Five things APAC businesses need to know about RPA

RPA is growing in APAC but there is still some hesitancy. From ease of implementation to combing RPA and BPM, here are five things APAC businesses need to know about.

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APAC businesses are transforming with increased agility, productivity and efficiency. What is at the heart of this change? Business process management (BPM) and robotic process automation (RPA), with companies in Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines and beyond, adopting the technology.

There are many reasons to embrace the technology, with most businesses steering towards applying automation to repetitive and process heavy tasks, freeing up employees to focus on value-adding activities that serve business goals. For many years, in Europe and the US, business process management has been a well-established aspect of business culture. Meanwhile, RPA has progressed from the hype stages to a functional enabler of process improvement.

In APAC, investment in RPA and BPM is growing at a rapid pace with many companies in the region seeking external expertize. RPA is an important step that will bring intelligence to business processes and cultivate a culture of business improvement. But there are still some road blocks and resistance to this change in APAC. Despite this, and according to ESI ThoughtLab, RPA investment is increasing significantly across most sectors, as more and more companies seek boosted market share and improved customer satisfaction. 

Read more about APAC: Our digital future: experts on the opportunities and challenges

For a time, commentators argued that RPA will outgrow BPM as an enabler of process improvement but businesses have come to realize that BPM is something they cannot live without. BPM is an all-encompassing term to group together the ways in which businesses can streamline, measure, optimize and automate their business processes. It does not entail one specific technology, but a multitude of them.

Here are another 5 key truths that businesses in APAC need to know about RPA and BPM

It isn’t just for large enterprises
The world’s multinational organizations have already adopted RPA to improve business processes and cultivate a culture of efficiency. In its early days, RPA was an expensive investment that often meant only the biggest players were able to afford it. This simply isn’t the case anymore. Now, RPA solutions have become easier to implement and require minimal infrastructure to integrate.

RPA is already working in a multitude of sectors across Asia with more to come
One sector that has been particularly open to RPA in APAC is financial services, primarily to cope with an ever-increasing volume of data. RPA has also contributed to the automotive sector, insurance and health, all of which share a common thread of having large data entry processes.

It is better to be an early adopter
"The big and surprising finding we have made is that there's a real lack of uptake for Business Process Management (BPM) in the APAC region," says Ian Hawkins, Editor of PEX Network. "Those that are reluctant to adopt new and innovative technologies will eventually risk losing out against competitors, both in terms of delivering excellent services and operating with streamlined business operations." At this early stage of RPA as a solution in APAC, it is more important than ever to weigh the benefits of being an early adopter, especially with the principles of best practice established by other users in other parts of the world.

Read more about APAC: Our digital future: opportunities and challenges (2)

The RPA market in APAC is growing at an unprecedented rate
The RPA market is set to be worth $3.9 bn by 2025 according to a new study by Grand View Research. While most of this investment is dominated by companies in the US and Europe, it is clear that APAC countries are jumping on the trend. In a study from ESI ThoughtLab, RPA investment is on the increase within all industries. And, over the next two years, 70% of surveyed companies in the report, stated an increase in budget allocation to RPA solutions.

RPA and BPM will not replace human jobs, but create them
A major discussion of the technology world is to what extent human jobs will be affected by automation and RPA. This concern isn’t unfounded as some jobs will likely be replaced with RPA such as data entry. However, this viewpoint doesn’t take the whole picture into account. Automation can release workers from spending much of the workday on mundane and repetitive tasks, particularly within the field of data manipulation, and transaction processing.

To hear more about the other benefits of RPA, check out our ultimate guide: A guide to Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Want to hear more about how RPA and BPM is being approached within the APC sector?

Check out our upcoming free online event, BPM & RPA APAC Live 2019. Featuring international case studies from organizations such as Coca-Cola European Partners, McCormick, BHP and Edgeverve, tune in to see how these renowned organizations have made a huge success of RPA and BPM.

 

 

 


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