Enterprise spend on automation will hit $232 billion by 2024

Executives see automation as an important part of digital transformation

Enterprises will increase their spending on intelligent automation almost 19x over the next seven years, from today's $12.4 billion to $232 billion in 2024.

While spending is expected to increase significantly over the coming years - to almost $100 billion by 2023, says a new report by KPMG - this may not be high enough to support the high hopes for the approach that executives have. These individuals are still not quite ready to commit to IA from the top down and at scale, which will delay a meaningful return on investment.

Respondents to KPMG's survey are aware of the value of IA, which is seen as an important part of digital transformation. Many indicated plans to increase direct and indirect investment over the next three years: 40 per cent by 20 per cent or more.

However, even those survey respondents who showed themselves to be most keen on IA were only moving towards it slowly. Many are held up by a lack of talent and organisational focus, or by focusing solely on automating legacy processes and applications.

Cliff Justice, US leader of intelligent automation at KPMG, said:

"Many traditional businesses with legacy approaches risk falling behind digital-first companies if they stay with the status quo. It takes a comprehensive transformation of business and operating models to compete in their own market at the level at which a Tesla or Amazon do in theirs.

"A lot of change has to happen that's really uncomfortable and sometimes political, and most companies are not prepared for that. Projects implemented from the bottom up are not going to scale because they haven't been designed to scale. If this isn't a C-level initiative, then it's not going to be successful at scale."