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Automation Statistics You Need to Know—The Mega-List

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Industry

Marketing, Email, Job Loss, RPA, & 14 More

Automation is increasingly influencing the way we do things in different industries. With the pandemic wide-spreading, automation is now no longer a distant-future endeavor, but a real necessity.  Many businesses and industries are beginning to adopt automated processes with some spending more than others to achieve a higher degree of automation.

In this blog, we compile the most important industrial automation stats of 2020 in various sectors. Let's go:

Automation in Sales

Automation in sales boosts productivity within the department by 14.5% while bringing down marketing costs by 12.2%.

Sales teams can close 30% more deals when they automate Salesforce. It also reduces the sales cycle by 18% and saves 14 percent administration time.

Lead nurturing sales automation has shown an over 200% increase in conversions for different brands.

Sales automation has helped B2B marketers to improve their sales pipeline by an average of 10 percent.

47% of people who use marketing automation say their main concern is increasing sales revenue.

Marketing automation is credited for improving the quality of leads generated for 60% of the people who use it.

The same people who use marketing automation to improve the quality of leads report 3 times more leads generated every month.

Sales can also be increased by 20% through automating offers using past browsing history to personalize the offers.

Automation can increase the average order size by more than 360% using one-click upsells.

By 2023, 30% of sales, front desk, and customer experience activities will involve robotic process automation.

Automation in Marketing

automation statistics

67% of marketing leaders are utilizing automation platforms in one way or another.

With an annual growth of 14%, marketing automation spending will exceed $25 billion by 2023.

Some of these statistics are unsurprising, for example: 74% of marketers surveyed agreed that the main reason marketers and business owners use automation software is to save time.

Spending on marketing automation solutions is justified by the results: conversions are estimated to increase by 77%.

91% of online marketers see automation as a very crucial factor in the success of their marketing activities.

58% of top marketing automation users assert that conversions and revenue are the best way to measure automation success.

A study by Omnisend confirmed that automating omnichannel marketing is likely to create a customer retention rate of 90%. The same study shows engagement and purchase rates increase by 250% using omnichannel automation.

92% of marketing automation users say they use it to improve their lead generation followed by customer retention and nurturing.

A survey found that 59% of Fortune 500 companies are using marketing automation and the number is steadily on the rise.

Automation in Finance

CEOs could save 20% of the time they spend on financial tasks that could be automated. These include analyzing reports by McKinsey.

In 2017, McKinsey forecast a second wave of automation and AI that will see machines handling between 10 and 25% of banking tasks.

Bot interactions with humans in the banking sector is expected to reach a 90% success rate by 2022.

ICICI Bank was able to cut down time spent redressing complaints about ATM cash disbursal from 12 hours to 4 hours a day by automating the redress process. ICICI deployed over 750 robots to handle daily transactions and has recorded 100% accuracy.

Accounts Payable Automation implementation can improve the processing time for invoices by 10%. According to MineralTree, automating invoice capture saves 1 hour a day. Accounts Payable Automation is an investment that quickly pays for itself in 6 to 18 months.

In 2016, the influence of automated finance advice was overestimated by $1.2 trillion. Different insights had forecast that by 2020 $2.2 trillion would be under asset management.

Jobs Lost to Automation Statistics

More men than women are likely to be affected by automation. McKinsey insights reveal about 24% of currently employed women and 28% of men could lose their jobs by 2023.

The number of automated jobs increases by 14% every year with junior workers the most affected by the trend.

At the same time, automation may force between 40 million and 160 million women to transition between jobs.

About 55% of jobs that do not require college degrees are at risk of being automated.

76% of information workers are not worried about their jobs being automated because they believe they have the skills to get another job at their company.

86% of employees surveyed believe that automation will help them do their work more efficiently to improve productivity and growth.

A survey of employers shows that only 11% are looking to automation as a substitute for human labor.

70% of employees are ready to compete with robots for jobs. Research shows employees will improve their skills to be able to do just as much or better than robots.

The United States and China are projected to see the most impact of automation taking over human jobs. Product improvement will be the biggest push behind the trend.

Humans have worried about losing their jobs to robots since the 1930s.

