NFP company participated in the study of the RPA market

Dmitriy Kornev, Business Development Manager for RPA department at NFP left his commentaries for digital magazine ICT.Moscow:

Three key advantages of RPA

The possibility to drop an RPA as a temporary «patch» while implementing the full-scale integration or software. If the processes are picked correctly for the robotization – it provides significant FTE (full time equivalent) reduction and boosts economy. Employees concentrate on more interesting and less repeatable work, use their cognitive abilities, imagination and intuition which as a result positively influences the job satisfaction level as much as improves the communication of those people with clients.

What do you see in future for RPA development?

One of the major development directions for RPA is this so called «process mining» tool. This generally means that the system logs all the human actions during one's work with PC, then determines the repeatable routine tasks and suggest to automate them. If we take a look even further, those systems should be able to automate this process by itself. That would be a brand new level of human workplace automation. It also makes sense that either solutions or players (or both of them) for small and middle business will appear.

Will the labor market change with the development of RPA?

The market will definitely change but not in that negative meaning everyone is trying to apply to it. It will be more of transformation rather than pure reduction. Just remember how the labor market change back then when the steam engine was invented or the electricity or just your everyday electronic document workflow. One positions will become rudimentary while new ones will appear.

Name the three main obstacles that prevent Russia and Moscow from broader RPA adoption

Price. That is the first thing that comes up to mind as in Russia companies have quite different financial capacities than in the West – the actual source of RPA. The software which is affordable in Europe and US by even smaller companies, for us is still pricey. Conservatism. Particularly the certainty with which the classic IT-programmers feel that the part of their job is «being taken from them» while the processes that RPA is created to automate are those which IT developers will never pick up. Low awareness. The Russian RPA market has started developing later than those abroad: right now most of the companies we cooperate with are still just trying to understand the technology and its benefits.

When it's better for the business to use internal RPA-developments and when it's better to use the market solutions?

This depends on what is the meaning of «internal RPA-developments». If we talk about systems that are being developed by in-house coders than you should pick the one that is cheaper. If it appears that purchasing the licenses and signing up with the RPA-integrator is more commercially attractive, you should definitely use the market solution. And vice-versa.

How do you evaluate the potential for Moscow market regarding the RPA adoption? Is it different from the overall situation in country and in the world?

The potential for RPA adoption in Moscow and number of other larger Russian cities is huge. While, unfortunately, it's much lesser for the other parts of the country. If we compare the Moscow market with the world, we should definitely understand that it's basically on the same level as everywhere where you can find the biggest companies in the world.

In which spheres in your opinion the RPA technology will find the most growth in the upcoming years?

The financial sector will use the robots more. Also the technology shows itself pretty well at FMCG market and those that have the common attributes, starting with the full supply chain market through the large production companies and logistic companies up to retail chains.


You can see the research on the ICT.Moscow

All information about the benefits of RPA technology and implemented projects.