Image Credit Pixabay/RonyMichaudEnterprise Times spoke to Guy Kirkwood, chief evangelist at UiPath. UiPath deliver an enterprise Robotic Process Automation solution. It is one of several in the market, a fact Kirkwood acknowledges openly. An accomplished speaker, he is well known for his quotes such as “Outsourcing is dead” and “AI is bollocks”.

Guy Kirkwood, Chief Evangelist UiPath (Image credit UiPath)
Guy Kirkwood, Chief Evangelist UiPath

He begins our conversation with a definition of RPA. Kirkwood sees RPA as an enabler to allows employees to spend more time working directly with customers rather than being bogged down by an existing workload.

He believes the Business Process Outsourcing market is evolved rapidly and there is nothing to stop enterprises in-sourcing RPA to replace BPO. Will RPA to a loss of jobs? Kirkwood argues no. He admits that jobs will change and that there may be an economic impact on some people. However, in the long term he believes that it will actually increase job opportunities as work becomes more efficient. He talks about the direct link between RPA, increased employee engagement and improving customer satisfaction.

UiPath launched an RPA playbook at its 30th October UiPath Forward event in London. This, Kirkwood explains, details how companies should approach their journey to adopt RPA. He reveals a few details of what companies should do and the likely costs of that journey. He also reveals how self building robots will decrease the cost of RPA in time.

Delivering RPA is rarely delivered in isolation. Kirkwood talks about two areas that compliment its UiPath solution. The first is “process mining”, understanding the actual processes that employees undertake. UiPath works with Celonis for this. The second is the “human loop”, Enate work with UiPath in this area, where RPA hands off to a human.

Finally Kirkwood unveils what UiPath is doing to educate people about RPA. It has evolved from training employees to children. Kirkwood revealed a quote from one child’s view of RPA as “Mummy there’s a ghost in my computer”.

To hear what Kirkwood had to say listen to the podcast

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