The Robotic Process Automation (RPA) market will reach $ 1.89 billion globally by 2021, up 19.5% from this year. Despite the economic damage from the COVID-19 pandemic, the RPA market is expected to continue to grow at double digits through 2024, says research firm Gartner.
“The main driver for RPA projects is their ability to improve process quality, speed and productivity, which are becoming increasingly important as organizations seek to meet cost reduction demands during COVID-19,” said Fabrizio Biscotti, research vice president at Gartner . “Companies can make rapid progress with their digital optimization initiatives by investing in RPA software, and the trend is not going to disappear any time soon.”
Prices
Global RPA software sales are expected to reach $ 1.58 billion this year, an increase of 11.9% over 2019. Average RPA prices are expected to reach 10% through 2020. 15% will fall, with an annual decline from 5% to 10% in 2021 and 2022, creating strong downward price pressure.
Increased interest
The pandemic and subsequent recession made many organizations more interested in RPA. Gartner predicts that 90% of large organizations worldwide will have adopted RPA in one form or another by 2022 as they want to digitally strengthen critical business processes through flexibility and scalability, while reducing human labor and manual operations.
“Gartner expects RPA demand to grow and service providers to more consistently deliver RPA solutions to their customers because of the impact of COVID-19,” said Cathy Tornbohm, Distinguished Research Vice President at Gartner. “The reduced reliance on human workforce for routine, digital processes will be more attractive to end users, not only because of the cost savings, but also to insure their business against future impacts such as this pandemic.”
RPA capacity
By 2024, large organizations will triple the capacity of their existing RPA wallets. Most of the “new” spend comes from large organizations that purchase new additional capacity from their original supplier or partners within the ecosystem.
“As organizations grow, they will have to add licenses to run RPA software on additional servers and add additional cores to handle the load,” said Mr. Biscotti. “This trend is a natural reflection of the increasing demands placed on an organization’s ‘everywhere’ infrastructure.”
Future RPA customers will come from non-IT buyers. RPA adoption will increase as awareness of RPA grows among business users. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2024, nearly half of all new RPA customers will come from business buyers outside the IT organization.
CFO and COO
“Leading RPA software vendors have successfully targeted chief financial officers (CFOs) and chief operating officers (COOs), rather than just IT. They love the rapid deployment of low-code / no-code automation. The challenge they face is successfully integrating RPA into heterogeneous, changing environments, and that’s where IT coordination can make the difference, ”said Biscotti.
