According to reports, the global robotic process automation (RPA) software and services market will be worth $20.1 billion in 2030, up from $4.8 billion in 2021.

Businesses in virtually every industry accelerated their automation efforts during the pandemic. As RPA is a relatively fast solution to implement, it allows enterprises to make headway on their digital transformation efforts, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

"Covid-19 highlighted the necessity of coordinating automation across a business. This has accelerated the development of RPA as companies move away from stand-alone automation capabilities and instead offer RPA as part of a broader toolkit of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, allowing for end-to-end automation of more complex business processes," explained Nicklas Nilsson, consultant for thematic research at GlobalData.

RPA capabilities are increasingly being embedded into various digital transformation tools and services.

As a result, numerous RPA acquisitions have taken place in the last couple of years. There were 159 RPA-related mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deals between 2014 and 2021, with 2021 being a record year.

"Cloud and platform giants such as Microsoft, ServiceNow and Salesforce have recognised that software budgets are shifting towards automation and RPA and have eagerly turned to M&A to add RPA to their automation portfolios," said Nilsson.

RPA will continue to attract attention in the coming years for its role in helping enterprises accelerate digital transformation and modernize traditional business processes.

"Integrating intelligent technologies like AI and making the technology more accessible using low-code tools and cloud RPA will be high up on the agenda going forward for all companies seeking to become the go-to, one-stop-shop automation platform around which all others are centered," Nilsson added.