journey has been a flexible
approach to deployment, where it has not sought to solve operational issues in a
rigid, singular fashion. Ian Burgess, Director of Information Technology at Utilita
explains: “Be selective and distinguish between the needs of different processes
and scenarios. As new processes and complimentary technologies are rolled out,
automation can be baked into the overall design to maximise the effectiveness of
the total investment and create an otherwise unachievable outcome.”
“As new processes and
complimentary
technologies are rolled
out, automation can be
baked into the overall
design to maximise the
effectiveness of the total
investment and create
an otherwise
unachievable outcome,”
Ian Burgess, Director of
Information Technology
at Utilita
SCALING THE HEIGHTS: The New Challenge When Automation Goes Strategic
As we have seen, UK organizations have made some significant progress in
applying automation, but the study found that the next five years will see an
explosion in usage.
The majority of businesses (68%) have applied automation to less than 10% of
their processes to date. Progress has been greatest in the life sciences and utilities
sectors, where 46% and 36% of organizations respectively have automated more
than 10% of their total processes to some extent.
Life sciences companies face huge pressure to maximize the productivity and
accelerate time-to-market for new products, while ensuring compliance with
stringent regulatory demands. One of the UK’s largest life sciences organisations
has automated processes including reporting on the impact of new products on test
patients as well as areas including order management, regulatory reporting and the
management of access to clinical data.
But one of the most interesting findings was the increase in the adoption of
automation that looks likely to play out in the coming years. While just 7% of
organizations claim to have automated more than 20% of their processes to date,
this level will increase to 38% in five years’ time, with the highest levels expected
in the retail (64%) life sciences (62%) and financial services (50%) sectors.
The appetite for automation in retail is understandable. UK retailers are under
pressure, with the British Retail Consortium recently recording the biggest monthly
decline in consumer spending in a quarter of a century. Driving productivity gains
and enhancing the customer experience have become matters of life or death.
38%
of UK organisations
expect to have
automated more than
20% of their processes
within the next five
years.
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 18
To what percentage of their processes have organizations applied automation and how will this change in the
next five years?
Another important shift will be that in parallel with the rise in volumes, the business
case for automation will also evolve.
Improving productivity will overtake cost reduction as a main goal for new initiatives,
with 44% citing it as one of their top targets, compared to the 31% of the participants
that saw it as one of the main aims of their early automation projects. Cost reduction
will continue to be an important element of automation strategies, but the other
major talking point is the growing proportion of strategy leaders (24%) citing
improved business outcomes as a key goal for their future projects, which is close
to double the level that cited it as a factor on early initiatives (13%).
The study also suggests that other areas will emerge to support the future business
case for automation. More than half (52%) of organizations state that creating new
or enhanced revenue streams will become one of the three main targets for their
future automation initiatives. It already forms an important strand of automation
strategies in retail, where organisations are using chatbots to prompt customers
with personalized offers during appropriate stages of their digital shopping journey,
based on both historical behaviour and real-time pricing and availability data.
There will also be a change in the types of processes on which organisations focus
their automation efforts. Early efforts focused on critical business processes, and
while 62% believe that they will continue to be the area where automation can
deliver the greatest business benefit, future initiatives will increasingly touch on
customer-facing front office processes (24%, versus 20% for early initiatives).
What will be the main goals of organizations’ automation initiatives over the next five years?
8%
1-3%
22%
4-5%
38%
6-10%
7%
More than 20%
© te
kn
ow
log
y G
rou
p, 2
019
26%
11-19%
31%Cost
reduction
44%Improved
productivity
24%Improved business
outcomes
12%Improved speed to
market
© t
ekn
ow
log
y G
rou
p,
2019
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 19
Automation strategy leaders also believe that as they look to scale their automation
usage to the next level, they will have to overcome a new set of challenges.
Whereas the biggest operational challenges for early initiatives were building the
business case, low adoption levels and engaging process subject matter experts,
the new battlegrounds will be a lack of skilled resources (30%) and driving
successful engagement between business and IT leads (24%).
Being able to recruit and retain the necessary numbers of skilled automation
practitioners will be critical if organizations are to double the coverage of
automation in their businesses during the next five years. With a highly competitive
labour market, the importance of re-training existing staff members and
establishing a supporting talent management and career progression framework
will only increase.
