1、IDC#EUR1470582201A ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?Authors:Neil Ward-DuttonMaureen FlemingJohn OBrienA Robot for Every Worker:Are We Ready for a People-First Automation Mindset?IDC#EUR147058220Sponsored byIDC WHITE PAPERDecember 2020IDC#EUR1470582202A ROBOT

2、FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?A Robot for Every Worker:Are We Ready for a People-First Automation Mindset?Executive SummaryAs the adoption of robotic process automation(RPA)continues to spread across industries,there is increasing talk of a compelling vision tha

3、t of a robot for every worker.At first glance,there is clear potential value for workers and businesses in this.Who doesnt labor under administrative tasks they hate?And given that RPA capabilities are maturing quickly,RPA platforms can address an increasing range of use cases.But is the goal of a r

4、obot for every worker realistic and achievable?And if so,what can we learn from the organizations that have already embraced it?To find out,IDC conducted a global survey of organizations,as well as a series of in-depth interviews with organizations that have instituted broad and successful programs

5、of this nature.Key FindingsThe potential to expand value from the adoption of RPA is everywhere.Organizations that are experienced with RPA see significant benefits(for example,79%of our respondents with RPA experience highlighted error reduction,and the same percentage highlighted improved process

6、efficiency as key benefits).The vast majority of these organizations report that RPA is either meeting or exceeding expectations.Meanwhile,our study also found that organizations that have not yet adopted RPA report the kinds of work challenges that RPA is well placed to address.The study also clear

7、ly highlights that workers see value in the concept of a robot for every worker and can point to multiple examples of situations that would be improved through automation.The majority of workers(nearly three-quarters)are open to having robot assistants help them with everyday work,and whats more,man

8、y are interested in getting involved in creating bots,either by themselves or as part of larger teams.Workers needs sharply contrast with decision makers,however,who disagree with each other about whether there is a benefit to using robots across their workforce(42%agree vs.58%that disagree).The roo

9、t cause of this mismatch in perspectives stems from a key tension between two factors:Workers see first-hand the impact that robots can make on their daily activities.When we analyze the challenges workers face,we see a classic long tail effect.Workers IDC surveyed saw value in automation helping th

10、em with tasks throughout their working day.However,it is clear that not everyone wants automation to help them in the same way,or with the same work.The automation opportunity varies throughout the organization.Most decision makers are stuck in a process-first mindset.Decision makers have been succe

11、ssful for decades focusing primarily on how to make business processes as efficient as possible and drive opportunity exploration and solution design and implementation from the center.This perspective,while effective,misses out on the long tail of productivity improvement opportunities that commonl

12、y exists,and which in aggregate can deliver big returns for organizations.IDC#EUR1470582203A ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?About This StudyIn 2020,IDC ran a global research survey in North America,Europe,and Asia of 431 respondents from 19 industries worki

13、ng in companies that had at least 250 employees(see Figure 1 for details of the respondents).377 of the respondents were used in the analysis presented in this report.We asked decision makers and workers whether they were using RPA or other labor productivity enhancing technologies,and then segmente

14、d the respondents as follows:1.Automation decision makers with RPA experience2.Automation decision makers without RPA experience 3.Regular workers where RPA is adopted4.Regular workers where RPA is not adoptedThis spread was designed to give us a rounded view of RPA implementation and practice matur

15、ity in todays organizations and enable us to test our broader hypotheses:There is value in every worker having access to a software robot as an assistant.Decision-makers who have already adopted RPA see the value in providing software robot assistants to all employees.IDC complemented its global sur

16、vey with a set of in-depth case study interviews with enterprises that are investing with the core assumption that a robot for every worker is beneficial to the enterprise and that it is worth the investment.Our aim was to compare the survey results with findings direct from enterprises achieving su

17、ccess with their efforts to deliver RPA for every worker.Our case studies demonstrate that successful organizations eventually embrace and extend their capabilities to create what we call a people-first mindset.This mindset involves enabling workers to help themselves and their teams become as effec

18、tive and productive as possible,and is key to responding to the challenge of helping all workers benefit from automation.Automation Centers of Excellence(COEs)are crucial to this transition.They must extend their mandates from being purely focused on acting as control authorities to being enablers o

19、f,and advocates for,much wider automation communities across the business.The largest gains go to those organizations that can run both approaches together:process-first to address problems of inefficient work at scale and people-first in parallel to harness the ideas and energy of individual worker

20、s and teams and address productivity issues.Finally,they leverage evolved automation COEs to create a feedback loop between the two that identifies productivity problem hotspots which are,in fact,better dealt with using a process-first approach.FIGURE 1IDC Global Study RespondentsSource:IDC Robot fo

21、r Every Worker Survey 2020,N=431 Asia50%5,000+30%1,0004,99931%North America25%Europe25%25049918%50099921%REGIONEMPLOYEE NUMBERSIDC#EUR1470582204A ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?A ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?Taki

22、ng the Pulse of RPAFIGURE 2RPA Programs Demonstrate Clear BenefitsOrganizations are Successful with RPA,but Most are not yet Fully MatureThe results of our global survey show that decision makers involved with RPA see clear benefits.Figure 2 shows the RPA program improvements that respondents indica

