Express CRN India – July 2019

COMPUTER RESELLER NEWSI JULY, 2019I crn.inI 15

RPA

new technology,” says Bindra.

How profitable is RPA for
solution providers
Though RPA implementation
brings in lot of cost savings and other
benefits to customers, it is not the
same with service providers.
“RPA engagements are short term
based and will not run into long
running contracts like in other
technology. So, we don’t see RPA
generating huge profit margins when
an individual engagement is
concerned. However, low profit
margins can be compensated by
volume of implementations. We keep
the teams agile for swift
implementations,” says Rama Krishna.
RPA market is in a nascent stage in
India and hence pricing standards
vary. “With the presence of several
foreign companies the pricing is
competitive. Our charges are typically
associated with the savings that the
customer can achieve and range
between three to five per cent of the
savings (also depends on the volume).
The potential to exponentially
increase profit margins in this
business is very high,” states
Krishnan.
“The business is profitable for sure.
We typically works with our client on a
full service model, which essentially

means that Zensar consultants help

find opportunities for automation

within the client enterprise, prioritise

them with a business case, procures

licenses, automates (implements)

them and maintains the bots for a

three to five year period. The

profitability is built into the end to end

managed service model,” mentions

Singh of Zensar.

Deployment challenges

Success of RPA deployments

depends upon the process champions

sharing their knowledge openly and

accurately. “However, there is still

plenty of mistrust, even fear, that they

are helping in making their own jobs

redundant, which causes resistance,”

shares Ray.

He further points out that the

software needs to know all variants of

a process to handle all possible

scenarios, however, often no single

person in the organisation would have

the systemic knowledge. Moreover,

process documentations often capture

only the happy path scenario.

RPA should not be used to

automate a broken process.

Technology cannot fix the process,

contrary to inflated expectations

about RPA.

The performance of the software

is limited to the slowest performing

applications in the entire value

chain, hence due to legacy

applications, the full potential

of bots are often not realised.

RPA has access to a lot of

information such as financial

information, password, etc., hence

security must be the top priority.

Change management and

operation of RPA is often a challenge,

as though businesses own the asset,

they have no experience managing

the technology.

Rama Krishna

MD, Bodhtree Consulting

THE PERFORMANCE OF THE

SOFTWARE IS LIMITED TO

THE SLOWEST PERFORMING

APPLICATIONS IN THE

ENTIRE VALUE CHAIN,

HENCE DUE TO LEGACY

APPLICATIONS, THE FULL

POTENTIAL OF BOTS ARE

OFTEN NOT REALISED.

RPAHAS ACCESS TO ALOT

OF INFORMATION SUCH AS

FINANCIAL INFORMATION,

PASSWORD, ETC., HENCE

SECURITY MUST BE

THE TOP PRIORITY