I’m no seasoned Industry Analyst. I haven’t had a stint at Gartner or Forrester on my CV to speak of, but I have had the privilege of being one of the first hires in Softcat Plc to establish a customer proposition for automation. In that capacity I’ve evaluated and supported the sale of a pretty wide range of automation technologies doing an array of different things from point-solutions in test automation to wholesale process change.
Having had the job of spotting commercial opportunities in automation for the biggest reseller in the UK over the last 5 years – the biggest commercial opportunity for VARs now in automation is the shift away from RPA (Robotic Process Automation) to iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) – enterprise automation.
VARs have traditionally been great at hardware, licensing, infrastructure and architecture. However, in the last 18 months since OpenAI hit the market I’ve been watching the big VARs rush to build out compelling advisory partnerships and propositions. They promise to automate everything for customers from customer onboarding to accounts payable processes and they’re primarily built on RPA offerings.
RPA was based on digital robots that literally mimic human user behaviour in digital interfaces. The term “robot” alone makes it easy for a Specialist or Account Manager at a VAR to explain to a customer how they can automate digital tasks; after all we’ve all grown up with robots in both fiction and reality in the automation of physical factory lines. But, is a robot mimicking our behaviour causing missed opportunities to re-engineer processes for the better? Is RPA congruent with IT and enterprise architecture strategies?
As a large VAR, it’s my strong belief leading automation propositions with RPA today is a mistake and risks missing the real automation market opportunity – enterprise automation powered by iPaaS.
The API economy vs. RPA
Even 5 years ago RPA was described by leading Industry Analysts as ‘a tool to be used to automate and integrate where applications lack or have incomplete APIs’. Why? APIs allow you to not only integrate systems but also automate processes by facilitating data transfer and ‘calling’ the application functions.
Today the API is king, with businesses relentless drive to the cloud, SaaS applications and infrastructure-as-code approaches – if you can’t call it with an API, you risk having fragile and unscalable deployments. If you can use good APIs to automate event driven business processes or facilitate integration, then why mimic human user behaviour with RPA in the UI of an application (which is prone to change) with yet more infrastructure and resources?
RPA in its truest form can be brilliant for specific use cases and has its place, this is as the tool of choice for performing functions with legacy applications or simple repetitive digital tasks. Most RPA tools have evolved to include API automation functions and pre-built connectors, but these are secondary to the main purpose of those platforms.
In my opinion, RPA vendors will struggle to keep pace and compete with native API integration and automation tools geared for enterprise scale and performance.
The automation technology landscape – assimilation of capabilities
I’m witnessing the drive toward an API economy, shrinking RPA’s previous dominance as the primary choice of automation method, in countless customer conversations with our Consultants every day. Customer mindsets are shifting towards an API centric approach and they are less receptive to considering bots, especially, when IT are increasingly aware of their duty to maintain the organisations integrations and automations.
This change explains why we’ve seen the conventional RPA vendors and partner shapeshift and assimilate BPM (Business Process Management – low code UI building and process management), IDP (Intelligent Document Processing) and AI capabilities to offer a more comprehensive capability for automation. Above all this has helped them remain relevant in the face of the API economy. It also makes it easier for sales organisations to have a turnkey solution for all facets of automation under the RPA name. Recognising that it takes multiple tools to achieve automation outcomes including RPA, IDP and BPM, the industry analysts coined the exciting term ‘Hyper-automation’.
The question for me remains: why shape the customer proposition for automation to an RPA platform/vendor that offers great RPA, but less refined (in many cases, not all) IDP and BPM and where crucially API driven automation is a secondary focus?
To deliver Hyper-automation, should you depend on an RPA vendor to also keep pace with the market and fulfil BPM or IDP capabilities, mesh in AI LLMs which (all of which are cloud services with APIs)? Given that RPA proper will become the exception and not the norm as the automation method of choice in an API economy, does this make sense for customers?
iPaaS - The convergence of integration and automation – two sides of the same coin
When automating with APIs, we need to first think of the integration of those systems and then how we apply the logic rules and error handling for the process. iPaaS handles this better than any other. Integration is the means, automation is the outcome.
A great iPaaS like Workato lets us address both of integration and automation in low-code, in a powerful and fast manner. From here, best of breed IDP (Tungsten Automation, Abbyy) and BPM/low-code app interfaces (OutSystems, Mendix) and AI services (GPT, Gemini, Mistral etc.) are brought in with APIs. An iPaaS like Workato also offers high standard inbuilt capabilities like low-code app building or Teams/Slack bots for human-in-the-loop processes. The iPaaS not only orchestrates the process, it automates tasks too. What’s different about iPaaS to RPA?
Faster build and test of automations – 5-10x quicker in most cases.
Zero infrastructure, zero DevOps.
It helps CTOs and CIOs streamline integration backlogs and automate IT processes, without requiring substantial resources in infrastructure, licencing, or expertise.
Above all, iPaaS serves IT functions (the main customer contact VARs sell to) as a means to support better enterprise architecture, especially as customers look to a future without traditional ESBs like BizTalk or are struggling with Microsoft’s fragmented approach to integration and automation.
RPA has always felt to me like a sale to department heads (HR, Finance etc.) and I’ve rarely found Account Managers and Specialists eager to strike up a conversation with the Finance Director about invoice processing. Opportunities like these exist of course, but for VARs wanting their slice of the market it requires sales people to build deeper understanding of business processes across departments – no mean feat in large sales organisations with already bloated offerings.
On the other hand, iPaaS is congruent with IT sales. For one, it solves the obvious problem of how to integrate the myriad of cloud applications that proliferate customer stacks. Point-to-point integration and technical debt is a problem for many organisations
Backing the right technology for automation growth – a 5x bigger opportunity with iPaaS
I’m not saying don’t do RPA. It’s great technology for task automation and specific use cases, where APIs aren’t available or in good shape. The RPA market is still growing, but with iPaaS set to become the dominant technology for automation in the API economy, the iPaaS market will outgrow RPA by a near factor of 5 according to leading industry analysts. Don’t believe me? Take a look at this article on Nasdaq...
iPaaS Emerges as the Dominant Platform for Automation and Integration | Nasdaq Worryingly only a small number of VARs are capitalising on this opportunity, let alone hold the ability to articulate or propose iPaaS to their customers.
VARs still leading with RPA vendor propositions risk being left behind in the AI and automation credibility stakes whilst others prevail. Will those VARs miss the real automation and AI market opportunity available with iPaaS?
Written by Josh Winters, Director of Partnerships at VP
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