23、ted delivered medium to high levels of benefit.As the figure shows,these are benefits commonly achieved with RPA adoption,revolving around reducing mistakes,speeding up processes,making employees more efficient,and achieving greater productivity.Any organization new to RPA should be able to realize

24、these benefits.Q:How has the use of RPA provided benefits to your organization?Reduced errors or mistakes,reducing time spent in reworkImproved our speed of response delivering shorter time to value and improving overall process efficiencyEmployees are able to make better and more consistent decisio

25、nsIncreased work without hiring more headcountReduced headcount in staff-intensive areasReduced repetitive administrative work Repetitive,low-value tasks removed Improved customer satisfaction because we are more responsive to client requestsSource:IDC Robot for Every Worker Survey 2020,N=37779%79%7

26、7%74%73%73%69%63%IDC#EUR1470582205A ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?Other RPA adopters with a robot for every worker program view employee engagement in automation programs as transformational.By giving their workers opportunities to become directly engaged

27、with automation programs at some level,organizations empower workers to take a vested interest in improving their own productivity,and to be recognized for it.For them to be successful with automation,there must be a pervasive culture that embraces the benefits of automation.Global professional serv

28、ices firm PwC realized quite quickly after it began its RPA journey that automating back-office processes wasnt by itself going to take the organization where it needed to get to,from an operating impact perspective,and turned to the front office and employees.Direct employee use of automation tooli

29、ng to build their own automation became a strategic area of focus:Max CheprasovChief Automation Officer,dentsuOur mission is to elevate human potential,not eliminate it.Adoption is the new engagement margin.And what we mean by that is if people dont adopt the automation technologies you provide,then

30、 youre not going to change the business.People have to make adoption of automation the fabric of their job.Suneet Dua Partner,Chief Product Officer,PwCThe RPA benefits expressed by our survey respondents demonstrate that RPA is rooted in classic business process improvement techniques,and this focus

31、 of improvement is becoming standard.In this analysis,we call this a process-first RPA implementation and practice mindset.Here,improvement opportunities are viewed through the question:“How can we improve this process by replacing or augmenting human workers with automation to improve efficiency,qu

32、ality,and speed while lowering costs?”However,there is another thread running through the RPA value proposition that is more closely associated with talent metrics.For example:Employees who feel valued and like their jobs are often much better at them(the equivalent of an employee net promoter score

33、 metric)The total cost of retaining employees is lower than replacing an employee(operating costs metric)In addition,during times of crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic,employee onboarding and hiring contingent labor can be slow and painful(driving a blend of operating costs and lower levels of emp

34、loyee satisfaction).Enterprises adopt RPA to respond to labor talent and capacity challenges more readily,and in more forward-thinking organizations,managers have moved beyond simply seeing RPA as an FTE take-out initiative.The belief in employees as critical is summed up well by dentsu,a global med

35、ia and digital marketing communications company.dentsus business case for embracing all workers jobs as open to exploration with automation is built around cost reduction,resource utilization(billable hours),and quality,but the organization is also looking at things like work-life balance,involvemen

36、t in innovation,creativity,and skills development.IDC#EUR1470582206A ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?FIGURE 3Measuring Survey Respondents Against IDCs Automation Maturity ModelAD HOCExperimental AutomationOPPORTUNISTICInvesting in AutomationREPEATABLESkilled

37、 in AutomationMANAGEDProactive AutomationOPTIMIZEDCulture of AutomationExperimental period with support from executive sponsor to prove the value of automation across a few projects.RPA and process discovery tools are popular options for proof of value.Establish Automation Center of Excellence,with

38、initial services communicated across stakeholders.Core platforms selected with supplemental tools to promote standardization and reusability.COE manages portfolio of services.Skilled in both core automation and AutoML development.Proficient in aligning ROI and success metrics for new projects with o

39、ngoing business value well understood.Proactive identification of areas that would benefit from improvement,with best practices and policies for automation planning and management.End-user methodology adopted.Fully operational program with reusable,resilient assets and full skills.Broad adoption of

40、end-user program makes it possible for everyone to minimize time spent on rote work to maximize value-adding efforts.Source:IDC 202080%of the decision makers that have adopted RPA are providing workers with access to RPA tools that enable them to automate their work.Within this group,22%rated their

41、program as highly successful,and 71%achieved moderate success.By that measure,looking at both decision makers running an end-user program and those that are not,18%of the decision maker respondents work in an organization operating at the highest level of maturity.Of the remainder,57%are in the Mana

42、ged stage,and the remaining 25%align with earlier stages of maturity.This survey also clearly supports IDCs broader research showing that organizations worldwide are progressing on common pathways through a set of maturity stages in their automation practice.Figure 3 provides an illustration of IDCs

43、 Automation MaturityScape maturity model with five maturity stages.We can see that overall,maturity is still skewed towards the Managed stage.25%57%18%12345IDC#EUR1470582207A ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?A ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-

44、FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?Who Wants a Robot for Every Worker?Having established that most RPA adopters involve at least some end users in their programs and are seeing some moderate success,let us return to our initial hypotheses.First,is there value in every worker having access to a software robot

