Robotics will make way for automation

The robots are gradually taking over the world. According to IDC, robotics is considered to be one of the six innovation accelerators that propel digital transformation, opening new revenue streams and change the way work is accomplished. It believes that robotics will change the model of business operations in several industries, drive innovation and have a profound impact on the IT functions of enterprises.

Promise and Opportunities  

The increasing presence of robots and intelligent operating systems in our workplaces will lead to the creation of a Chief Robotics Officer role. According to the IDC survey, 30 percent of the top organizations will either have a chief robotics officer role or have a robotic specific task within their business.

As per the survey, by 2019, 30 percent of the commercial service robotic applications will have a “Robot as a Service” business deployment, which reduces the cost of deploying robots. Also, the IDC survey states that the growth of robotics will quicken the talent race, leaving 35 percent of robotics related jobs vacant. The average salary increases for these jobs  will be least 60 percent, predicts IDC.

What about robots depending upon cloud-based software?  Around 60 percent of the robots will hinge on cloud based software to define new skills, cognitive capabilities, and application programmes, resulting in the creation of a robotics cloud marketplace.

Will robotics take over Ecommerce? According to the research firm, omni channel companies and 200 top global ecommerce companies will implement robotics systems in their order fulfillment warehousing and delivery operations by 2018. Also, to automate operations, 35 percent of top performing organizations in health, utilities, logistics, and resources will examine the use of robots.

All said, there is a belief that robots will destroy jobs in coming days. By 2019, the governments will start framing robotics – specific regulations to protect jobs and address concerns of security.

Enterprise usage outlook in India

IDC says that the robotics adoption rate in Indian enterprises is low as compared to other major markets like China, Korea, Japan, USA, Germany, Italy, Thailand, and so on. India would probably be ranked around 15th – 20th worldwide in terms of annual robot installation in  industries.

However, the trend of robotics adoption is certainly going up in Indian industries in 2017, but still at a lower rate in terms of absolute quantity shipments compared with other major markets.

According to Gartner, by 2021 majority of the service providers will use intelligent automation coupled with lowering the cost of commodity services like infrastructure maintenance management services which will increase 15-20 percent annually.  In short, it means that the service providers will use smart machine technology that will lower the cost of service delivery.