Why is Robotic Process Automation different from Business Process Management Systems - BPMS?

1. BPMS is principally aimed at improving IT architecture to allow greater flexibility in automation and process management capability. Most often its aim is to support agent productivity through desktop acceleration, application connectivity, workflow management. As such BPMS is part of the core IT tool set, to which adjustments outside of configurable parameters to a solution normally require a traditional IT change-program. Most often connectivity between applications, and design work on how applications should be integrated against business requirements is a key skill that is required to operate BPMS effectively. 2. Robotic Process Automation is principally aimed at clerical staff replacement as opposed to clerical staff acceleration as with BMPS. The philosophy of the approach is therefore to target routine, repetitive, rules-based tasks (procedures as sub-tasks within a larger business process). Such tasks can often tie clerical staff down for long stretches of time. Very often such tasks are small, possibly involving 5-10 people, and so do not justify large IT, or even BPMS, projects to automate. The difference for RPA is that no IT is required, and business users can “show” the robot what to do. The capability is therefore distributed to operations staff so as to divide-and-conquer many mid-to-small automation initiatives that would otherwise require people.