45、as an assistant?And second,do decision-makers that have already adopted RPA see the value in supplying software robot assistants to all employees?Workers Tell us There is Value in Robot Assistants,and Value in Getting Involved in AutomationOur survey polled a broad range of workers who are not yet i

46、nvolved in RPA programs,including coordinators,administrators,process workers,knowledge workers,and professionals/subject matter experts.We asked a variety of questions about work challenges;perceptions of the potential value and threat of automation;workers interests in getting involved in automati

47、on of their own work by creating bots,by themselves or as part of larger teams;and factors that would help them feel comfortable with being involved in automation programs.Overall,workers clearly see the value in having access to robot assistants to help them in their work,and furthermore,there is m

48、oderate(but qualified)worker appetite for getting directly involved in automation programs by creating bots,and clearly enough interest to identify a pilot group to build a successful program.Figure 4 provides an overview of the key insights from these respondents.When asked about the challenges ass

49、ociated with everyday work,the most cited challenge was switching between applications to carry out a task(42%),followed by administrative tasks(32%),then data preparation(30%).When asked how they felt about automation replacing part of their work,71%of worker respondents selected at least one of th

50、e options that included the word“happy”while 46%selected options that included the word“worried.”There was only a 17%overlap of respondents who had mixed emotions and selected both happy and worried options.IDC#EUR1470582208A ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?

51、When asked about their interest in getting directly involved in creating bots,we saw very positive signs from respondents.25%of respondents were firm in their willingness to get involved,38%indicated they may be interested,and 27%were clear that they would not like to get involved.Workers clearly to

52、ld us that there are conditions attached to getting involved,though.For example,29%of these respondents indicated that any system would need to be easy to use,and related to that,20%do not want to go through a lot of technical training.28%wanted assurances that their job would not be completely auto

53、mated,and 22%were clear that being able to share ideas with others about what to automate would be a key factor.However,it is important to emphasize that in practice,workers getting involved in creating bots does not necessarily mean individual workers acting as citizen developers.When we asked work

54、ers with RPA experience whether they had already been actively involved in creating bots,42%reported that they had either participated in hackathons or workshops,or had acted as part of broader teams to get bots developed.Only 11%told us that they had built bots by themselves that were in production

55、.FIGURE 4Workers Show There is Value in a Robot for Every WorkerWorkers with medium to high challenges spending too much time on the following.(Workers not yet impacted by RPA initiatives)How would you feel about technology that can automate some of the routine tasks you work on?What would help you

56、to become more interested or confident in potentially creating robots?Switching between applicationsHappy to spend more time on more interesting workHappy to get more work completedWorry that my job might become redundantWorry that I would have to spend time fixing problems created by automationsWor

57、ry that my team might shrink over time,meaning Id become lonely or isolatedAdministrative tasksPreparing data for analysisDealing with exceptionsPulling together informationManual tasks that should be automatedManual validations and reworkWould you be interested in being directly involved with creat

58、ing robots that help you automate your own routine tasks?Source:IDC Robot for Every Worker Survey 2020,N=18342%37%15%26%27%35%38%23%34%19%14%13%32%30%29%26%25%25%Maybe38%Yes,absolutely25%Mistakes wont get me into troubleDoesnt require a lot of technical trainingShare ideas with others about what to

59、automate and whyAssurances my job wont be completely automatedA system that is easy to useNothing/not interestedNo37%IDC#EUR1470582209A ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?Will RPA eventually apply to all working areas in your organization?Comparing no end-user

60、access and those that offer accessFIGURE 5Decision Makers Mindset Dictate Their View of a Robot For Every WorkerSource:IDC Robot for Every Worker Survey 2020,Decision-maker RPA adopters,N=95Decision Makers Mindsets Dictate How They See the Value of All Workers Using RobotsWe asked decision makers wi

61、th RPA experience several questions about their programs.When asked whether they believed RPA would eventually be applied to all workers in their organizations,27%replied that RPA technology as it is today would eventually apply everywhere,and 15%replied that if augmented with AI,RPA would be applic

62、able everywhere.By contrast,58%indicated their belief that RPA even if augmented with AI will never apply everywhere.Of the decision makers we surveyed that have not yet adopted RPA,35%believed or were leaning toward believing that RPA could be useful to all workers,63%disagreed,and 2%were unsure.Di

63、gging into this issue more deeply is informative.Decision makers that do not support end users being directly involved in automation work through bot creation are much more negative about the value of a robot for every worker,with 79%negative and 21%positive.Decision makers actively engaging users i

64、n automation programs through some mix of hackathons,workshops,and active development work are much more evenly split(47%positive and 53%negative).Yes and leaning toward yesNo and leaning toward noYes and leaning towardNo and leaning toward noEnd-user programNo end-user program53%79%21%47%42%58%IDC#

65、EURA ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?A ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?Making the Case for a Robot for Every Worker:Addressing the Long Tail of OpportunityIf workers are quite clear,overall,in expressing t

