AAI adds FortressIQ’s process intelligence. But will customers exploit this?

The Situation: Automation Anywhere’s acquisition of FortressIQ gives customers access to upgraded process intelligence capabilities. Automation Anywhere (AAI) intends the investment to close a gap in its ability to support more automation in the enterprise with process discovery embedded in its platform. It also has plans to combine the two companies’ data libraries to deliver the data-led future of work.

FortressIQ’s computer-vision-led approach to process intelligence shines a light on where process challenges reside when they run across applications, systems, and data sources. It cites examples such as a Fortune 500 CPG company that assumed it had an SAP process challenge in tax reconciliation. FortressIQ revealed that only 5% of the process happened in SAP, while Excel accounted for more than 40% of the effort.

FortressIQ will be stitched in through Automation Anywhere’s AARI (the front-end interface for users to execute and interact with bots). FortressIQ’s process intelligence will be bundled with AAI’s Automation 360 RPA and digital workforce platform.

Automation Anywhere believes the solution’s clarity of diagnosis combined with AAI’s automation platform capabilities will help enterprises identify what they really should be automating, find the best way to make the automation, and support the outcomes with strong governance.

Is this a combination with stand-out customer appeal?

As our 2021 Process Intelligence Products Top 10 study showed (exhibit 1), there are a number of process discovery and mining tools available in the market today, many with blue-chip enterprise logos backing them as clients. Does AAI’s acquisition of FortressIQ really improve the latter’s appeal to new customers, especially given the growing multitude of competitors?

We think this is more about Automation Anywhere’s clientele getting a slightly sweeter deal if they were in the market for process intelligence, and hadn’t picked a vendor yet. AAI customers get a serious upgrade on Automation Anywhere’s Discovery Bot product through its integration and bundling with FortressIQ. That could be good for enterprises—if those bundles offer better value and reduce time to outcome versus buying separately and dealing with separate entities.

But we remain concerned that existing AAI clients that want process intelligence are already likely using something else, and FortressIQ clients are already using RPA. The near-term win is likely limited to net-new customers. We should note FortressIQ will also be available as a standalone product, at least for now.

Exhibit 1:Top 10 Process Intelligence Products showcased the range of tech vendors operating in this fast-growing category

Source: HFS Research, 2021

Plans to build a repository of how people work—to learn from and improve on

AAI believes bringing the two products together will enable AAI to build a cloud data store of processes. Automation applications can consume processes and refine them by highlighting best practices. The vision is for a giant repository of how people work—a dataset from which to build a better, data-driven future of work.

The question is, does this vision go far enough? In keeping the focus on what the data can do for automation, AAI risks restricting the value that FortressIQ’s enterprise data can provide. AAI must not make the mistake of “submerging process intelligence in the automation bucket,” as HFS pointed out in our initial response to the acquisition on the Horses for Sources blog.

As businesses push toward digital and cloud modernity, the use of enterprise process data must address larger change programs than simply identifying where to apply RPA. Automation should be one of the results of process intelligence insights, but it’s only one potential option. Structuring and orchestrating your business processes using data, real-time process monitoring, and anticipating changes, transactions, and interactions to deliver superior customer experience are more holistic approaches where process intelligence can and should be used.

AAI cloud relationships extend to include Microsoft, and security is in focus, too

The combined company’s consistent cloud focus continues and will extend beyond AAI’s current Google and Amazon relationships. FortressIQ brings a longstanding Microsoft relationship with it, and leaders have confirmed the intention to run on Microsoft Azure cloud; tests are underway now.

Another interesting piece of FortressIQ’s IP that Automation Anywhere highlighted as important for the future was its Privacy Enhanced Gateway (PEG) security system. PEG provides a way to monitor, screen, and anonymize sensitive data and adapt it before sending it to the cloud. As the vendor becomes more cloud-focused, this capability could be extended past FortressIQ’s current application on process discovery.

The Bottom Line: AAI’s ‘future of work’ ambitions need a broader brush and a fresh ecosystem approach.

Short-term process intelligence benefits for customers depend on, and appear limited to, how well the new business integrates and prices its combined capabilities.

The bigger vision – tackling the future of work – is held back by AAI’s inevitable attachment to automation and the fact that this is a CEO-level vision—while the typical RPA decision makers are two or three rungs down. To make it work, AAI must broaden its vision to use enterprise data in a range of change programs beyond automation. This also demands a fresh approach to the ecosystem of partners it will need to establish to access the C-suite and make the vision real.