The IT Pro Network: RPA in action

60% of IT decision makers have either already implemented robotic process automation (RPA) in their business or plan to soon, according to research carried out by IT Pro.

Despite the rush to implement AI across businesses and verticals, RPA is a more traditional form of automation using software robots to handle mundane and repetitive tasks.

Asked whether they’re using RPA, 40% of IT decision makers from the IT Pro Network said they already have a programme in place. These can be of varying sizes, for example one said their RPA was small scale and limited to the finance department. A further 20% said they hadn’t yet implemented any RPA but plan to soon.

At the other end of the spectrum, 40% said they have no intention of using RPA at all.

These real-world findings are a little way off predictions made by Gartner in 2021 that by the end of 2023 72% of organisations will start using RPA. Similarly, Deloitte found in 2018 that 53% of respondents to their own survey had already started using RPA and expected “near universal adoption” by the end of this year.

Has RPA been a victim of hype, then? Perhaps – at the time those predictions were made RPA was the fastest growing business software so it’s easy to see how forecasters may have got carried away. It also would have been difficult, if not impossible, to predict in 2018 either the rise of AI or the impact of a global pandemic on IT budgets. Nevertheless, with 60% of IT Pro’s respondents either on the way to RPA adoption or already there, perhaps adoption among the members of the IT Pro Network may nudge further towards the 70% mark before the year is out.

The IT Pro Network is a community of IT decision makers representing organisations of all sizes and sectors. Want to get involved? Fill in our registration form to apply.