66、he need for robot assistance with work,why are decision makers not in step with them?The answer lies in a fundamental misalignment between the mindset that most organizations typically bring with them as they develop RPA programs and the true nature of the automation opportunities.A traditional RPA

67、program,led with a process-first mindset,looks at improving business processes by automating activities to lower process costs and improve process efficiency,quality,and speed.When considering a specific process,it is relatively easy to identify and target the repetitive activities of administrative

68、 workers who spend most of their time in that one process with RPA.By contrast,again from a process-first mindset,the value of applying RPA to someone who works across a wide variety of activities and processes is much more difficult to identify.With a process-first approach,business cases for RPA i

69、nvestment rely on a critical mass of workers performing similar tasks using similar applications and data sources that collectively aggregate to achieve measurable business value once the work is automated.The cost of automating work and managing automations in a process-first RPA program places a h

70、igh burden on justifying the business case.However,our survey is clear that the overall opportunity to deliver robot assistants to workers does not align with this kind of business case justification.For example,we can see from Figure 4 that although some of the tasks posing challenges to workers ar

71、e part of a clear business process(such as investigating and handling exceptions),some of the tasks named are common across domains(such as gathering information or preparing reports).Clearly,workers with interest in improving their productivity and ability to add value to their organizations are no

72、t exclusively heads down process workers.IDC#EURA ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?FIGURE 6A Long Tail of Challenges to Address Looking more deeply at survey responses reveals that the overall set of automation opportunities in organizations typica

73、lly has a long tail.Figure 6 shows the results we obtained when we asked workers to rate the value they would gain from using automation to relieve challenges in their daily work.What is clear is that no particular challenge stands out above the others respondents rated all the challenges roughly eq

74、ually.The most frequently cited challenge in Figure 6 the need to switch between multiple applications to complete tasks is cited by 59%of workers.But only 20%of those respondents told us that applying automation would yield high value for them.The averaged response was 3.0(equating to moderate valu

75、e).At the same time,however,survey respondents on average cited multiple tasks that could be improved through automation.Systematically automating business tasks that are within the long tail of automation opportunity would deliver many hours saved across a workforce,freeing up capacity to allow wor

76、kers to focus on efforts that deliver higher value.And an increasing portion of the workforce performs work that varies over a day,where they may be knowledge workers,coordinators,or subject matter experts called in to support a variety of activities.Source:IDC Robot for Every Worker Survey 2020,N=1

77、28 AVERAGE SCORERESPONDENTSWORK CHALLENGEWhen doing my job,I often need to switch quickly between multiple applications to complete a task because the information I need or the actions I need to take arent all in one placeI spend too much time tracking down and dealing with exceptionsI spend too muc

78、h time on manual validations and reworkIts difficult for me to find and pull together the information I need to do my job quickly My workday is dominated by performing administrative tasksI spend too much time gathering and preparing data for analysis or reportingI cannot be collaborative with other

79、 team membersOur in-depth case study interviews with automation leaders showed how organizations can flip this around.For example,Dutch airline group KLM began its end-user focused automation program by targeting improved employee experience.In one instance,a worker had repetitive strain injury and

80、the automation helped relieve their stress while allowing them to work on more complicated activities.To run a mature,cross-enterprise RPA program,the COE must assume that there is potential value in every worker having a robot assistant and put a method in place to make that possible.We think about

81、 this as extending the COE to incorporate a methodology built around developing and supporting a growing team of end-user champions and also aimed at focusing on special employee situations that require help provided by the RPA developers in the COE.59%3.03.03.02.92.92.92.741%36%36%38%47%43%IDC#EUR1

82、4705822012A ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?A ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?Learning from Leaders:Build a New Mindset and a Methodology for SuccessIn the earlier sections of this paper,we established that robot for

83、 every worker programs have major potential,but that unfortunately,the traditional process-first mindsets baked into RPA programs cannot by themselves enable organizations to fulfil the vision.In this section,we explore how eight leading organizations have transformed their approaches to RPA program

84、s beyond that process-first mindset and enabled themselves to truly embrace the concept of a robot for every worker.In our study,we carried out eight in-depth case study interviews of organizations with highly mature RPA programs across North America,Europe,and Asia.We worked to understand as much a

85、s possible about how each organization had reached its current level of maturity.With these interviews,we learned:How each organization began with RPA and achieved buy-in from the COE sponsors.What motivated them to build out their citizen developer program.The degree to which executives were involv

86、ed in sponsoring initiatives.How they rolled out and scaled their RPA programs over time and developed their internal capabilities to support projects.How they measured success,and the outcomes they achieved.Common Patterns of PracticeAs you would expect,every case study story was different.After al

87、l,these organizations spanned a wide variety of industries,cultures,business models,and geographies.What was striking,though,was that there were many similarities,too.Figure 7 provides an overview of the patterns of practice we discovered from these case studies.IDC#EURA ROBOT FOR EVERY W

88、ORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?Some of the common actions taken by our case study participants,particularly as they initially embarked on their RPA journeys,will be obvious to anyone familiar with good practice when introducing new technologies to businesses:creating proofs

89、 of concept,evaluating and selecting vendors,setting up pilot projects,and so on.But as our case study organizations began scaling their programs,they were also highly consistent in a less obvious way.What came through time and again was that these organizations realized that their ambitions for ret