Automation accounts for one-third of new jobs created since 1930. This has fueled the belief that with automation comes opportunity.

On the other hand, economists believe that modern automation will lead to more job losses than creation by 2030.

In England, automation replaced 850,000 workers between 2001 and 2017, but it also created 3.6 million opportunities.

Automation in Social Media

Almost all tasks involved in posting on social media can be automated. A study shows that automating posts can save 6 hours every day.

83% of marketers agree that scheduling posts for social media is the most suitable digital marketing element to automate. One survey, however, shows there is much more that can be utilized.

Automation in Cyber Security

Research suggests robotic automation can cut down the detection and response time to phishing attacks by as much as 70%.        

By 2017, 44% of companies were using AI to detect and deter cyber intrusions. One survey predicted a rise in automated security in 2020.

According to LearnBonds, 68% of major global companies are planning to increase spending on automated cybersecurity solutions.

Investing in automated cybersecurity could increase global revenue opportunities by $5.2 trillion, according to a report by Accenture.

One report indicates that 51% of enterprises surveyed in 2019 were depending primarily on AI to detect cyber threats.

80% of telecom executives surveyed indicated that AI was their main hope for combating cyber-attacks now and in the future.

According to Webroot, 84% of IP professionals in America and Japan are convinced they face the threat of criminals using AI to launch attacks.

Insurance Statistics

By 2030, the United States is forecast to see 46% of its insurance claims processing jobs automated. One report predicts that customer service and claims adjustment jobs, however, will see only 16% displacement.

Quote generation time for insurance agents in California was cut from 14 days to 4 minutes using automation. The insurance firm recorded a 70% increase in sales.

By 2018, claims review was already being considered as one of the biggest processes to be automated. 30% of insurers were considering robotic process automation for this task.

In 2017, Deloitte insight predicted the loss of 22.7 million insurance jobs in the US as a result of automation and the creation of 13.6 million new ones over 10 years.

Automation in Manufacturing

McKinsey Institute estimates that automating different tasks can raise productivity growth to 1.4% annually.

In terms of dollars, an Oxford report estimates that implementing automation in the manufacturing industry could increase $4.9 trillion every year by 2030.

According to a report, the world can save 749 billion working hours by automating 64 percent of manufacturing tasks.

7 out of 10 workers believe adopting automation in their organization will create better opportunities for them in higher-skilled jobs.

The World Economic Forum predicts that by 2022, 42% of the time spent on manufacturing tasks will be automated using robots.

Meanwhile, Oxford Economics says that 20 million manufacturing jobs will be lost to automation by 2030.

Another study says that the main reason 57% of employers want to automate is to improve the productivity of their workforce. Only 24% of employers have a reduction in operating costs as their main reason for automating their business.

The use of automation in three key industries including manufacturing will contribute $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, according to a PWC study.

Automation in Advertising

Google automated bidding is one of the most used advertising automated software. In 2019, it was being used by 70% of advertisers.

Businesses that automate their advertising strategies can save $130,000 annually in advertising costs.

Programmatic advertising is increasingly being adopted by advertisers. In 2018, it accounted for over 80% of digital display marketing in the US.

By the end of 2020, over 90% of mobile display ads will be negotiated automatically using programmatic ads.

By 2022, most companies will automate all their advertising processes. It is forecast to be about 80% of all processes.

In 2016, only 32% of display ads were automated. More research in 2019, however, showed the figure had more than doubled to 72%.

Automation in the Health Industry

The healthcare automation growth statistics indicate the industry is set to record gains of over $63 million by 2026. The global healthcare automation market report estimates an 8.41% growth within 7 years.

A combination of healthcare and pharmacy industries will boost the automation industry with revenue of over $900 million by the end of 2026.

With the number of older people in need of assisted care going up, the purchase of medical robots has risen by 50% each year. The global medical robotics market will hit $20 billion by 2023 as some surgery procedures become fully automated.

According to McKinsey predictions, medicine and pharma can save as much as $100 billion by depending on AI and big data.

Bot interaction in the health sector without the need for human operators is predicted to be at 75% by 2022.

