A survey-based research on Robotic Process Automation RPA. Everest Group SOT research focuses on a range of technologies for Service Delivery Automation (SDA).

1. Making RPA Enterprise-Grade at Scale
Sarah Burnett
R

2. About Everest Group
Range of services
Overview
l More than 20 years of experience advising Global 1000
l Recognized for positioning clients for the next generation of
global services − combination of deep insights, strategic
decision-making approaches, and implementation expertise
l Distinctive combination of consulting and research capabilities
l Over 1,000 engagements, covering IT and business processes
l Rich data sets and subscription research based on over 75
business processes, 150 service delivery locations, 1,500
captives/GICs, 100 service providers, and 18,000 outsourcing
contracts
Implementation
Consulting services to
capture value from decisions
Strategy
Consulting and research
services to turn insights into
decisions
Resources
Webinars, research, and
blogs
Subscriptions
Research reports, data sets,
customized tracking services
Our research offerings for global services
Custom research capabilities
l Benchmarking | Pricing, delivery model, skill portfolio
l Peer analysis | Scope, sourcing models, locations
l Locations | Cost, skills, sustainability, portfolio – plus a tracking tool
l Tracking services | Service providers, locations, risk
l Other | Market intelligence, service provider capabilities, technologies, contract assessment
u BPS | Healthcare & Life Sciences
u BPS | Insurance
u Procurement
u Human Resources
u Recruitment & Talent Acquisition
u PricePoint™
u Locations Insider™
u Transaction Intelligence
u ITS | Healthcare & Life Sciences
u Application Services
u BPS | Banking Financial Services
u Service Optimization Technologiesu Engineering Services
u Catalyst™
u Contact Center
u Cloud & Infrastructure
u Digital Services
u Market Vista™
Global services tracking across functions, sourcing models, locations, and service providers – industry tracking reports also
available
u IT Services Forecaster™
u ITS | BFSI*
u Finance & Accounting

3. Everest Group’s SOT research focuses on a range of technologies
for Service Delivery Automation (SDA)
Ability to handle input
data type
Processing
approach Ability to learn Context awareness Approach
Robotic Desktop
Automation (RDA)
Structured only Deterministic No Minimal Human triggers
Robotic Process
Automation (RPA)
Structured and
semi-structured
Deterministic No Minimal Orchestrated process
automation
Autonomics Structured and
semi-structured
Deterministic No Yes, but limited to its
computing environment
Distributed
computing
Narrow artificial
intelligence
All types of data
including unstructured
Probabilistic Yes, but in
specific areas
Yes, but limited to a
particular domain
Cognitive computing
(machine learning,
deep learning, and
NLP)
General artificial
intelligence
All types of data
including unstructured
Probabilistic Yes, across
multiple areas
Yes, across multiple
domains
and similar to human
brain
Advances in deep
learning
Future tech
Maturity
High
Low
Intelligence
Human involvement
SDA includes a range of automation solutions for delivering global services, including RPA
Source: Everest Group 2017

4. Enterprise-grade RPA
Background/context of the
research

5. Much talk of enterprise-grade RPA, but what
is it and why does it matter?
Everest Group is conducting survey-based research on:
• What is enterprise-grade RPA?
• Which features users believe to be the most important?
• What benefits can be realized from having these?
• What features are most valued by different industries and why?
This presentation highlights our interim findings. Everest Group will publish the full
results in a report very soon.

6. Why enterprise-grade RPA matters?
Implementing
RPA across
multiple
business units
Reducing
error rates &
exceptions in
automation
Speed of
implementation
Speed to scale
Implementing
RPA across
multiple
geographies
Helping
regulatory
compliance
Increasing
process
automation
rates
Achieving
faster ROI
It can contribute to the success of automation projects in many different ways:
Source: Everest Group 2017

7. Split of responses by RPA awareness levels
Split of responses by designation Split of responses by maturity of RPA initiatives
71%
23%
6%
29%
38%
4%
27%
2%
23%
19%
25%
19%
13%
High
Medium
Low
Scaling-up
from pilots
Steady-state
implementation
Planning
Piloting
Not considering
CXO level
Senior-level
manager
Middle-level
manager
RPA developer
Others
Source: Everest Group 2017
Profiles of the 60 companies that took part in the survey

8. Enterprise-grade RPA was analyzed along five
key dimensions - groups of features
Key dimensions
constituting an
enterprise-grade RPA
Managing
security
and risk
Software quality
and richness of
features for robot
maintenance
Ease of
deployment &
scalability
Complementary
features
Ease of coding
& robot
development
Source: Everest Group 2017