90、urns from their RPA investments could only be satisfied by engaging work teams across the business units and teams directly,bringing them into the heart of the overall program and enabling them to contribute with impact.Beyond Citizen Developers:Hackathons,Workshops,and Ongoing EngagementThe actions

91、 these organizations all took went further than simply working to identify and educate“citizen developers”(end-users that would play hands-on roles in RPA bot development teams).Some organizations,like Singtel and another Asian mobile operator,led with hackathons short,energetic community events in

92、which diverse groups of people team up to quickly experiment and prototype ideas of solutions that they feel will benefit the community.Others led with programs of more traditional,localized,and small-scale workshops to engage workers and elicit ideas for RPA-enabled work improvements.Yet others,suc

93、h as KLM,developed training courses,with the assistance of vendors or partners,to help workers get started.All,though,were focused on how they could scale participation and engagement in every aspect of the RPA program not just bot development.FIGURE 7Patterns of Practice From the Most Mature Organi

94、zationsSource:;IDC,2020Hackathons,gamification,skills workshopsExpansion of automation offerings;e.g.,workflow,AI,analyticsCenter of Excllence/incubators Distributed COE networks New teams and functionsRPA vendor selectionCreation of pilot(s)Proof of Concept(s)Vendor evaluationsEMBARKINGBUILDINGINNO

95、VATING4321SCALINGTaking innovation ideas from hackathons/workshops back into the funnel for pilots/proofs of concept,etc.5.FeedbackIDC#EURA ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?Finally,all these leading RPA adopters realized that creating initial engag

96、ement with workers when imagining and designing prototypes was not enough.All realized that they needed to ensure that workers initial contributions and participation were effectively and visibly acted upon,even when those workers were not subsequently involved in developing bots.Workers needed to s

97、ee that their contributions were being taken seriously,to ensure that they would continue to value contributing over the long term.ConocoPhillips,one of the worlds largest independent oil and gas exploration and production companies,first focused on unattended automation,developing a center of excel

98、lence within IT to support the development,adoption,and governance of RPA across the company.As this program matured,the company expanded it to include attended automation,and promoted citizen development across users from all areas of the business,with efforts to engage and educate workers on an au

99、tomation-first mindset.In the ConocoPhillips program,citizen developers are supported through peer networking,tools to share ideas and solutions,and a center of excellence that provides guidance and standards and can help complete more complex or leverageable automations,ensuring that workers always

100、 have support in their efforts.To revisit our observation from earlier in this paper,as all these leading organizations progressed through the initial stages of RPA maturity,they started out with a process-first mindset,just like the organizations we surveyed.Here,the focus was on creating automatio

101、n built to deal with repetitive high-volume tasks,such as data analysis and accounting.Attention then shifted to use cases where the full automation of tasks might not always be possible,but where instead bots could be used to augment human task execution.But crucially,the mindset was still process-

102、first.Asher LakeKLMAftab Ahmed,Program Manager,Emerging Digital Technology for Functions,ConocoPhillipsThe incentive is to upskill yourself,and we help to reboot your skills.This is a 4-week guided e-learning,not a hackathon.Weve also organized a virtual academy live to build a bot hosted by UiPath.

103、Consider how your process would be designed if you were able to do it with automation in mind from the outset how would you change your process,both the steps and the timing?Asian mobile operatorWe ran a hackathon with UiPath over 2 days.Starting with 786 ideas,a team of 64 whittled these down to 32

104、 ideas.32 bots were implemented,saving 94 FTEs.Every Wednesday we run an RPA clinic users register in advance,and people bring their problems to talk together with each other and with experts.IDC#EURA ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?FIGURE 8Shifti

105、ng to a People-First MindsetAs these organizations began to drive engagement and participation much more widely,though,getting diverse and sometimes unexpected contributions led them to develop a people-first mindset,which is quite different from a process-first mindset.A people-first mindset for RP

106、A is fundamentally about asking the question“how can we make our people as productive and effective as they can be?”People-First RPA:Five Stages to Develop a New MindsetSo,what lessons can we learn from these leading organizations journeys,and what can you take away as actions in developing and impl

107、ementing a people-first RPA mindset?Figure 8 gives an overview.Automation Maturity Stages OPTIMIZEDMANAGEDREPEATABLEAD HOCOPPORTUNISTICAnalyzing our eight in-depth case studies led us to identify five key stages that organizations work through as they make this people-first shift.Any organization ke

108、en to maximize their RPA maturity and embrace the concept of a robot for every worker should use these five stages to create a roadmap:Inspire and engage.Use innovation tools like hackathons and small-scale workshops to get teams of regular workers fired up about the potential of automation to help

109、them be as productive and effective as they can be.Identify and select.Create and resource a clear and objective process that helps you filter and prioritize use cases that come from hackathons and workshops.Identify individuals that have the interest and capability to get more directly involved in

110、bot creation as citizen developers.Source and implement.Work with a range of resources and sources including core RPA technical talent,vendor and partner experts,and citizen developers to implement key use cases.Look for ways to help teams reuse ideas,templates,and components,and give credit to thos