The majority of the participants in this study stated that both business and IT
executives were involved in helping to get their initial automation efforts off the
ground, but ongoing, effective collaboration between the two sides will be hugely
important as initiatives scale up. Both need to have a very clear view of the strategy
for automation adoption across the organization, and look to identify potential
obstacles in the wider IT roadmap. One organization in the insurance sector stated
that boardroom buy-in to its automation programme suffered a major set-back
when it started to automate processes at the same time as a major ERP systems
platform was taking effect.
Businesses also believe that the technology challenges posed by scaling
automation will be different to those that they faced at the start of their journey. The
cost and complexity of automation platforms was the main stumbling block in the
first wave of adoption, but now bot lifecycle management (31%), software licensing
and virtualization costs (26%) and low bot utilization levels (24%) are seen as the
main technology hurdles to overcome.
What are the main operational challenges that organizations face in scaling automation?
Lack of skilled resources
Engagement between
business and IT stakeholders
Lack of access to cognitive/
AI skills
© te
kn
ow
log
y G
rou
p, 2
019
30% 24% 22% 18%
Lack of buy-in from
workforce
Not gainingthe right
sponsorshiplevel
7%
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 20
What are the main technology challenges that organizations face in scaling automation??
The challenge of bot lifecycle management is a challenge of which many
automation leaders only come to understand several months or years into their
journey. There is a huge leap in complexity from building, testing and launching a
bot to tackle a single business process, to ensuring that a team of 50 or 100 bots
supporting multiple disconnected processes and underpinning applications are
performing and working as they should be, are fully utilized, and are both secure
and compliant.
Increasingly, bot management will become an area where customers will look to
intelligent solutions that leverage AI as a way to tackle the complexity and cost of
managing teams of virtual workers. Attempting to manage bots manually –
particularly as their number increases – could severely impact any business case
based on improving efficiency or productivity.
Earlier in this study, we looked at the important role that Centres of Excellence
(CoEs) have played in helping organizations take a controlled and standardized
approach to automation adoption. But will the CoE retain its relevance as
businesses look to drive scale at speed?
While 12% of automation strategy leaders state that they believe that expanding
the team within the CoE will be the best way to accelerate the adoption of
automation across their organization, 79% favour expanding distributed teams
across the business. The remaining 9% plan to do both.
This is interesting, and suggests that while the CoE is not going to become
completely obsolete in the future, and will retain a role in managing standards,
consistency and skills development among other areas, it will be distributed teams
of process and technology expertise that will be tasked with pollinating automation
adoption across multiple business lines and departments.
Cost and complexity of bot lifecycle
management
Software licensing and virtualization
costs
Complexity of integration with existing
systems
© te
kn
ow
log
y G
rou
p, 2
019
31% 26% 24% 15%
Low bot utilization
levels
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 21
What benefits do organizations think that increasing the use of Machine Learning/AI technology in automation can
bring to their business?
The biggest technology trend that will play out over the next five years will be the
increasing availability and use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in
enhancing automation platforms. Automation strategy leaders believe that this
could be a real game-changer, with 43% believing that it could potentially transform
a vital process or part of their business, while 28% believe that that it could
transform their entire organization. Anticipation is strongest in the retail sector,
where 82% of executives believe that the blend of AI/ML with automation could
have a transformative impact on all or part of their business, ahead of their peers
in the life sciences (77%) and manufacturing (73%) sectors.
A lack of skills was flagged up by automation strategy leaders as the biggest
challenge to driving scale, which suggests that they will be looking to lean on
external partners to support their efforts. But in a fragmented and evolving supplier
landscape, where new entrant and well established technology and IT services
providers are looking to help buyers along their journey, what type of partner do
businesses see as delivering the greatest value?
Close to a third (31%) name specialist intelligent automation platform providers as
their preferred external collaborator, while 35% see either the specialist IT services
providers or consulting firms with whom many of the platform providers work as
partners, as their favoured option. The traditional ERP platform providers are
belatedly targeting the robotic automation opportunity, but they are seen as the
most effective partner by 21% of businesses.
Which organizations do businesses see as being most effective at supporting their automation strategy?
