RPA is not a platform

Always one for trying to stir lively debate, I thought I would share why I have always felt for at least the last 15 years, that Robotic Process Automation (and Robotic Desktop Automation) needs to be part of something much bigger. Despite what other RPA vendors are trying to say, I have never thought that RPA should ever be at the center of Digital Transformation. Now, I definitely think RPA can help accelerate an enterprise journey to a more digital world but the idea that screen scraping (which is at the heart of all RPA when defined as UI-Level Integration), can be transformative, is wrong. Whilst other RPA vendors are scrambling to partner with other platform vendors, or build their own AI or intelligent "platforms" to sit atop, underneath or alongside their RPA technology, Pega has spent 3 years tightly integrating it's RPA (Pega Robotics) into the core of it's established and world leading Intelligent Automation platform.

As vindication in my belief, this recent Gartner Magic Quadrant cites Pegasystems as a leader and positioned farthest right amongst 21 other vendors on the Intelligent Business Processes Management Suite. Click here Gartner for the report.

Interesting too, there's lots of talk about RPA in this report but it's also a reality check that I firmly believe in. Worth reading if you are looking at scaling enterprise grade Intelligent Automation and Robotics.

The Pegasystems Digital Process Automation (DPA) platform uniquely leverages inbuilt artificial intelligence and robotics, to unify business processes and customer journeys from end-to-end. Pega’s visually-driven, low-code development environment fosters collaboration between business and IT, enabling quick development of applications, faster time to value, and reduced development costs.

And then, as further vindication for my strong belief that RPA is just a small part of the bigger story, back in 2017, Forrester awarded Pega the top spot in their DPA wave and listed RPA as just 1 of the 21 key technologies required in the bigger (platform) story. RPA gets 8% of the total weighting which is important as I'm saying, but RPA is not the platform. Click here to report the Forrester Report.

Many who have got to know me over the years understand that this is something I am strongly passionate about. Even if you just start with quick deployments of RPA, with Pega Robotics, being an integral part of our world leading platform, means your bots are already integrated, out of the box, with all the other digital technologies you will care about as well.

Also, you might like this - the Big RPA bubble - Forbes Article by Alan Trefler