111、e people whose contributions are used.Source:;IDC,2020People-First Automation Key ActivitiesInspire&EngageIdentify&SelectSource&ImplementSustain&ShareManage Change&SupportPeople-First FocusProcess First FocusPeople-First Key CapabilitiesKey capabilities clearly highlighted in surveyOnline&Instructor

112、-led TrainingSuccessMetrics and MeasurementBot Developer Review ProgramEmpowering,Educating,Enabling COECommunity for Bot,Code,Success,Q&A SharingInnovation EngagementIDC#EURA ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?Manage change and support.Do not be tem

113、pted to focus purely on helping teams carry out initial bot implementation.Put systems in place to make sure that teams are supported to meet their business goals with RPA over the long term,from both a technical and business change perspective.Sustain and share.Find ways to help sustain momentum an

114、d inspiration throughout the organization share stories and successes.FIGURE 9Q.Which capabilities are available to help your staff/teams build their own bots?Source:IDC Robot for Every Worker Survey 2020,N=76 People-First RPA:Key CapabilitiesIn addition to the five stages that organizations pass th

115、rough to foster a people-first mindset,our case study research also gave us clear insight into key capabilities that organizations need to progress through these stages(also shown in Figure 6).Importantly,these capabilities were also clearly signposted in our survey.When we asked decision makers exp

116、erienced in RPA about the capabilities they needed to help them drive participation in their programs,there was a strong correlation between their responses and what we learned from our case study interviews.Figure 9 shows the common elements of programs that support end-user programs that help them

117、 become successful in RPA development.47%45%42%39%37%34%33%33%24%18%Online training on demandMetrics to measure successCommunity portal Bot reviews with expert RPA developersSmall group,instructor-led trainingBot hackathonsAccess to a designated COE team for supportRewards program for bots that go i

118、nto productionBot test by COE team to ensure compliance Well-defined controls and policiesIDC#EURA ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?The key people-first RPA program capabilities include:Online and instructor-led training for teams getting involved

119、in prototyping,design,development,and management of bots.Online training on demand was the most common feature of an end-user program,with 47%of survey respondents offering this.37%ran small-group,instructor-led training.Training cannot be restricted to technical staff but must be made available to

120、all,and should not be restricted to user training,but also development training.Clear management of success metrics and measurement.Appropriate success metrics and associated measurement approaches depend on business context.45%of survey respondents included success metrics in their end-user program

121、s.For some use cases,measuring employee satisfaction and churn might be the best metrics.For others,the best metrics might be more orientated around customer engagement feedback,or even data accuracy.The crucial thing is that metrics need to be driven by business outcomes,and measurements need to be

122、 shared widely to learn from successes and failures.There are differences in how teams approach metrics.For example,PwC keeps track of every automation put into production,but does not expect workers to make a business case for an automation or individually measure the impact of each of these automa

123、tions.The team measures on effectiveness,such as the number of bot executions,the number of users engaged,and the activities and KPIs captured.The broad goal is measured in terms of business hours saved.ConocoPhillips,on the other hand,embeds the justification in the automation.A bot developer revie

124、w program to enable non-technical teams and individuals building bots to get confidence that their bots are good quality,to learn by doing with a safety net,and to help them improve delivery quality over time.39%of the survey respondents with end-user programs offered bot reviews.A community for bot

125、s,pre-built components,success metrics,and Q&A sharing.A community portal was offered by 42%of survey respondents.Crucial here is the nature of the resource provided.For teams to really progress toward self-sufficiency and help each other,a software publication platform(such as an internal bot store

126、)is not enough by itself.Teams and individuals involved in building bots and delivering RPA-enabled business change must have a place they can go to share questions,answers,and success stories,as well as bots,templates,and technical components.An experienced innovation engagement team that can build

127、 and run hackathons and workshops to drive worker engagement and insight.37%of RPA decision makers included hackathons in their programs.There is one further critical component that organizations must develop and leverage in specific ways if they want to shift approaches to embrace a people-first mi

128、ndset.That component is the RPA or automation COE.If its a 10-step process and the end user says,it takes me this amount of time across each of those 10 steps,Aftab Ahmed,Program Manager,Emerging Digital Technology,ConocoPhillips we build logic into the bot that writes out the time into a database,a

129、nd then we apply costing numbers to that so we can calculate what the theoretical opportunity cost is thats been saved every time that that automation runs.IDC#EURA ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?Truly Mature RPA Practice Combines Process-First a

130、nd People-First ApproachesIn this paper,we have highlighted the value of extending a process-first RPA mindset with a people-first mindset,and shared the journey involved and the key capabilities you need to build to make that journey.However,there is one more twist in this story:the mindset change

131、from a process-first approach to a people-first approach is not a simple transformation from one approach to the other.Although a people-first approach to RPA by itself delivers some important advantages over a pure process-first approach including more use case coverage,greater program scaling,bett

132、er overall value returned and more effective management of business change another level of advantage is available to organizations that can bring both approaches together to create a continuous feedback loop(see Figure 10).In the early stages of RPA maturity,most organizations create COEs often,onc

