Robocorp is pioneering open-source robotic process automation (RPA) leveraging Python and the Robot Framework to automate business processes efficiently. The document discusses common myths about RPA, the complexities of existing solutions, and Robocorp's approach to creating a scalable, cost-effective platform with consumption-based pricing. Additionally, it highlights the growing ecosystem of developers and companies utilizing Robocorp's open-source tools to innovate and streamline automation initiatives.

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Open-source RPA
Leveraging Python and Robot Framework ecosystems for business
process automation

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What is RPA?
Common myths about RPA
Open-source RPA
Robocorp overview
Disrupting the industry

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What is RPA?

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Introduction to RPA
Robotic Process Automation - Automating business
tasks through existing systems, non-intrusive for
applications
Based on the concept of a “bot” that acts as a digital
worker
“Isn’t this just scripts and macros on steroids?”
Partly so but with proper governance and controls

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Audit use-case, data validation: Salesforce, SAP, Excel
Processing 240 accounts
Human time: 3.5 hours
Robot time: 30 minutes

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Nandan Mullakara
“We stopped counting
after 10,000
use-cases.”
 RPA vendor

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RPA software market today ~$2bn
Services estimated 23x software
revenue

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Common myths about RPA

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Myth: RPA is a band aid
“RPA is a band aid, you should fix the underlying system instead”
RPA is a practical solution for a real-world problem. There’s often no business
case to “fix the real problem” and bots done the right way can be a long-term
solution.
Bots have become a part of every major organization’s operations, and
eventually they will be used by SMBs with the help of service providers.

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Myth: Citizen Developers
“RPA can be used by
non-developers to go around
IT’s disinterest to help and
innovate”
Low-code is trendy, but in
RPA building and maintaining
automations that go beyond
trivial desktop scripts
requires technical skills.

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Myth about RPA: Tools are infused with AI and magic
Every vendor claims that their RPA tool is better than competitors. At the end
of the day, it’s a lot of the same.
Many of the current industry leaders have been built in early 2000s on either
Microsoft or Java foundation

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Open-source RPA

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RPA is a horizontal technology
Creating a feature complete RPA platform requires
integrations into hundreds or even thousands of systems
and technologies.
Two components to RPA
1. Developer tools that are used to build bots
2. An orchestration platform for operating bots.
Why do we need 100 RPA vendors to solve this problem
in their own way?

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Fragmentation of RPA tech → Solve core RPA problems
once, allow the ecosystem to innovate and build
connectors
Lack of innovation across vendors → Define an open
format for bots and allow a layer of new products and
services to emerge on top of it
Skyrocketing cost with bot licenses → Launching a RPA
initiative will set you back $100k before even getting
started. Open-source can help mitigate this.
What does open-source RPA solve?

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The industry is unlikely to standardize around one tech...

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RPA licensing is complex,
involving multi-year deals
Bot licenses are tied to
execution environments
Developer tools,
orchestration, add-ons,
premium connectors, ...
… But we can still fix other
aspects of it like licensing.

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Robocorp: Starting on an open-source journey to fix RPA
from first principles
1. Who builds and maintains RPA solutions?
2. What is the best way to deliver bots to users?
3. What is the right value metric for RPA?

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Citizen-development is a story for selling RPA, not so great for
building and operating mission critical routines
“Let’s build a solution that RPA developers will actually like to
use!”
Developers like:
● Best in class tooling that they know and love
● Great support from the community
● Extensive documentation
● Getting started immediately without talking to sales
● Frameworks that can be extended
Who builds and maintains RPA solutions?

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What is the best way to deliver bots to users?
Most RPA solutions sold today are still operated
on-prem.
“Why would you create something new that’s
targeted to run on-prem in 2020?”
Getting started with minimum overhead. Bots
often need to access on-prem resources, but
everything else can be in the cloud.

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What is the right value metric for RPA?
If it’s open-source then how do you make any money?
“The fundamental value unit in RPA is the work that the
bots perform – we should be priced on consumption!”
Breaking down bot licenses that prevent use-cases and
leveraging modern pricing mechanisms that are better
aligned with value creation.

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1. Open-source RPA stack and tools built for automation professionals.
2. Cloud-native orchestration platform for operating bots.
3. Consumption based pricing.

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Robot Framework
Generic open source automation
framework. Extendable through
libraries. Based on Python.
Governed through non-profit
foundation with 50 corporate
backers.
https://robotframework.org

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Python is the native language of
automation.
Robot Framework is a high-level
scripting language with tabular
syntax, extendable with Python
libraries.
Robot Framework makes Python
accessible to anyone with basic
scripting knowledge.

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Technical challenges to solve
Bots need to run natively on host OS, not just in containers
→ Deploying Python code across thousands of environments
efficiently and securely
Orchestrating countless of bots across every imaginable
runtime environment through a scalable cloud platform that is
secure and highly available.
Creating a framework for interoperable extension libraries
through Robot Framework

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Python execution environment isolation and
caching
“How can we maintain a pristine
Python environment for each bot
run while keeping it fast and storage
efficient?”
Funny enough, nobody had solved
this problem before.

