Australian organisations embracing automation

Three in five Australian organisations expect to scale or achieve an enterprise-wide robotics process automation (RPA) deployment by 2025, according to new research commissioned by UiPath.

But the survey conducted by IDC for the enterprise automation company also found that 84% of Australian organisations do not currently have an enterprise-wide RPA program in place.

Just under three in four (74%) Australian organisations surveyed reported they had increased their spending on automation between 2020 and 2021, the survey found.

The top motivations for pursuing more automation include improving insight and governance across the company of data, people, process or culture (50%), improving operational efficiencies (46%), streamlining processes (46%), and digitising processes and workflows (46%).

Meanwhile, nearly all Australian organisations have started shifting focus and discussions toward the next evolution of RPA, intelligent process automation (IPA). The research forecasts that in next three years, 63% of the Australian organisations will use IPA in over 20% of total deployments.

But many Australian organisations are finding their journey to enterprise-wide scaling of automation hampered by a shortage of automation skills and talent. As a result, 38% of Australian organisations said that availability of skilled automation talent and strong implementation partners’ support are key when selecting automation solutions, while 58% said they look out for an end-to-end solution with a modern and modular architecture.

“Going forward, automation will play a larger role for Australian enterprises by driving new revenue streams, deepening existing relationships with customers and achieving operational efficiencies,” IDC Financial Insights Associate Vice President Michael Araneta commented.

“At a regional level, automation is becoming a discussion at the C-suite level, with about one in four (26%) Australian respondents acknowledging that their CIOs or CTOs are leading the automation drive towards enterprise-wide adoption. An equal percentage of respondents also underscored that their Head of Automation or AI or Head of Analytics Centre of Excellence is driving their automation drive.”

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