Part
01
of two
Part
01
Workplace Automation
Introduction
Our research team could identify the market landscape for workplace automation in the UK and EU, after a thorough and exhaustive search on credible avenues of information. We could establish that some major applications of workplace automation include marketing automation, data analysis, software testing, and deployment. We have identified that Force24 and Communigator are key players in marketing automation. According to PwC, 30% of the jobs in the United Kingdom are automatable by the early 2030s.
Findings
some of the key players
Force24
- Founded in 2010, Force24 is a Yorkshire, Leeds-based B2B company that provides marketing automation and related services.
- Directors Adam Oldfield and Nick Washbourne represent the merging of the two worlds of data and marketing agency that create marketing automation.
- The company has raised total funding of £250K over one round on March 19, 2019.
- This was a debt financing round.
- The company is funded by NPIF–Mercia Debt Finance.
- Force24 has an estimated $1 million annual revenue.
Communigator
- Founded in 2005 and based out of Guildford, Surrey, Communigator has successfully moved upstream and repositioned itself as a marketing automation platform from an ESP (email services provider).
- The company has raised total funding of £8.2 million over one round on July 4, 2018.
- This was a private equity round.
- The company has an estimated $8.5 million annual revenue.
datasine
- Founded in 2015 in London, DataSine is an AI-enabled marketing technology startup. The company enables its customers to personalize their marketing communication in a scalable manner.
- DataSine employs ML or machine learning to gain a better understanding of the customers. The company thereby helps in delivering ad content that is much more targeted.
- The clients of this company include BNP Paribas, Hello bank! Belgium, and Tinkoff Bank.
- The company had secured £4 million in series A funding in February 2019.
How the market is changing
- According to PwC, 30% of jobs in the United Kingdom and 35% of jobs in Germany are automatable by the early 2030s.
- According to McKinsey, in Europe, nearly 54 million FTEs and over $1.7 trillion in wages are associated with automatable jobs in the five biggest economies namely, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
- On a global front, another PwC survey reported that 37% of workers are afraid of losing their jobs due to automation.
- The major factors driving the growth of workplace automation are the advancement in AI or artificial intelligence and robotics.
- According to the latest report released by the International Federation of Robotics, the average robot density in the manufacturing industries around the world is 74 units per 10,000 employees.
- With 71 units per 10,000 employees, the average robot density of United Kingdom is below the world average and ranks 22nd globally.
- With 309 units per 10,0000 employees, Germany is the most automated country in Europe and ranks third globally.
- France has an average robot density of 132 units and ranks 18th globally.
- EU member countries such as Sweden (223 units), Denmark (211 units), Italy (185 units) and Spain (160 units) possess a higher degree of automation as compared to France because their manufacturing sectors use industrial robots.
- By regions, Europe has the highest average robot density of 99 units followed by the Americas with 84 units and Asia, 63 units.
If competitors would find it easy to enter the space
- Workplace automation can be employed in various areas such as software testing, software deployments, data analysis, creating data backups, marketing automation, onboarding new employees, leave log management, live chat widgets, etc.
- It can be gauged from the above statement that the workplace automation space is highly diversified and would require specialized technology such as AI, and ML in addition to process know-how.
- According to an analysis done by the Marketing AI Institute using Crunchbase data, the range of funding for the top 10 highest funded AI-powered sales and marketing companies ranged from between $78.7 million to $251.2 million in 2018. Most of these companies were providers of sales and marketing automation tools.
- Therefore, it can be inferred from the above findings that entering the workplace automation market will not be easy for competitors without specialized technology, process know-how and a funding in the range of $78.7 million to $251.2 million.
Research strategy
We commenced our search by scouring for industry reports by leading consulting firms such as PwC, Deloitte, McKinsey, among others. This research strategy was successful in terms of providing statistical information pertaining to the percentage of overall automatable jobs in the United Kingdom and the EU and how the market is changing. We dug deeper into blogs, articles and other such publications by workflow management software providers such as Integrify to understand the processes where workplace automation can be done. We unearthed that workplace automation can be done in finance, HR, IT, marketing, facilities, sales, purchasing, and legal processes. This strategy was instrumental in a way that it helped us to decide the research path further. Taking a cue from the above-mentioned strategy, we ventured into finding companies that provide automation tools in domains such as finance, HR, IT, marketing, etc. This research strategy was helpful in providing us with information for the key players. We combed through third-party databases such as Crunchbase to find funding information for these companies. In addition to these research strategies, we also referred to CIO, Raconteur, TechWorld, among others to conclude if entering the workplace automation space would be easy or not for competitors.