Autonomics Advances the Conversation Beyond RPA

In the discussion of intelligent automation, autonomics vendors have lately been operating in the shadow of robotic process automation (RPA) vendors when it comes to market mindshare. The key characteristics of autonomics are self-learning and self-remediation. Thus the notion of autonomics as the next wave that will create value in process automation beyond RPA. Even though, by some measures, IPsoft had been one of the pioneers of this market, the center of attention has shifted to the RPA peers, namely Blue Prism, UiPath and AutomationAnywhere. Certainly, the attention given by both enterprises and service providers to the near-term opportunities of automation in business process-centric scenarios to improving process efficiency and eliminating FTEs in delivery centers through RPA is likely driving this shift in mindshare. However, the market dynamics are fast advancing, with TCS announcing its ignio “neural automation” platform, Ayehu entering the market with confined capabilities at reduced licensing costs and now Arago announcing its international expansion out from its German roots.

Arago’s expansion plans go back to the funding it received by investor KKR in October 2014. Now Arago is not only setting up operations in the US market, with the eye-opening hire of Frank Casale as US President, but shifting to a proactive go-to-market approach that promotes its capabilities. Thus far, the company had more or less operated under the radar and been reactive to market demand. Aligned with its market entry into the US, Arago is building out a partner program to expand both scale and reach of its capabilities. In the view of HfS, Arago’s key differentiator against  its autonomics peers is the process-agnostic core technology that enables the implementation of its AutoPilot platform into both IT as well as business process-centric scenarios.

The acceleration of activity in the autonomics segment of intelligent automation is a sign of the growing recognition of the value of bringing automation into IT as well as business processes. It also hints at a movement toward a future alignment in intelligent automation in the As-a-Service Economy between IT and business processes delivery.

To capture the increasing penetration of autonomics capabilities in the service provider community, we plan to launch the HfS Autonomics Blueprint Report toward the end of 2015. We would love to hear your experiences as enterprise users of autonomics, service providers, as well as those of you creating start-ups in this rapidly developing segment of intelligent automation. So please reach out to me at [email protected].