At its most basic level the Robots will take over repetitive mundane tasks which are currently done through a help desk or are happening on a fixed easy to automate schedule. Payroll processing, password recovery, service alerts and updates are some of the tasks which can easily be allocated towards a Robot.
What has made the BPO industry successful is the concept of labor arbitrage. A task which costs X domestically can be performed at a fraction of X with a BPO provider who employs at its core a labor arbitrage model to provide value to its customers.
Robots will challenge that model rather dramatically. Not only will the Robot lead to lower fees...it can also conceivably be deployed by the onshore customer, cutting out the BPO provider altogether.
The simple fact is that the resources a customer allocates towards the management and supervision of a BPO relationship might equal the resources needed to maintain an In-House robot...thus eliminating the BPO provider completely.
In my opinion the cost reduction associated with a Robotic Process Automation will lead to reductions in BPO fees of 75 % or more (depending upon the licensing model of the Robotic technology).
I consider this number even conservative. Since Quality Control and Capacity Utilization will be a Non-Issue in a Robotic Process Automation environment BPO providers will loose their pricing advantage. Not only can they not claim any more that their BPO services are "better"..the actual Robot can also be duplicated by other vendors...thus creating an opportunity for customers to exert real pricing pressure.
The article below makes a few good points as to RPA. I disagree somewhat with their anticipated reduction in fees...in my opinion the reduction for customers should be significantly bigger that what the article seems to suggest.
Article: Robotic Process Automation, Economics of it
Never the less though..it is a great article which makes quite a few good points.