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Store each unique file only once.
Reassemble new environment every
time something has been touched.
--> Environment reloads in seconds
--> Preserving disk space
--> Running natively on the host OS
RCC Holotree

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https://github.com/robocorp/rcc/

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Robocorp Automation Stack
RCC toolchain for packaging,
running, and managing bots.
Robot.yaml for defining and
configuring bots.
RPA Framework automation
libraries for Robot Framework.
Python + developer tool extensions
RCC toolchain
Robot definition (robot.yaml)
Robot Framework Automation Libraries

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1. BUILD ROBOTS
2. DEPLOY ROBOTS
3. MONITOR & OPERATE
Tools & Languages Libraries
RPA.Desktop
RPA.Browser
RPA.SAP
RPA.Excel
RPA.Netsuite
...
Developer Tools Control Room
Assistants
Attended robots
Workforce
Un-attended robots
Free &
Open Source
SaaS or
Private Cloud
How Robocorp Works

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Security,
Monitoring
&
Logging
AI/ML/NLP/NLU/OCR
ASSISTANTS
Attended Robots
WORKFORCE
Unattended Robots
Cloud Containers VMs
On-prem
PC/Laptop
Bots
Runtime
Environments
Cloud-native
Orchestration
GitHub
IDEs
Windows Linux MacOS
Robocorp Lab Visual Studio Code RCC
RPA Framework Python
Languages,
Tools
&
Libraries CONTROL ROOM
Single Pane of Glass
3rd Party
Technologies
Operating &
Management
Flow
Development
Flow
On-prem
PC/Laptop
Control Room/Integration APIs
Secure Connections (HTTPS, WebSocket)
APIs (process+robot) &
Webhooks

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Disruptive Pricing
Infrastructure costs
Support costs
Developer licenses
Maintenance costs
Robots
Assistants
Platform fee
Maintenance costs
Robots
Assistants
Platform fee
Cost savings
Traditional RPA costs
Robocorp costs
License model
Consumption-based
No hosting costs
Hosted by Robocorp, part of platform fee.
No separate support costs
Basic support part of platform fee.
No developer license costs
Robocorp is free to develop and learn.
Less maintenance costs
Uses SW development best practices. High uptime.
Less costs from Robots
No need to reserve capacity. Automations run faster.
Less assisted use costs
Pay per use, not per user.

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Robocorp Value & Differentiation
Build & Maintain Programmable
RPA
Seamless customer
deployment & operations
Eliminate waste & increase
efficiency
○ Automate mission critical processes with
Python-based dev tools
○ Access to extensive automation libraries
○ No vendor lock-in
○ No infrastructure required to
orchestrate bots
○ Highly scalable
○ Reduced Time-to-Value
○ Consumption based pricing
○ No upfront software investment
○ Compelling ROI
Libraries
RPA.Desktop
RPA.Browser
RPA.SAP
RPA.Excel
RPA.Netsuite

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Robocorp in 2021
Raised $32M in VC funding (Series A spring 2021
75 partners globally
At least 7 new companies founded on top of Robocorp
Thousands of developers actively building on Robocorp
First 34 enterprise deals closing in 2021
Open-source project used by companies such as Amex
to power RPA initiatives

42. Robocorp partner community is growing
Currently more than 75 Global Partners in the Robocorp Partner Program
© 2021 Robocorp Confidential

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Disruption is difficult

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October 2021: Private equity firm TPG Capital acquired Nintex.
September 2021: Private equity firm Vista Equity Partners acquired Blue Prism and plans to merge the business into Tibco Software.
August 2021: Salesforce acquired Servicetrace RPA to counter ServiceNow in workflow automation.
March 2021: ServiceNow acquired Intellibot, and will inject RPA technology into the NOW platform.
October 2020: Automation software provider Netcall acquired RPA software company Automagica.
October 2020: Nintex, backed by private equity firm Thoma Bravo, acquired K2 Software Inc.
August 2020: Hyland Software, backed by private equity firm Thoma Bravo, acquired Another Monday.
July 2020: IBM acquired WDG.
July 2020: Information Services Group (ISG) acquired RPA technology educator Neuralify. The goal: Help customers accelerate RPA developer education &
automation projects.
May 2020: Microsoft acquired Softomotive for Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Vows to ensure all partners can “create bots to automate manual business
processes.”

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Open-source push-back
“Open-source is not secure”
“Open-source is free but not as powerful”
“Open-source is hard to use”
Robocorp’s value add:
● Security, governance and compliance
● Easy of get started, use, and operate

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Cloud, Pricing, Low-code - Better Is Always Different
“I can’t use the cloud, I want to run it in my datacenter”
“This pricing is so different that I don’t know how to compare it”
“Isn’t it slower to write script than to drag & drop?”
You are not disrupting something if everyone gets it right away.

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Summary