133、e they have one or two projects completed,and start to explore further business demand to create and enforce controls over bot delivery,vendor and platform usage,and operating models.Effective COEs help to scale initiatives that involve technology-driven business change of all kinds.RPA is often man

134、aged from a central COE.However,whereas COEs typically start out as control authorities,for an organization to make the switch to a people-first RPA mindset,the role of its COE must morph and extend.The COE must continue to play a role in governing aspects of bot delivery and technical architecture

135、and enforcing standards,but it must also take on responsibility to help empower,educate,and enable diverse teams of RPA experts and non-experts through all these stages.In short,COEs have a vital role to play as a delivery vehicle for all the key capabilities we highlight above,working in concert wi

136、th the business teams driving demand for automation.IDC#EURA ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?In the feedback loop shown in figure 10,the first three stages plot out a traditional process-first approach.However,as COEs begin to master top down RPA

137、project execution,stage 4(end-user engagement and ideation)starts.When people-first engagement and ideation kicks in,teams and individuals get the opportunity to work together to uncover,formalize,and then address their own pain points,and those solutions are implemented,in collaboration with the CO

138、E and other specialists,in stages 5 and 6.Crucially,though,there is another stage.In stage 7,the process of end users working to identify,quantify,prioritize,and implement use cases for automation however lightweight that process might be can also provide crucial insights for business leaders identi

139、fying larger,more transformational opportunities(so reigniting process-first efforts,again with stage 1).Organizations engaging diverse sets of teams and individuals in automation opportunity identification often find clusters of opportunities that are either similar to each other,or that share feat

140、ures.Analyzing the outputs of this work“in the large”means that COEs can act as a conduit for linking people-first exercises and process-first exercises,finding transformational opportunities from common work and challenge patterns that would have never been discovered with a purely process-first ap

141、proach.FIGURE 10A Continuous Feedback Loop for Full RPA MaturitySource:;IDC,2020PROCESS-FIRSTPEOPLE-FIRST1.Program Definition and Governance4.End-User Engagement and Ideation5.Mentoring and Review7.Outcome Analysis and Solution HarvestingCoEControl,standardizeCoEEmpower,educate,enable6.Deployment an

142、d Scaling3.Process Mastery2.Service Definition and RefinementIDC#EURA ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?GETTING TO EVERY WORKER:RECOMMENDATIONS FOR RPA ADOPTERSGetting to Every Worker:Recommendations for RPA AdoptersAssume that all workers will bene

143、fit from a robot assistant.It may ultimately be that not all workers will benefit from a robot assistant,but assuming this upfront does not provide the opportunity to see what workers can do with the right tools and help.Figure 11 compares highly successful end-user programs with those that barely m

144、et or did not meet expectations and the most significant program features that are different between the two segments.This shows that programs are more successful when the focus is on becoming successful:A review with an experienced RPA developer was the most significant difference we found between

145、the practices of the highly successful RPA COEs,compared with the less successful.Conversely,COEs that are primarily focused on controls and compliance reviews,which was shown earlier in Figure 7,came from the less successful teams.Build a program that balances control,oversight,and strict metrics w

146、ith mentoring,support,online training,and hackathons Bot hackathons also were used more frequently with the highly successful teams than with the less successful.This makes sense when asking end users to learn something unfamiliar.Compliance and controls are important but those should be communicate

147、d and enforced by embedding automated testing into them.Because mentoring and hackathons are more resource intensive than other aspects of an end-user program,it makes sense to think carefully about how to scale enough capacity to satisfy this function.Building a program in waves,where the pilot gro

148、up is skilled up enough to serve as a mentor for low-to mid-level difficulty automations in subsequent waves should be considered.Where business units see significant demand for RPA,they may also want to take proficient end-user developers and assign them to the COE short-term to learn how to conduc

149、t hackathons that can be applied across the business unit.IDC#EURA ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?FIGURE 11Comparison of Most Differentiating Features Between Highly Successful COEs and Less Successful OnesSource:;IDC Robot for Every Worker Surve

150、y 2020 Be intentional about identifying and nurturing end users who will form the backbone of the end-user programAn end-user focused developer program is important,but it is only part of what you need for a program that is centered around a broad automation culture.At PwC,for example,at least 18,00

151、0 users actively use some element of the shared platform that is part of PwCs end-user self-automation program,but only a fraction of this total(1,0002,000 employees)have built and submitted automations.Most users are involved in a less hands-on way.The classification of personas highlighted by PwC

152、here is a useful starting point for teams to understand who can run on their own as a citizen developer,and who is willing but does not have the full set of skills needed to automate a more complicated process.With this classification in mind,you can structure your program to provide the most suitab

153、le opportunities and support to everyone.Neither a technical background nor age is the best way to identify end users willing to learn how to use RPA to improve their jobs.We suggest an approach to identifying candidates for a pilot program that uses some type of survey to find workers who are:Happy

154、 about the prospect of automating their work Absolutely willing to build bots Interested in collaborating on automation and sharing results with othersIn our survey,20%of our worker respondents matched these criteria,and note that respondents are in roles that do not require a technical background.I