The US is expected to save $150 billion in the healthcare economy by 2026 through the application of AI in the health sector.

Automation in Email

Over 269 billion emails are sent globally on a daily basis and about 2.4 million emails per second. And on an average a business employee sends 40 emails and receives 121 emails everyday. No wonder, almost half of the small and medium businesses surveyed have integrated automated emails as part of their marketing strategy as automating their email and other repetitive tasks is worth nearly $273/hour.

Companies that use automated marketing software to send out emails receive twice the number of leads and 58% more conversions than those that simply send out email blasts.

Businesses that automate follow up emails and outreach campaigns can improve their response rate by 250%.

Adding automated emails to the lead nurturing process can improve revenue by 10%.

Emails sent as part of triggered campaigns account for more than 75% of B2B revenue from emails.

A survey showed that 14% of marketers combine segmentation and automation to improve personalization.

Automation in Cloud

84% of business leaders that have adopted cloud automation have seen an increase in revenue and reduction in operation costs.

Year on year growth for businesses using cloud automation is estimated at 15%.

The market for cloud automation is forecast to grow by $103.9 billion motivated by the global growth of 24.7%.

84% of IT companies are happy with the improvement cloud automation has made to the agility of their company. 81% of IT companies feel that they have been able to improve innovation by using cloud automation.

86% of IT leaders have seen a remarkable improvement in client satisfaction as a result of cloud automation. 59% of IT leaders have used cloud automation to improve the deployment of engineers to work on higher-value tasks.

Automation in Public Relations

By 2023, 38% of PR skillsets could be replaced by automation. Research by CIPR indicates that currently 12% can either be complemented or replaced by AI.

According to the Office of National Statistics UK, 27% of PR and marketing jobs are currently at risk due to automation.

A 2013 research paper by the University of Oxford indicates there is an 18% chance of automation replacing PR jobs.

PR emails sent to media houses or journalists using automated software have a higher open rate. One source says PRs who use their software has a 46% open rate.

PR teams could save 2 hours a week by automating tasks. A survey reveals 98% of PR professionals spend most of their time using email.

Automation in IT

AI-augmented automation will be adopted by 40% of large enterprise I and O teams by 2023 which will push productivity within IT departments and improve scalability.

The number of automation architects within enterprises is forecast to rise by 70% by 2025 up from 20% in 2020.

There will be a reduced need for IT specialists by 2023 fueled by AI-enabled automation used for data management. About 20% of IT specialists will be affected.

As more organizations adopt a combination of hyper-automation and redesign operational processes, they will experience a 30% reduction in operation costs by 2024.

Research by Gartner suggests that I and O staff will get paid 40% more for their automation skills in 2022 as they manage automation implementation.

Automation in Human Resources

43% of HR professionals are optimistic about the introduction of automation to their industry. They feel it will make it better.

42% of recruiters do not think automation will affect their job in anyway. In 2017, the majority of recruiters (55%) did not think automation would cause the loss of jobs by 2020 within their organization.

14% of headhunters are afraid of being replaced by automation technology in their workplace.

Meanwhile, according to Oxford Economics, 1.7 million jobs have already been lost to automation since 2000.

72% of HR officers surveyed revealed they believe the way they recruit will have to change as automation becomes more prevalent.

67% of recruiters believe automation in HR will save or is saving time in recruitment meanwhile 43% feel it removes human bias.

Automation is being used by 20% of companies to eliminate bias and support diversity recruitment. HubSpot reveals diversity recruitment is a concern for many organizations

In 2019, 75% of HR professionals did not have the confidence to effectively use automation to improve their recruitment process.

Talk about robots and automation within the workplace has grown by over 70% but most of the time it is presented in a positive light — Adobe Digital Insights reveal.

Automating repeated tasks like administrative work could save companies as much as $5 trillion annually as well as 69 working days. Talking about robots taking over jobs, it indeed frees up our time to do more productive things.

33% of organizations look to enterprise content management as a solution to having to deal with paper documents.

Out of 3000 business executives interviewed by Boston Consulting Group, 75% would like to use automation and AI as an opportunity to explore other business opportunities.

