HFS Highlight: Another Monday, another RPA acquisition, another ISV – Hyland shows it’s moving from process streamlining to automating

If you’re not one of the big three RPA software firms (Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, UiPath) it’s tough to differentiate and justify your existence. That’s not to suggest that RPA software lacks value, but we only need so many firms offering the baseline vanilla of RPA. To this end, many smaller RPA firms are getting bought-up by established enterprise software firms keen on baking RPA’s functionality into their existing products and broader value propositions. This trend is moving beyond just tucking-in discrete RPA acquisitions. A question of “what else?” surrounds the RPA market: Customers want end-to-end process intelligence, automation, insights, and value that comes with the combination of RPA with emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and smart analytics; see our RPA is dead, long live Integrated Automation piece from 2019.

Way back in 2016, we saw Pega acquire OpenSpan. 2018 brought SAP’s acquisition of French RPA firm Contextor. 2020 has also been flush with activity: In January we had Appian’s acquisition of Jidoka, followed shortly thereafter by Microsoft’s acquisition of Softomotive, and then in July IBM acquired Brazilian RPA firm, WDG. Now Hyland has thrown its hat in the RPA ring with its acquisition of German RPA software developer Another Monday (AM).

Another Monday, with a name that connotes change potential, has been in the RPA market since 2014…

AM is headquartered in Cologne, Germany, with roughly 70 RPA clients and a mostly European footprint (85%). AM’s product suite, AM Ensemble, covers automation from discovery through to management. It primarily offers unattended automation (97%) and telecom is its largest vertical (25%) that includes its most scaled client, Deutsche Telekom, with nearly 2,000 bots. HFS’ coverage of AM over the years showcased robust and scalable technology including being somewhat ahead of the game with process discovery capabilities, a keen understanding of the importance of change management, and satisfied customers. But it was substantially limited by its regional focus and lack of channel partners – for both product and services.

While AM was not a gigantic company, its client base is not so modest that Hyland can treat this as an immediate technology tuck-in. Hyland, with the AM team intact, will support existing AM clients while offering Hyland clients immediate access to AM as-is while working through the next phase of engineering integration.

“The addition of a feature-rich, highly configurable, end-to-end RPA software solution is an integral component of Hyland’s intelligent automation strategy. It’s also a natural fit for our customer base – with broad, dynamic use cases across the industries we serve. And the customers our partners serve.”

Ed McQuiston, Executive Vice President & Chief Commercial Officer, Hyland

This is now a crucial phase for Hyland that will see it try to nail down relationships with big-name AM clients such as Deutsche Telekom (DT). DT is not part of the official acquisition, but by all accounts are open to broadening their relationship based on a love of AM’s technology on both ends of the spectrum: automating both complex and simpler inhouse needs.

Hyland has been pigeon-holed as a content management company despite a far broader portfolio – but at the end of the day, it’s this brand perception that impacts how CIOs and the market see you.

Hyland is known best as an enterprise content management platform, and its go-to-market (GTM) approach over the past few years has centered on streamlining content and workflows to enhance process efficiency – enabled by native business process management (BPM) and case management functionality. Hyland wants the recognition it’s due in the automation ecosystem, but they are not a known quantity. On top of this, Hyland is late to the RPA game; before acquiring AM, it did not have any active RPA partnerships.

Hyland’s deep industry focus – healthcare being one example – and broad, formal ERP integration capability offers a potential future with AM. RPA partnerships with ERP providers certainly exist but have been somewhat single note, and the BPM players that have acquired RPA – like Appian and Pega – don’t have super strong relationships with ERP providers. Pulling AM through to help do more with its existing deep integration partnerships with SAP and Oracle, and Epic in healthcare will help contextualize the Hyland brand and muster up more ecosystem excitement than traditional back-office process automation stories. Hyland’s opportunity is doing something different that helps define the future playbook, NOT just join the automation party.

The Bottom Line: In Another Monday, Hyland has found the opportunity to break out from the content management mold. But it can’t afford to market boring RPA efficiencies and instead use this acquisition as a platform to become a unique ISV.

The bazillion-dollar question is what does Hyland want to be? They have been on a buzz word bingo acquisition tearaway – buying up a blockchain company (Learning Machine), RPA with AM, and a cloud player with Alfresco. Enterprises are clamoring for nimble solutions to help take them to the digital promised land in the wake of mass virtualization courtesy of a relentless pandemic. Hyland needs to be bold and determine where it can best help its clients. Being an “I’m here too…” player in process automation should not be the goal. That stated, Hyland’s deep ERP relationships and industry focus offer an interesting variation on general-purpose automation.  And similarly, the content management world has not done much with RPA. So there will no doubt be some lift due to the shiny newness, but we’re generally keen to see where Hyland decides to go with Another Monday.