By Erika Morphy – Kevin Burkhart, vice president of global consulting firm North Highland, once helped a client select a robotic process automation (RPA) application. It was perhaps the easiest business case ever to be made.

The company had a set of over 1 million records, both digital files and scanned images, and it was seeking a way to quickly scan these files for information about when invoice payment was due. “The RPA system took 3 seconds to scan a test bank of 400 records,” Burkhart said. “A similar exercise using a group of people took four to five hours and the RPA system was much more accurate.” In addition, he added, the RPA system even uncovered additional information useful to the company, such as certain clients were charging late fees before an invoice came due.

It is stories like these that have made RPA the darling of the automation industry. Forrester Research has projected that the robotic process automation market, while only $250 million in 2016, will grow to $2.9 billion in 2021. Unfortunately, dazzled by case studies such as Burkhart’s and impressed by numbers such as Forrester’s, buying companies are sometimes inclined to jump straight to RPA as a solution when in fact they need a more holistic approach to automation, such as business process management, or BPM. Read On:

RB Note: Great article, quick read.