Contrary to market hype, robotic process automation (RPA) alone will not transform your processes for the digital world. RPA can add value by bridging the first and last miles of integration, providing a fast, low-risk starting point for automating processes dependent on legacy applications. RPA alone, however, will not deliver digital transformation, which depends not on simply automating “as is” processes, but rather on rethinking your business processes to deliver customer outcomes faster and more efficiently.

The reality of standalone RPA

In the last few years, the dust from early-stage RPA deployments has begun to settle, and some harsh truths about broadly applying RPA to broken processes have emerged:

• 30-50% of initial RPA projects fail
• Only 3% of bot deployments reach scale
• 63% of business leaders cite unsatisfactory implementation speed

Automating outcomes end to end with robotic automation

RPA is just one of many automation capabilities that enterprises need for successful digital transformation. When an organization attempts to transform its business processes through RPA alone, it becomes apparent that there are use cases RPA is not fit for – such as processes that contain complicated rule-based decisions, those that require multiple siloed systems, and those that rely on both humans and bots.