ServiceNow acquires RPA platform Intellibot

ServiceNow is set to acquire India-based startup Intellibot, a one-stop robotic process automation (RPA) platform that helps enterprises undergo digital transformation.

The addition of Intellibot will help the company to extend its core workflow capabilities by helping customers automate repetitive tasks for intelligent, end-to-end automation, said Karel van der Poel, senior vice president of NowX products at ServiceNow.

"ServiceNow intends to build Intellibot's capabilities natively into the Now Platform® so customers can more easily integrate with both modern and legacy systems. This will help them drive productivity and strengthen existing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) efforts," wrote van der Poel.

Furthermore, Intellibot’s RPA capabilities complement ServiceNow’s existing automation functionality, including Virtual Agent chatbots, Natural Language Understanding and more.

This means the cloud computing company will have a complete, end-to-end automation portfolio that can help customers identify opportunities for automation and execute them all on one platform.

Moreover, the new RPA capabilities mean that companies can undergo rapid automation without changing background processes or jettisoning all their legacy IT systems.

"For example, instead of having to look up a customer billing record in an old legacy custom app, cross-reference the customer order number in a heavily customized enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, and then find the original service contract in a 20-year-old client-server application, ServiceNow customers will be able to do it all in one customer workflow experience," underlined van der Poel.

He added: “The acquisition of Intellibot will deepen our investment in powerful automation capabilities that boost productivity and allow users to focus on more complex and strategic work.”

With these RPA tools on the Now Platform, ServiceNow hopes to move closer to automating business processes front start to finish through a combination of technologies.

Van der Poel says the pandemic has highlighted the need for orchestrated, intelligent, end-to-end automation and this is what ServiceNow is delivering on. The acquisition is expected to be completed in Q2 2021 and the companies did not reveal the purchase price.

Many companies are looking to automate workflows across their organisation, including Accenture who invested £2.3 billion last September into a cloud migration support group to help clients accelerate their digital transformation.

Furthermore, Microsoft Teams added Zapier, an automation app, to its platform to allow users to connect their apps and create automated workflows, reduce busywork and improve productivity.