Gartner: RPA software revenue to reach $1.89bn by 2021

Gartner has predicted that the market for robotic process automation (RPA) software will grow at double-digit rates through to 2024, with revenue projected to reach US$1.89 billion in 2021, a 19.5% increase from 2020. In Australia, RPA revenue is forecast to reach AU$90.4 million in 2021, an increase of 20.8% from 2020. In New Zealand, RPA revenue is expected to reach NZ$7.5 million in 2021, with a growth rate of 15.8%.

Fabrizio Biscotti, Research Vice President at Gartner, said the key driver for RPA projects is their ability to improve process quality, speed and productivity, each of which is important as organisations try to reduce costs during COVID-19. “Enterprises can quickly make headway on their digital optimisation initiatives by investing in RPA software, and the trend isn’t going away anytime soon,” said Biscotti.

Worldwide RPA software revenue is expected to reach $1.58 billion in 2020, an increase of 11.9% from 2019. Through 2020, average RPA prices are predicted to decrease 10–15% with annual 5–10% decreases expected in 2021 and 2022, creating strong downward pricing pressure. The pandemic and ensuing recession increased interest in RPA for many enterprises. Gartner predicts that 90% of large organisations globally will adopt RPA in some form by 2022, to digitally empower critical business processes through resilience and scalability while recalibrating human labour and manual effort.

Cathy Tornbohm, Distinguished Research Vice President at Gartner, predicts that RPA demand will grow, with service providers consistently pushing RPA solutions to their clients because of the impact of COVID-19.

“The decreased dependency on a human workforce for routine, digital processes will be more attractive to end users not only for cost reduction benefits, but also for insuring their business against future impacts like this pandemic,” said Tornbohm.

Between 2020 and the end of 2024, large organisations will triple the capacity of their existing RPA portfolios. The majority of new spent will come from large organisations that are purchasing new add-on capacity from their original vendor or partners within the ecosystem. Biscotti notes that as organisations grow, they will need to add licences to run RPA software on additional servers and add additional cores to handle the load.

“This trend is a natural reflection of the increasing demands being placed on an organisation’s ‘everywhere’ infrastructure,” said Biscotti.

Adoption of RPA will increase as awareness of RPA grows among business users. By 2024, Gartner predicts nearly half of all new RPA clients will come from business buyers who are outside the IT organisation.

“Leading RPA software vendors have successfully targeted chief financial officers (CFOs) and chief operating officers (COOs), instead of IT alone. They like the quick deployment of low-code/no-code automation. The challenge they have is integrating RPA successfully across heterogeneous, changing environments, which is where IT coordination can make the difference,” said Biscotti.

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