Why do so many RPA projects fail?

1) RPA projects are effective only if the processes they automate remain relevant. Product changes can render them useless. 

2) They are often highly specialized, and require specialized skill to maintain and operate. If that skill leaves, so too does the success of the RPA project. 

Robotic process automation (RPA) is not a silver bullet. It’s been a buzzword for the past four-five years and it’s on every CIO's list. People are investing in RPA, but when you see these projects, they're not delivering the expected benefits. The problem is that you can't fix just any problem with RPA. We need to consider RPA as another technology platform. 

The most common reasons that these projects fail are:

1) Incorrect selling by vendors
The people who are selling this platform are directly dealing with the business users and giving them wrong hopes about the capabilities. The expectation to eliminate the workforce might not hold; we need to treat this as an augmented solution rather than an elimination solution.

2) Skills gaps
These platforms are easy to build but using them correctly requires a proper technology expert; citizen development may not hold for large-scale automation projects.

3) Use case shortlisting
Picking up a use case is important; you need to be sure about RPA capabilities and associated cost-benefit analysis (CBA) commitments. Not meeting the benefit commitments is also a failure.

4) Technology tenets
RPA was initially designed to run on legacy systems only. Modern platforms are offering out-of-the-box API integration, and use RPA only when there are no alternatives.

5) Inexperienced partners
If you are starting the RPA journey, it is best to ask for the resource profile along with the company’s experience with RPA. Inexperienced or less experienced resourcing is a frequent cause of failure.