43%It could transform a
vital part of our
business
28%It could transform our organisation
27%Very limited
benefits but worth
exploring
3%No benefit
worth exploring
© t
ekn
ow
log
y G
rou
p, 2019
31%
Specialist intelligent
automation platform
providers
21%
ERP platform
vendors
18%
Specialist IT
services
providers
14%
Generalist IT
services
vendors
© te
kn
ow
log
y G
rou
p, 2
01
9
17%
Consulting
firms
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 22
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Businesses are planning to massively expand their use of automation, which will
pose a new set of challenges and opportunities for automation strategy leaders.
The business case for scaling automation will move on from a pure cost reduction
argument, to one led by improving productivity and business outcomes, and factors
such as creating new revenue streams will also rise up the agenda. Customer-
facing processes will be a growing area of focus and AI/ML technology will play an
increasingly important role in enhancing existing approaches.
Skills management and ensuring successful engagement between IT and business
leaders will be the main operational challenges, while bot lifecycle management is
seen as the main technological hurdle. Expanding distributed teams of experts are
viewed as the most effective way of helping businesses scale their automation
strategies at speed, while specialist automation platform providers and their
specialist IT services and consulting partners are viewed as the most effective
source of support from the external supplier market.
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 23
LESSONS FROM THE FRONT LINE Skills Development and Platform Evolution at ESNEFT
This study highlights the huge importance that getting the right blend of skills and
underpinning technology will play in successfully scaling automation.
One interesting example of how these twin challenges can be tackled is at the East
Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT), one of the largest public
healthcare trusts in the UK and an organization that is almost two years into its
automation journey.
The Trust’s Chief Technology Officer, Darren Atkins, led an ambitious programme
to support the NHS’ “Paper Switch-Off” initiative, by automating the 2,000 GP
hospital referrals it processed on a weekly basis. The Trust implemented an
Intelligent Automation platform to automate an initial two key processes; eReferrals
and Do Not Attends (DNAs); and is in the process of automating a host more.
Atkins says that building the right team has been critical to the success of
ESNEFT’s automation journey. There was a lot of debate in the initial planning
phase about whether the organisation should look to recruit external AI technology
experts to implement the programme or if it should look to internal process experts
to take the lead. In the end, it opted for the latter, with a small, diverse internal
team, only one of whom was an advanced coder. Atkins says that the team
members were selected for their logical thinking and puzzle solving abilities, as well
as their knowledge of how the hospital works on a day-to-day basis.
As a result, the automation platform that the trust selected had to be easy-to-use,
but of even greater importance, it had to be able to support the very specific
processes that ESNEFT was looking to automate. Atkins says: “We were very clear
about the processes that we wanted to automate, but we weren’t necessarily
looking for great developers. We thought that if we selected the right platform that
gave us access to advanced automation capabilities, it would be better to use
people who were more of a blank canvas in terms of automation technology, but
whose existing skills would translate well to their new role.”
“We thought that if we
selected the right
platform that gave us
access to advanced
automation capabilities,
it would be better to use
people who were more
of a blank canvas in
terms of automation
technology,”
Darren Atkins, CTO,
ESNEFT
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 24
While Atkins was clear about the initial focus areas for automation, he was also
wary that the technology platform that ESNEFT selected must give it the flexibility
and responsiveness that would enable it to tackle an evolving body of business
cases. “We recently opened a new urgent care centre, and we would not have been
able to do this if we didn’t have a number of key processes up and running. In order
to do this, we needed a new environment with three virtual workers within a 12-
hour framework. If we had to do this with a non-cloud solution, it could have taken
months to put the right architecture and security controls in place.”
ESNEFT uses an intelligent automation platform from Blue Prism Cloud, running in
Microsoft’s Azure environment. Atkins says that using a cloud-based service has
eased the burden on his internal team to manage aspects such as managing
upgrades and patch releases, which are dynamically handled by the partners.
Atkins said: “Some robots only go through platform upgrades once a year, which is
a concern if you think how quickly the pace of technology change is moving.”
ESNEFT is now 18 months into its automation journey, so what are the other key
lessons that Atkins has learned along the way?
He believes that it is the “Intelligent” aspect that delivers the real value in
automation. “We made sure that the robots are able to think for themselves. We
have a very low exceptions rate of less than 3%, whereas I’ve seen other examples
where the automation fails eight times out of ten.” Atkins also highlights the
importance of having an intelligent orchestration layer in improving areas such as
utilization. “We know what processes we want the robots to run, and the platform
decides itself what the best time would be to run them. For example, we always
experience a spike in referrals on the Tuesday following a Bank Holiday weekend,
so bots that are supporting other processes can be tasked with helping out. The
platform decides what is important based on the business rules that I’ve set.”
