Gartner overstating RPA benefit?
This article by Horses for Sources really piqued my interest.
The statement that is being questioned is "96% of clients are getting real value from RPA" - made by Fran Karamouzis at the Gartner Sourcing & Strategic Vendor Relationships summit in London last week (May 22-23).
The true value of Gartner's "Magic Quadrant" product has always eluded me (excepting, of course, the obvious financial value to Gartner). This type of market and vendor analysis is wishy-washy enough, of course, to rouse interest. Enough interest to sell market analysis reports for tremendous sums of money.
I'm 100% with the article's author, Phil Fersht: while RPA is a useful tool that is gaining intelligence through the addition of AI technology, Mrs. Karamouzis' statement just isn't realistic. I doubt there are 96% of clients of any IT project getting real value from their investment. After all, many IT projects simply fail - and RPA projects are amongst these. Even Gartner indicates that IT project failure is a real issue. And in 2012, Gartner published a study of failed IT projects, indicating that the failure rate was between 20 and 38%, depending on the project's magnitude.
With that in mind, one would need to reduce the client list to those clients whose projects were a success. Even then, 96% "real value" still seems high, though it always depends on how you define "real value"… if you keep it as wishy-washy as Gartner's Magic Quadrants, then I'm with you!