The time of intelligent automation

A key finding emerges from the report: 78% of respondents have already implemented RPA, and 16% plan to do so within the next three years. This is a significant increase compared to the figures from Deloitte’s first automation report in 2015, when only 13% of companies were considering these investments.

Although RPA is the most common automation technology, the survey results reveal that it is not the only one. Furthermore, 73% of consulting firms report having already adopted these types of processes in 2020, a 25% increase compared to 2019. The adoption of these processes has led to a 9% increase in revenue and has impacted cost reduction by an average of 24%.

Companies seeking efficiency through intelligent automation find they need to change their processes, sometimes radically. 58% of respondents say they use Lean methodology to redesign their processes, while 36% focus on service design and 34% on organizational design. People-centered design and workforce design are next in importance.

Determining the efficiency of process design requires effective monitoring. And there’s a gap here, as only 20% of the companies surveyed use it, even though 80% say it’s necessary to improve results. This is a pending task.

At Deloitte, we believe that the cloud will be a defining technology in the future, as only 11% of the companies surveyed neither use nor plan to use this technology, and 13% of companies are already developing intelligent automation with cloud infrastructure alone.

Automation may generate lower costs, but we see that this will not necessarily translate into fulfilling the company’s purpose. To achieve this, it is necessary to focus on people. Fifty-nine percent of respondents say they offer retraining programs focused on process skills, and more than 50% offer programs focused on creativity and problem-solving.