2550 of 3000 business executives interviewed see AI as an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage.

Labor savings from adopting automation in the office can guarantee an organization between 30 and 200% return on investment in the first year.

Robotic Process Automation Stats

Robotic process automation (RPA) is growing fast. Forrester forecasts that by 2021 it will be worth  $2.9 billion from $250 million 5 years ago.

A forecast by Grand View Research for the period between 2017 and 2025 puts RPA worth at $3.11 billion by 2025.

According to Deloitte, the current race for robotic automation will reach near-universal adoption within 5 years.

Research by Deloitte indicates that the majority of companies are just beginning to adopt RPA. 58% confirmed this.

Only 17% of organizations adopting RPA have reported resistance from employees. The majority see it as a good thing.

78% of organizations beginning to adopt RPA are planning to scale up within 3 years.

By 2026, workflow automation statistics indicate small and medium businesses are forecast to create market opportunities of $1600 million by taking up workflow automation according to Global Wire.

Automation in Ecommerce

Almost 50% of eCommerce companies use marketing automation software to attract more shoppers.

By 2025, 95% of interactions between customers and retailers will be handled by automated systems. This will include phone calls and live chat.

The number of consumers open to AI handling customer service is more than those who oppose it. 73% say they are fine with automated customer care as long as it improves service.

Experian reveals customers who get automated emails about incomplete purchases in their shopping carts are 2.4 times more prone to complete the purchase.

Tractica forecast that warehousing and logistics automated shipments will reach 620,000 units by 2021 driven by high demand for faster deliveries.

Automated warehouses are 40% more likely to ship orders within one day of the order being made. Robotics Business Review indicates it also reduces labor costs.

Automation in Agriculture

The agricultural robot market is expected to grow at a rate of 34.5% between 2020 and 2025 by the end of this period it will be worth $20.3 billion.

Meanwhile, by 2022, the agricultural robot market will be worth $12 billion as more farmers see improved yields after adopting the technology.

More than 35,000 robotic milking systems are currently in use around the world. Most farmers utilize them to minimize labor costs.

The market for automated farming equipment (drones and robots) is expected to rise to $23.06 billion by 2028 driven by global demand for food.

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Tags Start & End

Tags Can Start & End Anywhere

Appendix B

.NET code for multi-page image output

Appendix A

Java code for multi-page image output

Data Bin Search

The Data Bin can now be searched to find a table, column, node or other piece of data without scrolling through it all.

Shrink to Fit

This will shrink the contents of a cell until it fits the defined cell size.

Time Zone Conversion

A new Windward macro has been added to help with converting dates and times from UTC time to the local time zone.

Image Output Format

New image output formats added.

PostScript Output Format

PostScript, commonly used with printers and printing companies, has been added as an additional output format.

New and Improved Datasets (Designer, Java Engine, .NET Engine)

Datasets have been re-written from scratch to be more powerful and easier to use.

Stored Procedure Wizard (Designer)

This works for all tag types that are connected to a SQL-based data source (Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, or DB2).

Boolean Conditional Wizard (Designer)

Before, conditional statements could only be written manually. Now they can also be built using our intuitive Wizard interface.

Reorganized Ribbon

The ribbon menus have been re-organized and consolidated to improve the report design workflow.

XPath 2.0 as Data Source

Adds various capabilities such as inequalities,descending sort, joins, and other functions.

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SQL Select Debugger

SQL Select  Debugger

  • The look and feel was improved
  • Stored Procedure Wizard
  • Improved Exceptions pane

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Tag Editor/Tag Selector

Added a Query tab as a field for typing or pasting in a select statement

  • Color Coding of Keywords
  • TypeAhead
  • Evaluate is now "Preview"

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Rename a Datasource

All tags using that Data source will be automatically updated with that name.

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Connecting to a Data Source

New single interface to replace 2 separate dialog boxes

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Tag Tree

Displays of all the tags in the template, structured as they are placed in the template. This provides a simple & intuitive way to see the structure of your template. Also provides the capability to go to any tag and/or see the properties of any tag.

