Report Finds Businesses are Spending ~$500,000 on RPA Annually and Identify Scale and Reducing Automation's Total Cost of Ownership as Their Biggest Objectives Moving Forward.
Toronto, Canada – October 24, 2023 – Blueprint Software Systems – a leading provider of RPA migration and RPA analytics solutions – today published its second annual "State of RPA in 2023" research report. The report examines the evolving size of RPA estates (that is, how many automated processes organizations have in production), the growing budgets of RPA practices, automation governance, infrastructure, and the main future objectives of RPA programs around the world.
Blueprint surveyed 500 executives, directors, department heads, senior managers, and analysts across North America and Europe. The automation leaders surveyed in Blueprint's research were from organizations ranging from 1,000-10,000+ employees. Key findings from the report include:
- The evolving size of automation estates – compared to 2022, RPA estates have gotten leaner in 2023. The decreasing size of RPA estates does not indicate a decrease in investment. Smaller portfolios of automations in production are the natural result of greater attention to eliminating waste and retiring redundant automations that are not delivering meaningful returns.
- The rising investment in RPA – the rate of investment in RPA increased marginally to an average of $490,000 annually in 2023. The minor increase is most likely a result of rising costs by legacy RPA vendors and growing automation team headcounts. By country, the United States has the highest level of investment, with an average of $650K spent on automation annually.
- The growing prominence of RPA Centers of Excellence to manage and govern automation – 50% of surveyed organizations have already implemented an RPA Center of Excellence (CoE) to manage, standardize, and govern their automation practice. While 50% have an established, centralized team to manage their automation program, almost 40% of all those surveyed report that they plan on implementing one soon, suggesting the returns and benefits companies see by setting up an RPA CoE are significant.
- Microsoft Power Automate's increasing usage – Microsoft Power Automate was the most-used RPA platform for the second year in a row. Microsoft's quick ascent in the automation space is a logical by-product of its competitive pricing that enables dramatic cost reduction, ease of use, and seamless compatibility with enterprise architectures.
- Organizations are eagerly investigating migrating their RPA estates to new RPA platforms – More than half (58%) of the report's respondents are either in the process of switching RPA tools, considering switching RPA platforms, or have already migrated their RPA estates to a different tool in the past. The major objectives organizations have outlined seem to be driving the desire to migrate RPA estates to more cost-effective and intuitive RPA platforms like Microsoft Power Automate.
- The importance of scale and reducing RPA costs in the future – Automation leaders reported that their main objectives for their RPA programs moving forward are scale and cost reduction. With providers like Microsoft Power Automate introducing very competitive and attractive pricing models, these future aims are undoubtedly what are driving so many RPA migrations.
"The research validates that organizations are at a point in their automation journeys that has surpassed the proof-of-concept and adoption phases," explains Dan Shimmerman, Blueprint President and CEO. "With investment increasing in automation programs, organizations have set their sights on achieving scale by automating more of the business's workflows and reducing the total cost of ownership for automation. One way to achieve that is by migrating to more cost-effective automation platforms like Microsoft Power Automate, which is why we're experiencing so much interest and activity at Blueprint right now with organizations looking for help to migrate their RPA estates to Power Automate as quickly and efficiently as possible."
Blueprint completed the State of RPA in 2023 research using an email invitation and an online survey. To review and download a copy of the report, visit https://www.blueprintsys.com/lp/research-report/the-state-of-rpa-in-2023.
About Blueprint
Blueprint Software Systems is a global software company that helps organizations assess and improve their process automation practice, increasing the value their automations deliver while reducing operating costs. Blueprint’s platform ingests entire automation portfolios and delivers invaluable insight and analytics into those estates, indicating where there are redundancies, overly complex automations, and re-platforming opportunities to migrate entire digital workforces to new generation intelligent automation platforms at a fraction of the cost and quicker than any other option available.
For more information, visit www.blueprintsys.com
