On Application Potential of Robotic Process Automation in Small Enterprises

• The potential of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for enterprises is undisputed and includes automation of routine tasks, improvement of data quality or reduction of monotonous tasks. However, our observation from projects with enterprises is that much of this potential is clearly visible in larger enterprises but not so obvious in small enterprises. SMEs often show a lower readiness to invest time and resources in new technologies. Thus, application fields requiring an investment are not exploited by SMEs. So, what is the real application potential of RPA in SMEs? Are there typical application scenarios with potentially high benefits that SMEs should focus on? This is the focus of this paper. We will address the question of application potential primarily from a qualitative perspective, i.e. the aim is not to quantify the potential but to qualify the application fields. The contributions of this paper are (1) an innovative dataspace as an example case for business model development, (2) an approach to support business model development based on data value chains and reference enterprise architectures, and (3) analysis of existing literature in the field. © 2020 Copyright for this paper by its authors.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Robotteknik och automation (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Robotics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Process control

Application fields

Application potential

Enterprise IS

Process automation

Robot process automation

Robotic process automation

Small and medium-sized enterprise

Small enterprise

SME

Robotics

RPA

Small and medium-sized enterprises

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)