Automation: Time for a new trend?

"Ever since the first shaky attempts at Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in the early 2000s, we have been reading the same headlines: RPA as a trend for the future, as a saviour for greater efficiency and, in the process, ever on the rise in German as well as foreign companies. In 2020, the annual IDG study once again attests to the automation miracle as a unique success story. 22 percent of those surveyed already attach great importance to RPA in their company, and over 27 percent expect an increase by 2025. Significantly more than half of the companies want to invest in the technology in the future. According to the survey, it impresses with its low implementation effort and is rated as a digitalization turbo. (Study Robotic Process Automation 2020; IDG)

Statements and figures that seem quite understandable. RPA has uncovered a multitude of potentials. Many companies have realized that the human workforce needs robotic support for business growth in the modern workplace - and the adaptation continues. But we should also begin to realize that focusing solely on a single automation tool inevitably leads to a dead end. Is it time for a new trend?"

New approaches, new solutions

"Robot-based process automation has earned its first place in the list of efficiency enhancers for companies: its benefits for users are tangible, measurable and well documented. However, even the most successful optimization eventually reaches its limits - at least on its own. RPA shares this phenomenon with many technologies. The Gartner Hype Cycle for example, this phenomenon is also well known. Technologies that are unable to evolve dynamically are not infrequently classified here as zombie or Phoenix, depending on whether they simply linger in the realm of disillusionment for a long time or constantly oscillate between enthusiasm and disillusionment due to external triggers. Karl Lagerfeld, until his death, believed trends didn't last more than six months before something new replaced them. Not only has RPA long outlasted that period, what if the tool never had to vacate its space at all? Does it always need that one new idea that eclipses everything else and pushes the competition out of the market? Even in the past, Robotic Process Automation has proven otherwise by constantly evolving: Initially intended only for customer service, more modern software robots showed themselves capable of performing repetitive tasks in pretty much every other area early on - and the more time that passed, the more complex the requirements became as well. Most recently, the integration of AI systems provided the biggest leap within the capabilities of RPA. The next step now incorporates previously co-existing applications alongside artificial intelligence."

Link instead of replace

"Robotic Process Automation can make a big impact on its own. However, after the status 'fully automated', there is no further possibility for improvement for this single process. Orchestration is the solution, the latest trick to improve workflows. Services, processes, web services, applications or workloads can be combined into a complete service - according to the motto 'linking instead of replacing'. While we're on the subject of trends, we might as well join an overall social trend in process development: an end to the throwaway society. Orchestration also allows older automation technology to continue to be used and to be raised to a new level by combining it with RPA or artificial intelligence. This interaction opens up a new level of performance - applications, processes and entire departments benefit from networking and from each other. In other words: Away from a 'pseudo process automation', which, soberly considered, is a pure 'task automation' in most RPA implementations, towards real process automation that also lives up to its name. Is this a new trend? No, rather a change in thinking. Higher, faster, further inevitably leads to standstill. It's time to go in completely new directions."