The study also highlighted that many organisations are focusing their automation
efforts on critical business processes, and Atkins believes that strategy leaders
should aim high. He states: “A lot of organizations focus on automating back office
corporate functions because they are low-risk, and if it goes wrong, it won’t really
impact the business. But we want to focus on our frontline services and improving
the lives of patients. We are using virtual workers to support areas as critical and
sensitive as managing patients on cancer pathways, and we can do this because
we have faith in our choice of platform. Be ambitious, and always ask why you are
automating, and who will benefit?”
“Be ambitious, and
always ask why you are
automating, and who will
benefit?”
Darren Atkins, CTO,
ESNEFT
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 25
CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS
Intelligent Automation has entered the business mainstream, and buoyed by the
success of their early initiatives, strategy leaders are planning to dramatically step
up their usage from a tactical to a strategic level.
In just five years’ time, many companies across all major industry sectors will have
automated as much as 20% of the different moving parts of their business in order
to become leaner, faster and more in tune with the changing expectations of their
workforce and their customers.
One of the key takeaways from this study is that even if your own organization is
not planning to double its use of automation in the coming years, many of your
peers and competitors are doing precisely that with the belief that it could help them
transform a significant part of their business.
The study highlights the clear differences between building a successful plan of
action for starting out on an automation journey, and ensuring that the right building
blocks are in place to scale up across the organisation. The business case evolves
to take a broader view beyond cost and productivity, and new challenges emerge
in terms of governance, stakeholder engagement and bot lifecycle management.
Strategy leaders also need to consider how they can strike a balance between
ensuring a consistent and efficient approach to automation across the business
through a centralized function, and the benefits that a more distributed model can
bring in helping accelerate adoption across different silos. The key considerations
for early adopters and more mature consumers are set out in the chart on the
following page.
However, even those companies just embarking on their automation journey
should plan for scale at the earliest possible stage. Ensure that the governance
structure, skills development plan and automation software platform are able to flex
beyond single use cases and that the right foundations are in place to help your
organization take full advantage.
The use of Intelligent Automation is about to enter a new and exciting phase, as
consumers are increasingly able to leverage artificial intelligence and machine
learning technology. Automation strategy leaders already see huge potential in how
it can help them transform the way that they currently manage large parts of their
current operations, but also how it could open the doors for creating new growth
opportunities.
Those executives in a position to take advantage of the shift in the short-term, put
themselves in a good position to shape the future direction of their company as well
as their industry.
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 26
KEY CONSIDERATIONS
Automation stakeholders face a different set of challenges depending on whether
they are in the early stages of getting their automation initiatives off the ground, or
scaling up their existing initiatives to the next level. In the table below, we set out
the key differences, based on the findings from the study.
Early Initiatives Scaling Initiatives
Key Goals Cost reduction, productivity
improvement
Productivity gains, improved business outcomes, create
and enhance new revenue streams
Focus Areas &
Coverage
<10% of processes automated
across the organization, focus on mission critical processes
>20% automation of processes
becomes commonplace, growing focus on customer-
facing processes
Governance Centre of excellence leads
standardization and consistency
Distributed teams of experts
expanded to drive scale across silos
Technology
Challenges
Cost and complexity of
platforms
Bot lifecycle management,
licensing and virtualization
Operational
Challenges
Building the business case, low
adoption and usage levels
Access to skills, collaboration between IT and business
stakeholders
Key Success
Factors
Selecting appropriate
processes, getting the business case right, leadership
engagement
Internal skills development,
ensuring scalability of technology platform to ensure
security and compliance
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 27
BUYER CHECKLIST
Choose the right processes. Not every use case is suitable for automation
and assuming that it is a silver bullet solution from the start can damage any
transformation program. Each automation needs to stand alone and justify
itself from a financial and technical perspective. Identify potential blockers at
an early stage or risk a long-term backlash from the business.
Skills development is essential. Establish a training curriculum and create
clearly defined skills map to ensure that resources within both IT and business
units can upskill into coaching roles to accelerate adoption across the
organization.
