Emerson cuts costs and scales complex automation with Python-powered Robocorp

Automation initiatives remain among the highest priorities for enterprise leaders. When the demand for innovation arrives coupled with the demand to cut costs, a switch from proprietary incumbents to open-source robotic process automation (RPA) solutions is likely to prove tempting.

Fortune 500 product and engineering company Emerson turned to open-source and Python-based Robocorp when faced with challenges using RPA leader Blue Prism. Ben Griffith, Emerson’s Director of Intelligent Automation for Global Financial Services, says the Blue Prism connectors he required were not available to make RPA work with Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS). Developers had to write code in Python and embed it in the bots to make it work.

“We thought if we were doing Python development for what should be a drag-and-drop tool, there might be a better way,” said Ben.

He believes companies switching to open-source RPA solutions can reduce hardware and license costs, save on maintenance, and choose for themselves whether and when to update code.

Low-code drag-and-drop set limits on professional coder capabilities

Taking the strategic long view that both open-source and consumption-based pricing was the direction of travel for automation, Emerson found a business with a similar view in Robocorp. The innovation of the Python community has powered Robocorp’s emergence as a serious automation competitor. Ben cautions that the open-source route demands you have access to developers who are comfortable and confident with Python and similar pro-code languages. At a time when most businesses were headed toward low-code or no-code solutions with drag-and-drop interfaces, it may have seemed counterintuitive. But Emerson had a team of coders becoming frustrated with the limitations of low-code development. They found that the Blue Prism interface restricted their ability to apply their coding skills to solve the most complex problems, as revealed in Emerson’s attempts with Oracle E-Business Suite.

The switch to Robocorp triggers a review of processes and a rationalization of bots

To date, Emerson has applied RPA primarily in the SG&A (sales, general, and administrative) functions. It employed around 100 Blue Prism bots running over 20 servers. The firm used the former HFS Hot Vendor RPA Supervisor (now known as C Two) to help orchestrate the servers and reduce skyrocketing license and infrastructure costs. However, Ben says Emerson still ran into capacity constraints and had the additional cost of third-party orchestration.

The switch to Robocorp has allowed the team to review bots and processes and, when possible, move them to run in the cloud.

RPA is now only used if the process runs 500-plus hours per year, with Microsoft Power Automate often deployed to handle less intense process demands. The rationalization is reducing maintenance costs and increasing flexibility.

With Robocorp in use, the team can easily update libraries using GitHub. It can stick with the versions of the libraries it chooses rather than be forced to upgrade at the whim of a proprietary platform.

Six in 10 automation initiatives to date have failed to meet expectations

Enterprises retain lofty goals for their automation initiatives. However, as we found when we interviewed Global 2000 enterprise leaders in the latter half of 2022 (see Exhibit 1), only six in 10 found automation outcomes met their expectations. As the pressure to innovate and save money rises, achieving results at the right price becomes more important.

Exhibit 1: Only six in 10 automation initiatives have met client expectations

Sample: H2 2022, 511 executives across Global 2000 enterprises
Source: HFS Research, 2023

Robocorp price cap gives the confidence to scale complex processes

Robocorp’s approach to pricing has given Emerson teams the confidence to extend automation. Robocorp places a cap on costs, so it’s most cost-effective when used on complex processes running at scale. It makes the most of the developers’ professional coding capabilities. Businesses and coders are taking advantage, developing natively in the tool. Now there are 45 bots in production with Robocorp and 15–25 bots on their way. Blue Prism remains incumbent in the case of 80-90 bots, but this number will be reduced over the next two years as Emerson winds down its Blue Prism commitment.

What to watch out for if you plan to make the shift

When Emerson began its journey with Robocorp about a year ago, Ben says it had to find its own way. Now service providers are increasingly capable of supporting transitions between RPA platforms. Ben warns that if developers are a little rusty on scripting, help from a third party may be ideal. But he also says we should be more prepared to trust in our people’s ability to learn—particularly with generative AI (GenAI) support.

“My recommendation is: ‘You can do it.’ It isn’t easy, but GenAI is making it easier,” said Ben.

Of course, if you are enjoying great returns on your RPA investment, why go through the pain? Ben concedes that shifting the RPA platform for SG&A services represents a relatively small risk for a manufacturing company like Emerson. Where RPA is applied to your core business, you may wish to think more about the risk of disruptive change.

There may also be some short-term switching costs; your incumbent may not offer you as good a deal for the shorter-term contracts you’ll want to negotiate while in transition. So, the temptation to put off a move may prove appealing in smaller companies with painfully constrained budgets. But in larger companies with deeper pockets, Ben insists the short-term costs are worth paying—even if the big three are following suit with consumption-based pricing models. Even if an incumbent could price match, using it may not offer your more skilled developers the challenge, flexibility, and opportunity to solve the most complex process issues or give automation leaders a choice of when or whether to upgrade, both of which Ben identifies as advantages of using Robocorp.

From automating Oracle EBS to tackling finance and accounting processes with GenAI and AI-enabled automation

Ben says working with Robocorp has been very positive for Emerson—receiving rapid and excellent service. Emerson and Robocorp worked together to develop a Java access bridge library to automate Oracle EBS, fixing exactly the challenge that had set Emerson off looking for an open-source RPA alternative in the first place.

With GenAI at its side, Ben argues anyone trained in a proprietary RPA code can switch to coding with Python. GenAI could help solve the issue of upskilling and training teams in an incoming technology platform. Robocorp believes that being Python-based sets them up well to leverage the benefits of GenAI for code generation and incorporate it into use cases. Robocorp has already delivered ReMark, a GenAI developer assistant. Robocorp thinks the benefits of GenAI will ultimately trump the perceived “ease of use” of low code.

Now Emerson is investigating where GenAI could play a larger part in its business. It has set up a task force to consider finance and accounting processes such as invoice-to-pay, credit-to-cash, record-to-report, and financial analysis. It believes financial analysis is where it can first derive benefits, for example, with flux analysis. GenAI could give Emerson insight into reasons for the flux beyond what is apparent through correlation. The other strong candidate is natural language interpretation in emails, extracting important information, and generating a reply.

The Bottom Line: If you have the coding talent and can take a short-term hit, switching to Python power for automation can deliver savings, opportunity, and flexibility.

There’s no free lunch in moving to open source to solve your automation challenges. But if your coders are getting frustrated by the simplicity of drag and drop, Robocorp’s alternative can enable your organization to solve more complex problems while capping costs and maintaining flexibility.