With a recent surge in adoption of Robotic Process Automation, many midsize companies are asking how they can get in on the action. Here’s what they’ll need to successfully implement this back-office transformation accelerator.

Robotic process automation (“RPA”) may not have the same headline appeal as other digital technologies, like AI and blockchain, but don’t let that fool you into believing it’s any less transformative. Over the last decade, RPA has become a fundamental pillar in the evolution of back-office operations as businesses continue to build atop the bedrock of automation.

The RPA market is booming as adoption is forecast to increase and RPA providers continue to raise significant capital. In April of this year, RPA provider UiPath raised $568 million at a $7 billion valuation, while another, Automation Anywhere, amassed $300 million. Earlier in the year, Blue Prism stated it would be raising nearly USD$130 million (£100 million) and recently announced it would be buying Thoughtonomy, which uses a cloud-based AI engine to deliver RPA solutions.

For forward-thinking leaders, the question isn’t if they’ll adopt RPA, but when and how. Given the relative simplicity of deploying a bot, adopting RPA is an immediate way to generate value in the form of accuracy, efficiency and cost savings. Furthermore, regardless of the maturity of current processes and competing priorities, RPA can produce instant results with relatively low effort. However, the real game changer is leveraging RPA to stand up a digital workforce: launching a program to implement RPA across multiple processes involving a critical mass of resources to realize transformative changes and benefits.

So where do companies start? Here are two key steps businesses can take to successfully adopt and implement RPA.