Indians want automation of repetitive admin tasks they spend three hours on daily: Automation Anywhere

Office workers spend an average of three hours daily on manual and repetitive tasks, according to a study by RPA (robotic process automation) solutions provider Automation Anywhere.

The research, conducted by OnePoll, had 10,000 participants covering 12 countries, of which 1,000 were surveyed in India. As much as 88% of Indians said that repetitive administrative tasks need not be performed by humans when they could be automated.

The report investigated the time spent and attitude towards manual and repetitive digital administration tasks in the modern enterprise.

While 47% of the total respondents said that they found digital administration jobs boring, 48% felt that it was a poor use of their skills. While 51% said that mundane tasks kept them from doing their main job, the number jumped up to a massive 80% for respondents from India.

A 2019 report by researchandmarkets.com stated that the automation market in India is set to grow by a compound annual growth rate of 20% between 2019 and 2025.

Early last year, RPA solutions provider UiPath’s India president and chief executive officer Raghunath Subramanian discussed the significance of RPA and why it is the future of digital enterprises. He also spoke about why India has emerged as a hub for RPA development and deployment.

Coming to millennials, the study showed that 52% of them felt that they could be more productive if they were given fewer administrative tasks, against the total average of 48%. “If you work in an office, (it is) likely (that) your productivity and happiness are significantly undermined with being responsible for manual computer administration tasks that could easily be automated...,” Shelly Kramer, principal analyst, Futurum Research, said.

On top of the list of hated tasks was general data entry, followed by email traffic management and organising digital documents into the right folder. On the fourth and fifth place were IT systems report compilation and invoice management.

Co-incidentally, the top three most hated tasks were also the top three administrative tasks that workers reported spending the most time on.

Manual work also meant that 60% of Indian respondents left their offices later than their designated work timings, indicating a direct impact on their personal lives.

“According to the research, India ranks the highest amongst the participating countries to expect adoption and deployment of software bots in the near future,” Milan Sheth, executive vice president for India, Middle East and Africa for Automation Anywhere, said.

Sheth said that there was a positive sentiment towards digital bot-assisted workforce, which enterprises needed to embrace to improve productivity.

Backing Sheth claim is a study by UiPath and the Economist Intelligence Unit, which showed that Indians were the most satisfied globally when it came to automation solution deployments.

While 73% of global respondents are satisfied with their automation technologies, India in particular (86%) was the most content with the benefits resulting from automating business processes, the study found.