In an era of digital disruptions, technologies like AI, mobility, cybersecurity, automation, and others are improving the bottom-line profits of an organization, along with enhancing the CX for the consumers.  In a competitive environment, marketing through digital medium becomes imperative for enterprises but the applications of AI, analytics and automation can largely reduce the operational costs reducing the requirement of huge workforce for the business process including accounting, customer service, and others with tools of RPA. The hiring patterns in the RPA space looks interesting as there is much hype around the technology, and the availability of skilled resources are hard to find matching with the relevant functional areas and industry experience. The number of open positions in RPA is expected to explode in the next 2-3 years. Top RPA vendors are focusing on training and skills development, identifying the resources who can implement and integrate as per business requirements.

Few Skill Development Strategies of top RPA vendors:

• Automation Anywhere: In September 2018, Automation Anywhere added new learning tracks in its platform Automation Anywhere University (AAU). AAU courses are available in Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish. It is focusing on certifying professionals and university students that help them excel in their careers getting a job role in business analyst, bot developer, control room administrator, solution architect, RPA program manager, IT infrastructure administrator, technical support specialist, and sales engineer.


• Blue Prism: In June 2017, Blueprism authorized six training partners to meet the growing need of training and education of the Blueprism RPA tool. The six partners who received the certification includes Ascension, Digital Workforce, Robiquity, Reveal Group, Symphony Ventures, and WonderBoltz.


• UiPath: Uipath offers training through online platform, training partners, and also provides training documentations. Its official training partners have a global reach offering onsite, virtual, and physical classroom for various RPA roles from functional to development courses.

Outlook

The RPA market is still considered to be its infancy and its boom is expected to transform how business processes across industries are carried out today. The market is very niche, and it has become almost impossible to even find a resource with 3 or more years of experience. These resources are becoming excessively expensive or are not ready to move in a new organization. While RPA is expected to create one of the most lucrative jobs in the future, it will be interesting to see how the RPA vendors and its platforms succeed in the future.

–Swarup Bhowal
ICT – Research Analyst,
Infoholic Research