Talking Automation at IAOP’s 2016 World Summit

Automation to dominate conversations at best-known outsourcing summit

This week, hundreds of outsourcing professionals will make the trip to IAOP’s annual World Summit. Yet again, automation will be the headliner for much debate as leading outsourcing buyers, providers, advisers, and analysts gather to talk about the trends shaping our industry’s future.

Two years ago, following the summit’s last trip to the Sunshine State, I wrote a retrospective piece featured in IAOPs Pulse magazine: Is Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Fulfilling Its Transformational Promise? The article asked the key question, “How far along is RPA . . . really?” Back in 2014, I wrote:

Is all that disruption and innovation really happening? Are large back offices becoming silent factories of virtual headcount knocking out mountains of tasks at microprocessor speed? What about the outsourcer landscape, is a new order emerging as early adopters embrace RPA and the slow-to-respond fade into irrelevance?

Today, many are surprisingly asking the same questions, as the RPA hype seems to stay in front of the reality for many who watch this subject closely. I do believe that while the technology of RPA is neither complex nor difficult to master, it is taking organizations far more time to put it to work than most expected. For many companies, getting RPA right means understanding the automation vendor landscape, reviewing and prioritizing processes, launching pilots and proofs of concept, and finally determining the ideal model that will best support them in the long term.

That said, the early adopters are gradually creating the lessons learned for others to follow, and best practices are beginning to emerge. The other change that will accelerate RPA adoption is the shift by many providers to delivering more verticalized offerings, out-of-the-box solutions, and even automation as a service—all of which require less customization and implementation time.

Again, revisiting 2014’s point of view following that year’s summit, I suggested five important changes that also needed to happen to create the right environment for RPA to take off. Here are the points I made back then.

1. Rebuilding pricing models: Outsourcers are reconstructing their contracting and financial models into transactional and outcome-based solutions. The reason is that RPA destroys seat-based or FTE-priced contracts and that the outsourcers cannot afford to take the top-line hit where they currently get paid on headcount.
2. From FTE to outcomes: Contract renewal cycles will drive the rotation away from traditional FTE-priced outsourcing agreements to the next generation of outcome-based managed services programs. Firms that track contract-expiration dates forecast the upcoming year to be a heavy one.
3. Really understanding the technology: Service-provider solution teams are getting their heads around RPA and just now unlocking the power of the technology. They are realizing that RPA is not a point solution like the screen-scraping tools they relied on in the past. RPA is actually the foundational layer of a development platform, and when used to direct many of the other fast-emerging intelligent automation technologies (such as artificial intelligence, speech-to-text, smart imaging, virtual assistants, and more), RPA is a transformational engine.
4. Analysts coming up to speed: Analysts and advisors are still catching on to RPA. As more of them do, their knowledge will impact how they advise on deal structures and counsel their clients on future outsourcing engagements. The result will be an acceleration of wins favoring automation-enabled managed services solutions.
5. Evidence of success: Word of RPA successes will have a multiplier affect. Press releases, case studies and white papers, conference presentations, and award notices will be like gas to the fire and RPA’s digital labor will truly be part of the next-generation outsourcing model.

Was I close? Have these five conditions been met, in your view? Is 2016 the year that RPA will finally begin to realize the enormous effects that have been touted for years? Let’s chat.