Yes, RPA Can Also Drive Sustainability. Here's How

In 2019, the market for Robotic Process Automation (RPA) was estimated to be worth 1.57 billion USD.

Then, a pandemic took hold of the world.

A global catastrophe, the pandemic forced a large chunk of the workforce to work from home.

In other words, enterprises were disrupted, shaken to their core.

If it was not for business intelligence, enterprises worldwide would have suffered immensely more than they did.

As a result, RPA has never seemed more valuable. By 2028, it is expected to grow by a staggering CAGR of nearly 33%, reaching 13 billion USD in value.

But there is more to RPA's recent growth than automating tasks.

What is that?

RPA is so highly valued because it also drives sustainability.

Why ESG matters

Like RPA, sustainable assets have also shot up in value.

More investors want to invest in enterprises that drive long-term, sustainable growth. Already, in the US, every 1 in 3 USD is invested in "green" assets. By 2025, Bloomberg expects the figure to rise to 1.5 USD.

The potential for sustainable growth is measured by what is called an ESG score.

The score takes into consideration hundreds and thousands of factors that illustrate —

How well does an enterprise play its role as a steward of the Environment?
How progressive is one Socially, promoting equality, fairness, diversity, and other social values.
How ethical and fair is one in its leadership or Governance.

As more investors, customers, and prospects believe in these values, they invest less in enterprises that don't.

In other words, enterprises that do not work on sustainability or create ESG value risk suffering a financial hit.

3 ways RPA drives sustainable growth

World leaders have taken massive steps to attain sustainability.

Apple recently took charger bricks out of its box. Google has reduced the heat its servers generate by nearly 35%. Even Qantas has promised to attain carbon neutrality by 2050.

While the steps represent an incredibly positive change in strategy, they are also incredibly time-consuming.

Adopting Robotic Process Automation in contrast is far easier.

Eventually, enterprises ought to make big changes, but adopting business intelligence solutions is a quick and easy way with which they can begin their sustainability journey.

How? By —

Increasing efficiency

The primary objective of RPA is to digitize and automate time-consuming, error-prone tasks.

By embracing digital transformation, enterprises deliver sustainable growth by massively cutting down on paper and the waste and inefficiency it generates.

Automation also optimizes supply chains for efficiency.

Increasing employee well-being

A big part of ESG is promoting employee well-being since employees, too, represent enterprise stakeholders.

By automating tedious, mind-numbing tasks like sorting paperwork, RPA leads to a significant rise in employee happiness.

The reason?

Employees get to focus more on tasks that cannot be automated, tasks that demand creativity, planning, and empathy.

Such tasks are more meaningful and growth-oriented and hence make for greater happiness.

Identifying challenges to sustainability

Business intelligence also offers data analytics solutions, which enable enterprises to use data to identify and solve problems.

A problem could be anything, from streamlining processes to developing a new, sustainable strategy.

What data analytics provides is a deeper, more objective understanding of processes, their bottlenecks, and broad insights that help eliminate them.

Data analytics also powers forecasts, which enable enterprises to predict future trends and challenges, such that they can anticipate the next threat to their sustainability and counteract it in well advance.

Others simply seek ESG consulting services.