RPA Scope after 5 Years

There isn’t any scope as the RPA industry keeps growing every minute. Today, I was having a cursory look at my LinkedIn as per usual to see what is going on in the RPA space and other things my connections were delving into. One thing caught my attention and that is “Bill gates penned speech to the graduating class of 2017” - Bill Gates Reveals 3 Fields He’d Go Into If He Graduated College Today . The excerpt from the speech

Dear Class of 2017:

Congratulations! You’ve just accomplished something I never managed to do—earn a college degree.

……………….

If I were starting out today and looking for the same kind of opportunity to make a big impact in the world, I would consider three fields.

One is artificial intelligence. We have only begun to tap into all the ways it will make people’s lives more productive and creative.

The second is energy, because making it clean, affordable, and reliable will be essential for fighting poverty and climate change.

The third is biosciences, which are ripe with opportunities to help people live longer, healthier lives.

The catchy line is artificial intelligence. This attest to the fact that artificial intelligence is at its prime and there are so many things we can achieve if it is exploited in a great detail. I know some of you are pondering on the fact that artificial intelligence is not a state of the art but its application in different industries is shaping our digital future. Although RPA isn’t AI but I’m a few years, I believe a synergy of the two technologies will bridge the awaited gap of interaction between humans and robots (software). It goes into several fields with the notion of automating repetitive mundane tasks. Already, most RPA tools can

• Take away human fingers by interacting with applications (launching, logging in, entering data and logging out)
• Take inputs from humans in form of computer written texts, Microsoft office applications (excel, outlook, Microsoft word etc)
• Provide feedback to humans in different forms (application triggers, emails and etc)

To be honest, there are a lot of potentials for RPA to trigger digital transformation in many organisations and in future it will achieve some digital breakthroughs like those mentioned in this post( Saad Ehsan's answer to What is the hottest topic in Robotic Process Automation?). I am of the opinion that RPA will develop so fast in an aggressive manner with cognitive features like deciphering an image, captcha and many more to improve interactions as well improve the customer experience.

The paradigm shift in the attention from business personnel to IT personnel with RPA knowledge has resulted in an urgent need for more RPA developers to support this growing technology in different sectors. More industries such as banking, retail and insurance are realising the potential of RPA as they can automate repetitive mundane tasks. In as much as there are massive benefits in automation, several concerns still linger in our minds; will RPA take our Jobs?

Yes, it is already taking few jobs and some articles provide insights into this

RPA and BPO: Minor Changes or Real Disruption?

Some analysts suggest that RPA poses a great threat to the livelihood of BPO providers rather than benefiting them. The thinking behind this argument is that RPA will undermine outsourcing by reducing the dependence that organisation have on BPOs and outsourced workers.

Instead, these analysts suggest that work would migrate back locally and tasks would be completed by the organisation itself - through the use of RPA - instead of having tasks completed offshore. Based on this logic, software robots will eventually eliminate the need to outsource work altogether. Here, we must consider the talk surrounding the “death" of BPO providers at the hands of RPA

BPO companies like Wipro, Cognizant have started feeling the impact and pressure (Why IT companies like Cognizant and Wipro are laying off employees). It is no surprise why there have been a recent outburst of employees being relieved of their duties. Let me explain in detail, banking industries (e.g Barclays) are notoriously known for outsourcing some of their processes to India (most people refer to them as offshore workers) because of low costs but with RPA, these processes can be done internally by using robots as opposed to manual workers. In effect to this, a lot of BPO companies will have to up-skill/re-skill their workers so as to fit into the RPA model/space. Wipro has taken the lead by exceeding their constraint on training 33,000 employees on Digital skills in FY 17 to 39,600 employees. It was said to have trained 61,000 technical employees on digital skills.

Looking on the bright side, you have better chances to enter the RPA industry now as it is still at its early stages. After a couple of years, the opportunities are going to be restricted to only technical individuals with knowledge of robotics, machine learning, big data and etc. Also, a lot of companies will realise the potentials of RPA so there will be more opportunities but as the saying goes “Make hay before the sun shines.”

I hope this helps.