Added Javelin into the RESTful Engine

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Support for Google Application Engine Integration

The ability to integrate the Windward Engine into Google’s cloud computing platform for developing and hosting web applications dubbed Google Applications Engine (GAE).

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Additional Refinement for HTML Output

  • Improved indentation for ordered and unordered lists
  • Better handling of template header and footer images
  • Better handling for background images and colors

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Redesigned PDF Output Support

This new  integration will allow for processing of complex scripts and bi-directional  text such as Arabic.  Your PDF output  will be much tighter and more closely match your template, and we’ll be able  to respond rapidly to PDF requests and fixes.

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PowerPoint Support

Includes support for new ForEach and slide break handling, table header row repeat across slide breaks, and native Microsoft support for charts and images.

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Tags are Color Coded

Tags are color coded in the template by type, making it easy to visually identify them.

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Increased Performance

Version 13’s core code has been reworked and optimized to offer a reduced memory footprint, faster PDF generation and full documentation of supported features and limitations in the specifications for DOCX, XLSX and PPTX.

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Advanced Image Properties

Documents can include advanced Word image properties such as shadows, borders, and styles.

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Improved HTML Output

Windward has updated HTML output to reflect changing HTML standards.

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Version 13 New Data Sources

Windward now works with a slew of new datasources: MongoDB, JSON, Cassandra, OData, Salesforce.com

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Generate Code

The Generate Code tool in the designer allows you to open an existing template and, with a click of a button, automatically create a window with the code needed to run your current template with all data sources and variables. Simply copy this code and paste into your application's code in the appropriate place. You now have Windward integrated into your application.

You only need to do this once. You do not do this for each template. Instead, where it has explicit files for the template and output, change that to parameters you pass to this code. Same for the parameters passed to Windward. This example uses explicit values to show you what to substitute in where.

Pivot Tables Adjusted in Output

Any pivot tables in an XLSX template are carried over to the XLSX output. The ranges in the pivot ranges are adjusted to match the generated output. So your final XLSX will have pivot tables set as expected in the generated file.

This makes creating an XLSX workbook with pivot tables trivial.

Imported Template Can be Set to Match the Parent Styles

In an imported sub-template, if its properties for a style (ex. Normal) differ from the parent template's properties for the style, the use in the sub-template can be set to either use the properties in the sub-template, or the properties in the parent.

You set to retain when you don't want the child template's styling to change when imported. You set to use the parent when you want the styling of the imported template to match the styling in the parent.

Any explicit styling is always retained. This only impacts styling set by styles.

Tags can be Placed in Text Boxes

Tags can be placed in text boxes. Including linked text boxes. This gives you the ability to set the text in a textbox from your data.

Tags can be Placed in Shapes & Smart Art

Tags can be placed in shapes & smart art. This gives you the ability to set the text in a shape from your data.

HTML Output Supports Embedded Images

When generating HTML output, the engine can either write bitmaps as distinct files the generate HTML references, or it can embed the images in the HTML providing a single file for the output.

Footnotes & Endnotes can Have Tags

You can place tags in pretty much any part of a template, including in footnotes & endnotes.

Document Locking Supported in DOCX & XLSX

Any parts of a DOCX or XLSX (PowerPoint does not support this) file that are locked in the template, will be locked the same in the output.

Specify Font Substitution

If a font used in the template does not exist on the server generating a report, the font to substitute can be specified.
In addition, if a glyph to be rendered does not exist in the font specified, you can specify the replacement font. This can be set distinctly for European, Bi-Directional, and Far East fonts.

Process Multiple Datasources Simultaneously

If you need this - it's essential. And if you don't need it, it's irrelevant.

Windward enables you to build a document by applying multiple datasources to the template simultaneously. When Windward is merging the data into a template, it processes the template by handling each tag in order, and each tag pulls from different datasources. (As opposed to processing all of one datasource, then processing the next.)

This allows the select tag to use data from another datasource in its select. For example, if you are pulling customer information from one data source, you can then pull data from the sales datasource using the customer ID of the customer presently processing to pull the sales information for that customer. If you're interested in patching together your data from multiple datasources, read this post on our blog.

Written by:_
Genesis Abel

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