RPA will help businesses recover from COVID, says IDC

Half of Australian and New Zealand businesses say there will be more demand for robotic process automation (RPA) solutions this year, according to research firm IDC.

This will come as organisations shift from crisis mode to recovery mode, with RPA deployments being used to improve productivity and increase business resiliency.

RPA can reduce the need for human intervention by automating repetitive tasks such as network automation, payroll, data manipulation and fraud detection.

In fact, according to IDC’s 2020 Asia Pacific IT Services Survey, A/NZ businesses were already ahead of the RPA adoption curve before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, compared to other Asia Pacific organisations.

For firms that had planned or deployed RPA solutions, around half in A/NZ had already reached mid-stage or enterprise-wide adoption before COVID-19 struck, compared to a quarter for the rest of Asia Pacific.

“COVID-19 will be the catalyst for many A/NZ organisations to expand their RPA repertoire,” said IDC A/NZ Senior Research Manager Monica Collier.

“They may extend existing RPA solutions more widely across the enterprise or deploy new RPA solutions.”

According to the IDC research, intelligent automation solutions will be key to helping businesses recover and return to growth.

“Changing your business by using automation is much faster than changing your business using people,” said Collier.

Image courtesy IDC