The last few years have seen a significant infusion of robots in various industries. This trend is expected to continue in the next 3-5 years. Almost 1 million robots are expected to be sold for enterprise use in 2020. There are primarily 3 types of robots - industrial, professional services and software robots. Professional service robots (e.g., those used in healthcare, retail industries) and software robots (e.g., those used in functions such as Finance, HR, Procurement) will comprise a significant portion of these new robot sales. The market for professional services and software robots is growing much faster than that for industrial robots. As the use of robots, increase in non-manufacturing industries, the companies which are able to combine the uniquely native human capabilities (e.g., inspiration, aspiration, emotion, empathy, imagination) with powerful robot capabilities (e.g., accurate transaction processing) will be able to re-imagine their business processes and deliver better and newer business outcomes for their stakeholders.

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Robots and Humans: Combined capability will enable
businesses deliver unexpected Output
VARUN KESAVAN, RESEARCH SCHOLAR, E – MAIL ID – varunkesavan@yahoo.com
The last few years have seen a significant infusion of robots in various
industries. This trend is expected to continue in the next 3-5 years. Almost 1
million robots are expected to be sold for enterprise use in 2020. There are
primarily 3 types of robots - industrial, professional services and software
robots.
Professional service robots (e.g., those used in healthcare, retail industries)
and software robots (e.g., those used in functions such as Finance, HR,
Procurement) will comprise a significant portion of these new robot sales. The
market for professional services and software robots is growing much faster
than that for industrial robots.
As the use of robots, increase in non-manufacturing industries, the companies
which are able to combine the uniquely native human capabilities (e.g.,
inspiration, aspiration, emotion, empathy, imagination) with powerful robot
capabilities (e.g., accurate transaction processing) will be able to re-imagine
their business processes and deliver better and newer business outcomes for
their stakeholders.

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On the other hand, the companies who do not take the required steps now to
effectively integrate the human and robot capabilities may run the risk of being
left behind in the competitive race.
The market in India for robots is expected to emulate global trends. With a low
robot density in the manufacturing industry (4 industrial robots per 10,000
employees). India is poised for an industrial automation revolution. Industrial
robot sales reached a new record of 4,771 in 2018, up 39 per cent from the
previous year(one of the highest among the largest markets).
Similarly, the professional service robot market in India is also expected to
grow significantly in the next few years. This growth may be driven by
opportunities in healthcare (e.g., use of robots to augment the capabilities of
human healthcare workers) and retail sectors.
These robots have maximum utility in three key functions in the retail industry-
managing in-store customers, managing warehouse, and creating the last-
mile link between customers and service providers.
In addition, the cleaning robot market is forecast to grow at a CAGR of more
than 17 per cent during the period 2021-2025, due to the increasing demand
from the residential and commercial sectors, and rising disposable income.

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In addition to the industrial and professional robots, India is also one of the
growing markets for software robots, including Robotic Process
Automation (RPA), cognitive, and Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven process
automation.
The RPA market in India is scheduled to grow at a CAGR of more than 20 per
cent during 2021-2025. This growth is driven by the increasing demand for
automating support functions such as finance, HR and accounting.
India is home to more than 50 per cent of GICs (global shared service
centres) across the globe and has a large service industry footprint. These
factors, coupled with process proximity and familiarity and availability of skilled
resources (e.g., a large number of technology graduates/professionals),
makes India an ideal location for the software robot market.
Additionally, many organisations are also looking at leveraging these
emerging technologies to re-imagine their processes to create better and
newer outcomes for their stakeholders.
This process re-imagination using software robots and other emerging
technologies will create new job roles, increase efficiency, improve
effectiveness and enhance experience of stakeholders. Used well and wisely,
software automation can help companies create significant, differentiated and
sustainable competitive edge. Hence, the software robot market in India may
witness significant growth in the next few years.

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Bottom line
The robots are coming and here to stay. This will fundamentally change how
processes will be designed, delivered and monitored in the future. The
pervasive use of robots will also have an impact on various roles in the whole
value chain. The organisation of the future will effectively leverage the
combined and complementary capabilities of both Humans and Robots (Bots).
This symbiotic human-bot ('HumBot') interface and interaction model will help
organisations to deliver superior and potentially unprecedented outcomes to
their stakeholders.
The start-up ecosystem for robots (industrial, professional services, and
software) in India should also see a good growth in the next few years. These
start-ups can work with GICs to further accelerate adoption of software robots
in the GICs and Indian IT/ITeS industry.
The robots have already left an indelible mark in areas where they have been
leveraged intelligently. However, in future, we will see significant increase in
penetration of robots of all variants in industries. The future seems exciting
and holds immense potential.
However, the key to realising this immense potential will rest primarily on the
ingenuity of humans to utilise their phenomenal intelligence (e.g., both IQ and
EQ) to best leverage the combined potential of humans and robots to create
outcomes that are fundamentally different from the ones we see today.