155、n our interviews for this study and in our role as analysts,weve found there is a good pool of workers who are both interested in upskilling themselves to see where this takes them in their career.And they do become successful in RPA development,even if only for themselves.Kevin Kroen,Partner,Intell

156、igent Automation and Digital Upskilling Leader,PwCWe saw the emergence of different personas:(1)True citizen developer who is tech savvy,(2)the citizen user who understands the tech and provides ideas and can code a basic bot,(3)level up who is aware but not engaged,(4)digitally unaware.Did not meet

157、 or barely met Exceeded or significantly exceeded32%44%49%28%37%32%43%33%Access to a designated COE team for supportOnline training on demandBot reviews with expert RPA developersBot hackathonsIDC#EURA ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?In the field,

158、we see variations in criteria for deciding who should be involved.For example,at ConocoPhillips,the COE hand-picked the first 100 trainees with help from a range of business groups.When the large Asian communications provider Singtel Group began to plan for a citizen developer program,it first had t

159、o evaluate the benefits compared with the overhead costs of training citizen developers to determine whether the five days of automation training required was worth it.Singtel decided to create a hackathon to qualify the program as an investment.Chiron Lum SingtelDemand for the hackathon was huge.We

160、 had 64 people in the pilot who automated 9,000 hours of work between them.The employee who won the hackathon had been there 46 years.The robot solved a problem that drove her nuts every week of her career,and she was thrilled.Singtel is now a believer in a robot for every Singtel employee.Lum point

161、ed out that there were many workers in their 50s and 60s who applied for the hackathon and recommended that age should not be a factor in selecting suitable candidates.Monitor advances in RPA and related technologies for innovation that makes automation development faster,simpler,and cheaperRPA plat

162、forms are moving into the next generation.One important evolution is leading to greater automation of RPA development.Emerging techniques that are gaining popularity today include process discovery and recording technology to capture,translate,and import task definitions directly into a development

163、studio where interpreting and implementing recorded actions is automated.The application of embedded interactivity also offers a means to build small,rapidly callable automations that fluidly complete work in a combination of automated and manual steps.And increasingly,robots will run in the backgro

164、und,working on behalf of each worker.Over the next few years,our thinking about software robots will change.Teams working in organizations with a culture of automation will instead think about a robot as their assistant,keeping track of work,prioritizing tasks,helping automate those tasks,communicat

165、ing with other workers robot assistants,and helping with decision making.Because RPA is innovation driven,it is important to monitor advances to identify key opportunities to simplify development,broaden out what can be automated,and drive down the cost of development.These advances will improve the

166、 economics and impact of a robot for every worker.IDC#EURA ROBOT FOR EVERY WORKER:ARE WE READY FOR A PEOPLE-FIRST AUTOMATION MINDSET?About the AnalystsMaureen Fleming,Program VP,Worldwide Intelligent Process Automation Market Research and Advisory ServiceMaureen Fleming is Program Vice Pr

167、esident for IDCs Intelligent Process Automation research.In this role,she focuses on a portfolio of technologies used by enterprises to speed up,drive cost out of,and support a customer-centric approach to business operations.She especially focuses on the convergence of AI,machine learning,and autom

168、ation and how that combination changes the economics and benefits of process improvement.With more than 20 years of industry and analyst experience,Maureen has worked at both software startups as well as established enterprise software companies.She began her analyst career at Gartner,where she rese

169、arched technologies that allowed enterprises to create and adopt information assets,particularly real-time information and the associated enabling technologies.Maureen began her career in technology as a programmer for the University of Michigan,where she has a General Studies degree with concentrat

170、ions in computer science,economics,and journalism.Neil Ward Dutton,VP,AI and Intelligent Process Automation European PracticesNeil Ward-Dutton is vice president,AI and Intelligent Process Automation European Practices at IDC.Prior to joining IDC,Neil was Founder and Research Director of MWD Advisors

171、,a technology advisory firm focusing on digital technologies and their impacts on business.Neil is recognized as one of Europes most experienced and high-profile technology industry analysts,and has regularly appeared on TV and in print media over his 20-year industry analyst career,as well as autho

172、ring over 10 books on IT and business strategy.Neil initially studied and trained as a software engineer and holds a BSc in Computer Software Technology from the University of Bath.He is also a Fellow of the RSA(Royal Society for Arts,Manufactures and Commerce).John OBrien,Research Director,European

173、 Intelligent Application ServicesJohn OBrien is a research director responsible for IDCs European Intelligent Application Services research program.His research focuses on the disruptive challenges and opportunities for application services providers as they pivot to The New,underpinned by exploitin

174、g digital technologies,such as artificial intelligence(AI),automation,analytics,and intelligent platforms,to deliver enhanced customer outcomes.Based in London,John sits in IDC Europes Accelerated App Delivery(AccAD)practice,where he contributes to a broader research team assessing the paradigm shif

175、ts in application delivery,via DevOps,microservices,cloud-based delivery,and low-code/no-code apps,which are rapidly evolving to support enterprises on their journey to become digital-native enterprises.He also collaborates closely with IDC Europes Artificial Intelligence and Services,Channels,and A

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