In the early 2000’s the term Robotic Process Automation(RPA) was coined by Blue Prism. This represented the first in many steps providing nomenclature to what we had all been developing and building for years. I remember countless conversations with friends and family who asked what type of software I was building and I could never truly encapsulate or describe it fully until then. The truth is, as I wrote in one of our first blogs (What is RPA(Really)?), RPA has been around in one form or another for well over 30 years.
Coining a term doesn’t necessarily translate to success or even lead to transformation, but it did put a label on a very powerful approach to solve workflow and technological problems. Put simply, RPA is the single greatest integration engine known to humankind. Regardless of the tool you use, there is no better way to quickly create a solution that is adaptable and platform-agnostic like RPA.
We are at a captivating time in human history as we evolve through an endemic that will most likely be with us, in some form, forever. The world that existed in early 2020 is gone. At that time the US economy was humming: most people went to an office, kids went to school without issue and RPA was looked at as something that would take away people’s jobs. We live in a vastly different world now. Most people will not return to the job or office they had before and, frankly, RPA is going to “create” or “fill” jobs for the positions humans are no longer applying for.
The digital transformation of humans repurposed for more meaningful work, while Robots take care of the mundane that was spoken about in research papers and at conferences has become a reality for businesses in 2021 and soon to be 2022.
I have often written that businesses need to develop an “automation strategy.” At this point if a business doesn’t have plans for automation, they are clearly in trouble. As the modern workplace gets refactored with these changes, businesses are either implementing RPA and AI or making serious plans to do so. I have never seen so much interest and motivation in and around automation, than what I have witnessed from our customers, partners and prospects in the past few months. I only expect it will dramatically increase in the next 1-3 years.
I believe the year 2022 will be an inflection point for our industry. RPA has matured enough from a technological standpoint as it now has the ability to support the need, but also just as important, Service providers like my company, CampTek Software, are adept enough to deliver and support the most complex solutions reliably and within budget. These are exciting times in technology! It’s wonderful to truly believe that the hype around RPA is now going to become reality.
Written by: Peter Camp, CTO & Founder, CampTek Software
