Points of View

HFS Research’s recent Top 10 RPA Services Providers 2018 report has shown that there is something rotten in the state of robotic process automation (RPA). Despite the hype surrounding the technology, there is a major stumbling block to RPA delivering value for enterprises: both service providers and enterprise clients lack the requisite talent pool size and depth of experience. RPA is often marketed as being low-code or “easy,” which seems to have led users to believe that building robust RPA talent pools is optional. In fact, RPA requires as much effort and strategic planning as any technology, and experienced talent is crucial to delivering RPA success. As enterprises start scaling their RPA initiatives, this lack of experienced talent threatens to become a crisis inhibiting the ability to scale automation programs. If service providers, and more importantly their enterprise clients, don’t start making deep RPA talent cultivation a top priority immediately, enterprises’ RPA ventures will be all but guaranteed to fail.

This POV explores the current state of the state of RPA talent in greater detail, examines what’s at stake if stakeholders don’t prioritize RPA talent creation, and tells service providers and enterprises what they can do individually and together to prevent the pending RPA implosion.