A recent study by the Information Services Group (ISG) estimates that by 2020, 92% of European businesses will be adopting robotic process automation (RPA) technologies to make structures and processes more efficient. Not only are respondents hoping for progress in traditional industrial fields such as sourcing, logistics, and the supply chain (40%), they are also setting high expectations for the optimization of customer service and ordering processes (43%), finance (42%), sales, and Marketing (38%).

Although three-quarters of the companies surveyed are currently at the beginning of an early (ongoing testing) or middle phase (automation of sub-sectors), the planned investment budgets have been growing by an average of 9% annually, with a quarter of respondents even in the double digits. 54% even assume that they will realize a widespread use of RPA technologies by 2020, compared to 27% which describe themselves as correspondingly fully automated already today. Deloitte predicts considerable growth for RPA as well, but from a different perspective. By 2020, the global market for RPA technologies is expected to grow to $5 billion.