Tech Data wants to help usher channel partners into the age of artificial intelligence (AI) after adding Automation Anywhere, a provider of robotics process automation (RPA) software, to its line card.
RPA software employs machine learning algorithms to automate routine tasks involving the processing of documents. The rise of RPA software is enabling organizations large and small to digitally transform a wide range of business processes spanning multiple vertical industries.
In fact, industry analysts have already estimated that the RPA market is already valued at over $1 billion in North America, notes Colin Blair, vice president of analytics and IoT solutions for Tech Data. That market is currently experiencing a 50 percent compound annual growth rate, adds Blair.
Ultimately, RPA will play a major role in reinvigorating business process management (BPM) solutions as part of a broader digital business transformation trend that is starting to gain significant momentum, says Blair.
“The this all part of the emerging data economy,” says Blair.
That shift, however, will require solution providers to have a much deeper understanding of how the business processes within any organization functions to succeed. That may challenge for solution providers that have historically limited their focus to only be technology advisors to customers.
Tech Data is moving more aggressively into RPA and AI in general as part of a concerted effort to focus more on higher-margin solutions, adds Blair. The basic idea is to expose partners to technologies that drive high-margin services opportunities. In areas where a solution provider lacks the skills required to deploy a technology or solution, Tech Data will provide the solution provide with access to its own technology experts.
It’s too early to predict what impact AI technologies will ultimately have on business processes. But it’s already apparent that AI will be relied to automate a wide range of narrowly focused tasks using bots that manifest themselves as digital assistants. The opportunity for solution providers is to not only help organizations build and train the AI models that drive those digital assistants, but also help optimize the business processes those digital assistants help automate.
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