New Research Shows that Businesses have Passed the Tipping Point Towards Universal Intelligent Automation Adoption

SAN JOSE, Calif., Nov. 4, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The technology market has passed the tipping point with more than half of organizations today having adopted intelligent automation, as RPA and AI shift from emerging technologies to mainstream business solutions, according to a new analyst report by Futurum Research, commissioned by Automation Anywhere, a global leader in robotic process automation (RPA).

The "Report for the State of RPA and Smart Automation" interviewed more than 1,000 business executives in North America and found that while 75.3 percent believe automation will make them more competitive, significant disparities exist between industries - with public sector and surprisingly, technology companies lagging significantly when it comes to adoption.

Not All Sectors are Ready for the Fourth Industrial Revolution
While more than half of businesses in North America have already implemented some type of automation solution, such as RPA and AI, the research uncovered notable differences between industries. For instance, nearly nine in 10 manufacturing organizations have already adopted some form of intelligent automation, compared to less than three in 10 public sector organizations. The research unveiled the following details:

    --  Media and Publishing - At 87.5 percent, this industry has the highest
        rate of intelligent automation adoption. The complete digitization of
        media has driven companies and content publishers to replace manual
        content and media management processes with flexible, adaptable,
        machine-learning-based automated solutions.
    --  Manufacturing - Nearly nine in 10, or 87.3 percent of manufacturing
        organizations have already adopted some form of smart automation.
        However, this number is even higher among larger organizations.  An
        impressive 100 percent of North American manufacturing companies with
        between 5,000 and 50,000 employees have implemented smart automation.
    --  Banking and Finance - This industry also showed a high rate of smart
        automation adoption, with 84.7 percent of financial institutions already
        reporting RPA and AI implementations. Key areas driving smart automation
        investments in this space include online and mobile banking, predictive
        analytics, investment services, customer support, and transaction
        services.
    --  Technology - Perhaps somewhat ironically, the technology sector ranks
        fourth in adoption of intelligent automation, with a rate of 80.9
        percent.
    --  Retail - About 60 percent of retailers have adopted some form of smart
        automation. Comparatively, the lower adoption rate can be attributed to
        small and medium retailers who do not have the budget or IT leadership
        in place to drive automation efforts.
    --  Public Sector - Fewer than three in 10 public sector organizations
        (excluding utilities) have incorporated any kind of RPA or AI into their
        operations.

Overcoming Barriers to Widespread Adoption
Despite the known benefits of automation, the report identified four barriers to adoption, though the research showed that there was no single reason for these barriers, that include:

    --  Lack of Interest - The most common reason given, with 39.3 percent of
        businesses agreeing, was that they were simply not interested in RPA or
        AI - usually a result of insular, change-averse cultures which first
        fail to identify new technology opportunities, and later resist the push
        to adopt and implement them.
    --  Works in Progress - One in four organizations said they have not yet
        adopted RPA or AI-based automation but are in the process of doing so,
        suggesting adoption rates will continue to climb.
    --  Partnership Friction - The third most common reason why organizations
        have thus far failed to implement smart automation, with 22.4 percent of
        responses, is the inability to connect with the right technology
        partner(s). As described in the report, this may speak to a general
        inefficiency by RPA and AI-based automation solutions vendors to
        articulate the value of their solutions and connect with potential
        customers during the early stages of their search and selection.
    --  Budgets - Approximately 21.5 percent of the survey respondents reported
        inadequate planning and budgeting as a principal reason why they had not
        yet implemented RPA or AI-based automation solutions. According to the
        report, IT leaders are not articulating the value of intelligent
        automation internally and fail to justify adequate budgets to test and
        implement the technology, which leads them to fall behind in their RPA
        initiatives.

Cause for Continued Optimism
Despite these identified barriers to overcome, nine in 10 organizations that have not yet implemented RPA and AI-based automation solutions report having sufficient internal technical competencies to do so, showing that technical implementation is no longer a significant hurdle for most organizations.

"Intelligent automation marks a quantum leap for humanity, and like the early stages of the internet, companies that do not adapt to this new reality risk becoming obsolete," said Daniel Newman, founder and principal analyst at Futurum Research. "The report offers a 30,000-foot view on intelligent automation and how North America is largely embracing this new chapter of the Future of Work."

"Today, we're beginning to see steady adoption of RPA in certain industries, especially in banking and financial services, saving thousands of hours of avoidable rework caused by human errors," said Kristy Junio, vice president, Global Industry Marketing at Automation Anywhere. "If we look to the future, in the next two to three years, I predict a wider swath of industry sectors deploying bots to handle processes that could include accelerating insurance claims faster following accidents and improving drug research and development to provide treatment to patients sooner. By improving industry processes and giving human workers time back to drive more value, this will accelerate growth and differentiate business strategy."

For more information about the research report and its findings, please visit here.

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About Automation Anywhere
Automation Anywhere is a leader in Robotic Process Automation (RPA), the platform on which more organizations build world-class Intelligent Digital Workforces. Automation Anywhere's enterprise-grade platform uses software bots that work side by side with people to do much of the repetitive work in many industries. It combines sophisticated RPA, cognitive and embedded analytic technologies. More than 3,500 customer entities and 1,900 enterprise brands use this AI-enabled solution to manage and scale business processes faster, with near-zero error rates, while dramatically reducing operational costs. Automation Anywhere provides automation technology to leading financial services, insurance, healthcare, technology, manufacturing, telecom and logistics companies globally. For additional information, visit www.automationanywhere.com.

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