Manage user expectations. One common experience among automation
users is that the level of expectation among the workforce for what software
bots can actually deliver is very high – particularly if they are underpinned by
intelligent machine learning or cognitive technology. Be clear in terms of what
users can expect in terms of added value, and in the level of training that the
bots will require in order to avoid a loss of interest further down the road.
Engage IT at an early stage. Many automation strategies are being led from
outside the traditional IT function, but that does not mean that it should be
side-lined completely. The CIO is a hugely important ally in ensuring that
aspects such as user acceptance testing are run smoothly, managing
potential cyber risk and in providing a clear view of when any changes are
going to made to the applications that are impacted by bot automation.
Evolve and mature. Nobody knows everything before they start, so do not
be too rigid or dogmatic in your approach. The benefits and risks that were
identified at the beginning of the journey will change over time. Set up the
processes, working groups and forums to evaluate and evolve the operating
model to ensure that it stays in tune with the changing needs of the business.
Plan for the intelligent era. RPA is rapidly evolving into intelligent
automation. Strategy leaders need to plan to have the right skills, technology
and structures in place in order to gain rapid access to cognitive and AI talent
and tools as they scale their initiatives. Look to use an automation platform
that can can take an intelligent approach to supporting critical areas such as
bot orchestration, lifecycle management and security.
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 28
METHODOLOGY
The results of this study are based on telephone briefings with senior business
leaders at large and medium-sized business based in the UK.
All participants are involved in leading the intelligent automation strategy of their
organization, including both business and technology leaders. Job titles that
participated in the study included CEOs, CFOs, Operations Directors, Line of
Business leaders, Chief Digital Officers and Chief Information Officers.
The field research was undertaken during the third quarter of 2019, and included
participants from seven major industry sectors: financial services; manufacturing;
life sciences; public; retail; transport; and utilities. A breakdown of the study
sample can be found below.
Telephone briefings with 100 senior business and technology leader with responsibility
for leading their organisation’s process automation strategy
SectorCompany Size Job Title
The survey was run in Q3 2019
1,000-5,000 employees
>10,000 employees
52%
Public Sector
Life Sciences
50%
33%
Transport Financial Services
Manufacturing
Retail
Utilities25%
15%
13%
12%12%
11%
12%
CEO
,M
D
CFO
CO
O
Sh
are
d
Se
rvic
es
Lin
e o
f
Bu
sin
ess
6%
10%
30%
6%
11%
17%
5,000-10,000 employees
CD
O
24%
CIO
13%
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 29
ABOUT BLUE PRISM CLOUD
Blue Prism Cloud, previously known as Thoughtonomy, delivers an artificial
intelligence (AI) driven intelligent automation platform that enables organizations
and the people they employ to do more and achieve more. A leading provider of
intelligent, cloud-based automation, the company’s award-winning Software as a
Service (SaaS) platform gives companies access to a pool of cloud based
intelligent digital workers that can perform the repetitive, time-intensive tasks that
slow people down. By integrating this digital workforce with their human teams,
companies can accelerate growth and achieve a step change in efficiency. Blue
Prism Cloud has grown at a rapid rate since being founded in 2013, with more than
200 customers using its platform in 29 countries spread across four continents, and
became part of Blue Prism in 2019, to add the SaaS offering into its wider
Connected-RPA portfolio. Visit cloud.blueprism.com to learn more.
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 30
ABOUT TEKNOWLOGY GROUP
teknowlogy Group is the leading independent European research and consulting
firm in the fields of digital transformation, software, and IT services. It brings
together the expertise of three research and advisory firms, each with a strong
history and local presence in the fragmented markets of Europe: Ardour Consulting
Group, CXP and PAC (Pierre Audoin Consultants).
We are a content-based company with strong consulting DNA. We are the
preferred partner for European user companies to define IT strategy, govern teams
and projects, and de-risk technology choices that drive successful business
transformation.
We have a second-to-none understanding of market trends and IT users’
expectations. We help software vendors and IT services companies better shape,
execute and promote their own strategy in coherence with market needs and in
anticipation of tomorrow’s expectations.
Capitalizing on more than 40 years of experience, we operate out of seven
countries with a network of 140 experts.
For more information, please visit www.teknowlogy.com and follow us on Twitter or
LinkedIn.
Taking Automation to the Next Level – Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019 31
© Copyright teknowlogy Group 2019