This document compares the RPA platforms UiPath and Automation Anywhere. It provides an overview of key factors to consider when selecting an RPA vendor, such as maturity, supported environments, ease of use, scalability, and security. It then evaluates UiPath and Automation Anywhere based on these factors. UiPath is better for attended automation while Automation Anywhere focuses on unattended automation. Automation Anywhere generally has more capabilities, supports a wider range of deployments, and has lower total cost of ownership. The document concludes by offering Tangentia's assistance in deploying RPA.
2. There was a time when business automation required extensive
infrastructure, considerable expertise, and specialized systems. Those
days, however, are behind us. Affordable, streamlined automation is
now within the reach of all businesses, regardless of sector or size.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software plays a crucial role in
business automation. The right RPA platform can automate just about
anything you need it to, from common, generic business tasks to
specific, custom processes and workflows.
The Right Type of Automation
Can Transform Your Business
3. How Exactly Do You Find the
Right Platform, Though?
Therein lies the challenge. Not all RPA vendors are created equal. And if you
choose the wrong one for your business's needs and ecosystem, you could
well find that you're less efficient rather than more.
In this short ebook, we'll explain what goes into assessing an RPA platform, at
which point we'll apply that framework to UiPath and Automation Anywhere.
Higher overall levels of
employee satisfaction
Reduction in time-intensive,
error-prone manual processes
Improved productivity
through streamlined and
automated workflows
Greater efficiency, as employees
no longer have to waste
time with busywork
What Does RPA Do?
By automating common business tasks through robotic process automation (RPA) software, you stand to gain a great deal:
4. Finding The Right
RPA Platform for
Your Business
First Steps
First and foremost, think about what you want your RPA
software to do. If you're looking to automate the distribution
of receipts or invoices, your needs are very different from
someone who's looking for a way to improve call center
workflows. As such, before you start the assessment process,
you'll need to answer a few questions.
Where Should I Apply RPA Within My Organization?
To determine where your business would see the most benefit from RPA, you'll want to do a full evaluation
of your business. Look at each operational process that makes up your day-to-day, and examine employee
workflows. Talk to your workers to find out if there are any inefficiencies RPA could address.
5. The best processes to automate with
RPA possess one or more of the following characteristics:
Impact operational costs
and improve customer
relations
Repetitive or
low-level
Tend to scale up and
down inconsistently
Error-prone Time-sensitive High-volume, requiring a
great deal of manual effort
Always follow the same
series of steps, with
clearly-defined rules
Unlikely to change
drastically in either the
short-term or long-term
Not tied to legacy
architecture that is
likely to be replaced in
the near future
6. Should I Use Attended or Unattended Bots?
Once you've figured out where RPA can be applied, your next step is figuring out how to
apply it. Specifically, you're going to want to determine which class of RPA to use. Consider
the following two options for your organization attended or unattended:
Read more about attended vs. unattended bots here.
Attended Bots Unattended Bots
Operate in the background, requiring minimal
to no human interaction
These bots are geared towards high-volume,error-prone
processes such as data entry and confirmation emails
They tend to be a bit more complicated to deploy and
implementthan attended bots
They are applied to more complex workflows
They require directhuman interaction
Rather than working atscale in the background, they're
generally employee-facing,and designed to make
individual workers more efficient and productive
View eBook
7. Is Everyone
On-board with RPA
Implementation?
Before you begin assessing vendors, you should validate
internally that you have the necessary buy-in from both
leadership and individual business units. Fortunately, if
you've been following along thus far, you've already laid the
necessary groundwork to make a compelling business case
for your RPA deployment.
Along with organizational and departmental leadership, you'll also need to talk to
both your IT and security teams about the following matters:
History with RPA &
Automation
Has your organization
purchased/deployed any
RPA solutions in the past? If so,
what was the outcome?
Current Technical
Roadmap
What major changes are
planned to your organization's
software/hardware
infrastructure in the
immediate future?
Regulatory & Security
Concerns
Are there any potential security
risks to this RPA deployment? If so,
does your organization have a plan
to address them?
8. How to Assess an RPA Vendor
Once you've identified where to apply RPA and what type of RPA you'll use, it's time to decide on a vendor. Your
goal here is to find a vendor that not only is a good fit for your specific use case, but will also provide you with the
greatest return on investment. Once you've put together a shortlist of prospective tools. evaluate each of them on
the following criteria.
Vendor
Maturity How long has the vendor been in operation? Are they relatively new to the sector?
Recent history Have there been any major acquisitions made by the vendor in the past several years? What
about scandals/controversies?
Conduct Does the vendor behave with honesty and integrity in their dealings? How does the vendor address
product/company issues?
Review history What do previous customers/clients have to say about the vendor?
Primary industries In what industries/sectors does the vendor most frequently operate?
Notable clients Who does the vendor have a history of working with?
RPA Specialization Does the vendor primarily focus on attended RPA or unattended RPA?
Onboarding Does the vendor provide the necessary training/guidance to new clients?
Communication Is the vendor able to articulate precisely how their product can help your business? Are they
responsive to questions, comments, & concerns?
Support What level of technical support does the vendor provide to its clientele? What is the quality of this
support?
Dedication to product/clientele How invested is the vendor in their product? Do they make a point of trying to
improve the product with each iteration?
9. Platform/Product
Supported deployments Do you need a cloud deployment, on-premises, or hybrid. Does the vendor support the
type of deployment you require?
