Blue Prism must stay focused on enterprise-scale value

The market messaging of the Big 3 RPA firms is converging – whether it’s under the banner of cloud, enterprise-grade automation, or their products’ usability by developers and business users. Blue Prism has always owned the enterprise-level automation narrative; to keep winning at what it does best – it needs to be increasingly meticulous on the business outcomes, what this means and looks like when scaled, and using these to get buy-in from both business leaders and employees to create a top-down and bottom-up automation adoption for combined speed, scale, and innovation.

Blue Prism released a host of new products before and during Blue Prism World 2021 – but what enterprises say, do, and get is the endgame it needs to play. Blue Prism’s technology is solid – and new product announcements are likely to be the same – but its customers are still – rightly so in our option – focused on business outcomes in their storytelling. Blue Prism must keep proving that it can provide enterprise-level value and solve big problems – rather than getting sucked into a battle of who can make the most noise with press releases.

Enterprise leaders and end-users of automation must be ready when their programs are deployed at scale

Blue Prism is proving through customer stories it has the approach and implementation partners to make things happen at an enterprise level. There are certain parallels in many of Blue Prism’s announcements with Automation Anywhere (AA) and UiPath’s “bots for all” narratives – but Blue Prism, and its customers, are still more focused on combined top-down AND bottom-up automation. The utilities industry example below outlines this – as did other examples at Blue Prism World which culminate in a clear expansion beyond the anchor sectors of banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI); in industries where profit margins are tight, the efficiency of enterprise-scale automation can be felt strongly by both employees and shareholders.

Cloud is key – but just how picky will customers and investors be over what that cloud looks like under the surface?

The cloud piece is interesting. Blue Prism Cloud is certainly being used by customers – but not to the same level as, say, AA that has legitimately built a cloud-native platform (A360). But there’s a strong chance customers and investors don’t really care – especially if Blue Prism can deliver enterprise value.

Only 22% of Blue Prism’s recent bookings involved cloud (compared with 65% at AA) – but the Blue Prism Cloud is growing at 65%, including partnership points of note: A strong AWS partnership underpins one new announcement (below); Blue Prism will continue with Microsoft in the enterprise space, and Blue Prism Cloud runs on Azure but there is an obvious competition angle there with Microsoft’s automation plays; Google Cloud (now a headline AA partner) is a Blue Prism partner for delivering SAP managed services.

Blue Prism needs to make sure its wave of announcements doesn’t steal the show from its enterprise-level success

A variety of product announcements preceded Blue Prism World (May 2021): Blue Prism DecipherIDP; Blue Prism Interact; Blue Prism Service Assist; Blue Prism Accelerators for use with SAP ERP; Blue Prism Automation Lifecycle Suite; Blue Prism on Amazon Web Services Marketplace; Blue Prism on Microsoft’s AppSource and Azure Marketplace. These announcements have been welcomed by partners and customers who are currently working through them (aided by all-you-can-eat pricing) but came after a long period of quiet which had Blue Prism critics looking for a pulse.

The main Blue Prism World 2021 announcements were:

• Blue Prism v7: aiming for easier orchestration of digital workforces “across end-to-end strategic automations” – including new extensions and usability improvements, an extended API framework, “more AI,” and a wider ecosystem of apps and tech. “v7 improves usability through a new browser-based control room – with real-time visibility from any device.”
• Contact center automation with AWS: Blue Prism Service Assist optimized with Amazon Connect and AWS Marketplace for faster deployment.
• In geographies: there’s momentum in the US with new hires including a new GM for Blue Prism’s Americas business – but also a new partnership with value-added distributor StarLink in the Middle East as Blue Prism looks to expand its markets.
• Blue Prism also commented on its technology alliance partners: specifically, ABBYY and Celonis in the process mining space.
• Blue Prism made clear its desire to push no-code broader and improve how that comes across in its products; this links back to the “democratization” of automation for business users – and is another play to compete with AA and UiPath’s desire to see everyone have a bot.

While Automation Anywhere uncharacteristically announced nothing at its recent Imagine event, Blue Prism needs to ensure it sticks to its anti-hype marketing guns and continues to launch and accordingly market new products in line with actual news. Keep it meaningful, folks!

Blue Prism customers and partners agree that business user and enterprise leader buy-in early is vital for speed, scale, and innovation

Take the example of Eversource Energy, a US energy provider featured at Blue Prism World 2021, which was leaving over $1.2 million on the table annually due to a lack of staff to ensure balances follow customers when they move address. Unattended automation was the goal and Eversource needed scale, flexibility, and a strong governance model. Automation has scaled in Eversource to 24 business areas and 50 back-office processes realizing $16 million in steady-state value per year – and are now looking into document intelligence, process mining, virtual agents, and a variety of ways of complementing its RPA.

“We convinced the business-side that it’s not just about the tech – it’s about the business outcomes, challenges, customer experience, our employees’ experience, etc.”

Rockie Solomon, Manager, Intelligent Automation, Eversource Energy

Despite Eversource’s clear success with RPA, and desire to explore the full Blue Prism range of technology – the focus was on outcomes and business engagement; a key tenet of success was getting business interested in re-engineering their workflows – and getting their buy-in early – and ensuring a mindset beyond RPA as the only solution… rather looking at outcomes. This undoubtedly ties in well to Blue Prism’s enterprise-level narrative. Cloud is also factoring in via Azure chosen based on speed of deployment.

Other showcase clients were also taking a macro-view towards automation and innovation.  Especially in low-margin industries where efficiency gains from say a 1-2% productivity improvement in a process is a huge benefit when scaled across the enterprise… making an enterprise-wide view critical. Automation is increasingly becoming a c-suite conversation and tied to the bottom line. It’s also stirring bottom-up innovation from employees looking for automation opportunities, driven by speed and scale from a top-down push, and clarified CX/EX benefits (particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic).

The Bottom Line: Despite a resurgence in product launches and announcements, it’s enterprise-level outcomes that will help Blue Prism cut through the RPA market’s converging narratives

Blue Prism may be regarded as the most enterprise-grade RPA provider with the best security, best controls, and the least likely to break. But the reality is that its competitors are catching up and are generally regarded as “good enough”. If Blue Prism wants to retain the mantel of being the most scaled RPA software, it needs to help its existing and future customers understand why it’s different, what value and benefits it delivers, and above all, it needs to find a better balance of delivering the message. Surely there is a sweet spot between none and hype-level.