9. 80% 78%
72%
16% 14%
20%
4% 4% 6%
Software quality and
robot maintenance
features
Security Scalability
Three out of the five dimensions were rated as the
most important
xx Average rating
4.20
4.06
4.23
4
4.34
3.79
4.25
4.3
4.19
4.42
4.25
4.4
4.5
4
3.93
3.4 3.6 3.8 4 4.2 4.4 4.6
Software quality and robot
maintenance features
Security
Scalability
Responses for level of importance, by industry
Average rating (out of 5)
BFSI
Consulting
IT services
Retail
1 2 3
High Medium Low
The most important dimensions
%age of respondents
Source: Everest Group 2017

10. Significance of the dimensions also vary according to
the scale of operations of the enterprise
Small1 Medium2 Large3
Security
Ease of coding and
robot development
Software and robot
maintenance
Scalability options
Security
Ease of coding and
robot development
Security
Scalability
Software and robot
maintenance
Most important
dimensions Security features Scalability
Software
and robot maintenance
1: Participants with revenue less than US$ 100 million and between US$100 - 500 million, 2: Participants with revenue US$ 500 million - 1 billion, 3: Participants with revenue greater than US$1 billion
Source: Everest Group 2017
Size of
respondents
Decreasing level of
importance

11. Software quality and richness of features for robot
maintenance
Seamlessly integrated components
Accuracy of identifying objects from the UI
Session logs for debugging
Web-based interface to monitor robots
4.45
4.42
4.33
3.98
88% 8% 4%
85% 13% 2%
85% 12% 4%
69% 23% 8%
High Medium Low
Split of responses for level of importance of the specific solution characteristics
%age of respondents, average rating
XX Average rating
Decreasingrelativelevelofimportance
1
2
3
4
Source: Everest Group 2017

12. Security and risk management features
Robust logging of robot activity or audit trails
Adherence to security standards
Credentials vault
Role-based access controls
4.33
4.21
4.16
4.15
83% 12% 8%
79% 10% 12%
75% 17% 8%
77% 17% 6%
High Medium Low
Split of responses for level of importance of the specific solution characteristics
%age of respondents, average rating
XX Average rating
Decreasingrelativelevelofimportance
1
2
3
4
Source: Everest Group 2017

13. Ease of deployment and scalability
A central application server that can run
unattended
Scheduling, queuing, and other robot
management features
Caching the operational information
Features to scale-up such as a second
application server
4.31
4.29
4.16
4.15
85% 12% 4%
83% 10% 8%
79% 19% 2%
73% 21% 6%
High Medium Low
Split of responses for level of importance of the specific solution characteristics
%age of respondents, average rating
XX Average rating
Decreasingrelativelevelofimportance
1
2
3
4
Source: Everest Group 2017

14. Satisfactio
n with
returns on
RPA
investment
is high
8%
4%
10%
49%
23%
6%
Yet to achieve ROI
Significantly below expectations
Slightly below expectations
Meets expectations
Exceeds expectations
Significantly exceeds expectations
Source: Everest Group 2017

15. Other features
3.83
4.00
3.75
3.96
3.78
3.60 3.65 3.70 3.75 3.80 3.85 3.90 3.95 4.00 4.05
Robot operations analytics
Integrated cognitive / machine learning
capabilities for reading / processing
unstructured data
Integrated analytics capabilities for
providing business intelligence
Integrated work flow or end-to-end
process orchestrator
Context aware robots – that can be coded
to know a little bit about the run-time
environment
Source: Everest Group 2017

16. RPA is a journey and the richness of the software
speeds up that journey
Interim findings:
• Users consider ease of software and robot maintenance, security and scalability to be the most important features of enterprise RPA
• These reduce the effort that is needed to develop, run and maintain robots
• More than 75% of enterprises are satisfied with their RPA ROI
• Integrated cognitive and ML for processing unstructured data is important as is the availability of robot operational analytics
What you can learn from this research:
• What features to look for in RPA software
• What your peers or your industry believe to be the most important features of this type of technology
• Get insights on how different your take is on these and work out why that is
• What commercial models are available and preferred by different types of enterprises
• If you are achieving ROI in-line with other RPA users
Source: Everest Group 2017

17. Q&A
@sarahburnett
Everest Group’s SOT research on automation:
http://www.everestgrp.com/research/domain-expertise/service-optimization-technologies/