Cautions when using RPA

Good piece with cautions about the use of RPA.   Most notably, its about task, not process.   And I agree, but process is also made out of tasks, and you have to start with tasks.  But more powerful implementations consider the interaction of task and process.  We simulated business process, using BPM systems, then used that to choose where RPA could be best done.  Even if we did not complete a full process model, we learned a lot.  The process is the context,  and this kind of system will naturally evolve.   Good cautions here:

Dos and Don'ts: Robotic Process Automation  In  Informationweek, by Jessica Davis

RPA is the fastest growing category of software today, driven by enterprise digital transformation efforts. Here's how to make the most of it.

Enterprise organizations have been struggling with a new directive over the past several years -- digital transformation.  As they compete against cloud-native, data-ready startups, enterprises are hobbled by speed, or lack thereof, of their existing technology.

They know they need to make their operations faster, more responsive to customers, and smarter. Yet their technology investments may go back decades, so they may have been built for how businesses operated 10 or 20 years ago. What's more, multiple tech investments like this don't necessarily talk to each other. Humans have had to move data from one system to another in an electronic version of paper pushing. It's time consuming. Plus, you can forget about being able to operate on real-time data.

A rip and replace of these big enterprise systems is a huge capital investment. Plus, by the time you get a replacement system installed, a few more years have passed, and the solution may already be obsolete in the fast-moving world of tech. Indeed, enterprise organizations are expressing a reluctance to spend on big platform plays, at least according to Cloudera executives during their most recent earnings call. The smart money is going to smaller solutions that can help you gain some ground on the competition today, not in two years or even six months. .... "