Revamping Business Services: RPA Solutions Landscape

Abstract

Robotic Process Automation became an increasingly invasive technology in outsourcing, since both of these industries have been developed based on the same business desiderata, such as increased efficiency, cost savings and improved accuracy. However, there is a gap in the existing literature regarding the concrete use of this technology in business tasks. Therefore, we set out to investigate the implementation of RPA in the business services industry by conducting a literature review mining within the Web of Science database. Our study focused on three research questions: 1) Which are the leading developers of RPA tools? 2) What are the most automated business services tasks using RPA according to the scientific literature? 3) What are the process workflow and performance improvements generated by RPA-automated tasks in each type of outsourcing center? The contributions of our article consist of an overview of the main RPA developers in the market, a synopsis of the business services categories for which the literature indicates RPA solutions’ implementations and an improved synthesis of business process workflows and performance recorded by integrating RPA tools in business services centers. The paper is broadening the understanding of the RPA-powered competitive advantages that could justify the redesign of business process mapping. Finally, our research highlights some milestones of the RPA-enhanced business services landscape and suggests future axes of research.