However, the survey found that two-thirds of businesses want to use robotic process automation. Sixty-five per cent of companies reported that they either plan to or already automate repetitive, time-consuming tasks. The financial services sector leads the charge, where more than 80 per cent of companies either plan to or already automate at least some business processes.
Scott Dodds, CEO, Ultima says, “Using robotic process automation (RPA) will give SMEs competitive advantage and if they don’t embrace it they will be left behind. It’s not surprising 57% of UK SMEs fear big business use of it will put them out of business, as until now the technology has been out of the reach of SMEs and was only available to the large enterprises that could afford it. But this has changed, we can now offer RPA to SMEs at affordable prices through our partnership with Thoughtonomy2, one of the world’s leading intelligent automation companies,” says Dodds.
The survey found that 77% of respondents want to use RPA to automate mundane, transactional tasks, with 56% saying freeing up staff time to focus on more strategic work was a key driver for using RPA.
“Importantly, RPA doesn’t necessarily mean job losses. McKinsey’s research3 has shown clearly that employees welcomed the technology because they hated the mundane tasks that the machines now do, and it relieved them of the rising pressure of work. We call our software robots ‘Virtual Workers’ as they are there to work alongside humans to do the work they don’t need or want to do. They allow SMEs to free up their staff to spend more time on strategic and creative projects that will give them a competitive advantage, while also improving productivity. In the longer term, as Professor Leslie Willcocks4 at the LSE says, ‘it will mean people will have more interesting work’,” says Scott.