Supported environments Does the tool natively support the most common operating systems within your
organization?
Interoperability How readily does the tool integrate with other applications and platforms within your ecosystem?
What first-party and third-party applications are supported by default by the solution? Are you required to use these
supported tools, or can you choose alternatives?
Lifecycle How mature is the product? How frequently is it updated?
Lifetime value Does the tool's cost justify the returns you'll see by deploying it?
Ease of deployment How easy is the tool to configure and implement?
Ease of operation How much time and effort are required to manage and maintain the tool? If relevant, how
intuitive is the tool from an end-user perspective?
Product features What functionality does the product offer out of the box(ie. process mining, parallel processing,
process discovery, analytics, etc.)?
Scalability How readily does the platform scale up or down?
Adaptability How easily does the solution adapt to changes to your business's systems/processes? How long does it
take to modify the tool and/or add new features?
Performance How quickly does the application achieve the desired results? How well does it handle a heavy process
workload? Does the product perform consistently?
Error handling How frequently does the application encounter errors, and how easy is it to address them?
Product architecture How is the solution built? What workflows/development frameworks does it use?
Security What standards/frameworks are in place to protect client data?
10. RPA Platform UiPath Automation Anywhere
Supported Deployments
Cloud, on-prem; differences in functionality between the
two Cloud, on-prem, hybrid
Supported Environments Windows Only Cloud-native, web-based
Interoperability
Cannot integrate UiPath with most third-party products
without developer support
Extensive partner ecosystem supports
diverse integrations out of the box
Lifecycle
UiPath Desktop Automation first released in 2013, only
one to three updates annually
Automation 360 sees regular updates and releases, with
blogs detailing the features of each
Lifetime Value
Heavy discounts on initial license price, but higher TCO
due to gaps in architecture and functionality
Cost-effective licensing, deployment, and
maintenance means low overall TCO
Ease of Deployment
Installation and initial setup require considerable
technical expertise
Zero installation and automatic updates for
faster adoption
Ease of Operation
• Code-free development
• Designed for inexperienced users/business users
• Script-based development supported by
natural language processing
• Better for those with a background in development
Product Features
• Open-source
• Free community version
• Process mining
• Centralized management server
• Visual editor
• Workflow recording
• Prebuilt templates
• Closed-source
• Free trial
• Bot Store is an industry-leading RPA marketplace
• Native process discovery
• Intelligent document processing
• Analytics & support for unstructured data
Scalability
Cannot scale horizontally, most deployments limited to
5-10 bots, large-scale deployments unwieldy
Can scale both vertically and horizontally with ease,
supports thousands of bots
Adaptability
Service expansions require duplication of
entire application, non-modular
Modular, efficient cloud architecture makes service
expansions and new features easy to deploy
Performance
Outperforms most other solutions on the market, with
the exception of Automation Anywhere
Can automate up to twice as many processes as
UiPath, with three times faster scaling
Error Handling Generally requires a custom approach
Supports process discovery and automated
error handling out of the box
Product Architecture
• Cloud-based, built on a legacy Windows
Workflow foundation
• Lacks SOC 1 Type 2, SOC 2 Type 2, and ISO22301
Certifications
• Client-server based
• Build with a bot security framework and privacy-
first architecture for high security/compliance
UiPath vs. Automation Anywhere
11. Vendor UiPath Automation Anywhere
Maturity
Founded in 2005 under the name DeskOver. Rebranded
in 2015
Founded in 2003 as Tethys Solutions. Rebranded in 2015
Recent History
Filed for IPO in December 2020, became public in April
2021
Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for two
consecutive years
Conduct
• Frequently releases unaudited, inconsistent ARR-
based revenue
• Inaccurate claims about customer count; treat every
subsidiary as a unique customer
Focused on improving product rather than increasing
logo count
Review History Largely positive reviews, 4.6/5 on Gartner Peer Insights Largely positive reviews, 4.5/5 on Gartner Peer Insights.
Primary Industries
• Computer science
• Financial services
• Manufacturing
• Pharmaceutical
• BioTech
• Public Sector
• Financial services
• Computer software
• Manufacturing
• Energy/Utilities
Notable Clients
• Bank of America
• Uber
• United Airlines
• Spotify
• Toyota
• Google
• Cisco
• Juniper Networks
• DellEMC
• Mastercard
RPA Specialization Attended RPA Unattended RPA
Onboarding
Online training offered through UiPath Academy,
two possible levels of certification
Online training offered through Automation
Anywhere University, two possible levels of
certification
Communication
Excellent responsiveness, website layout slightly busy/
chaotic
Excellent responsiveness, streamlined/minimalist website
Support
Self-service available via online portal, upgraded support/ 24/7 global support with trained customer service
CSMs available at additional cost managers for customers at all stages of their journey
Dedication to Product/Clientele
Deflects company & product issues with inflated
numbers
Focused on customer success, provides dedicated
account managers
UiPath vs. Automation Anywhere
12. Your Partner in All Things RPA
Whether you opt for Automation Anywhere or UiPath, Tangentia can help.
With nearly two decades of experience providing automation for customers
worldwide, we have the expertise you need for a deployment of any
size — and any class. We're also partnered with both organizations, with a
deep understanding of the areas in which each excels.
Book a discovery call today, and let us guide you to a better, more efficient future.
hello@tangentia.com
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United States: 302-357-3664
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