RPA is often considered as an alternative or even replacement to BPM. However, both technologies are complementary and closely similar.

RPA plays an important role to introduce modern process governance and automation into business domain, which most desperately needs it, namely, outdated legacy IT systems missing any other alternatives to orchestrate and automate.

Implementation of RPA over such systems de facto includes them into modern BPM workflows. Realization of RPA indirectly creates ready and practically proven BPM mapping, which can and should be further used as a ground for systematic upgrade and gradual replacement of existing legacy IT systems with contemporary architecture.

In this way, RPA paves a road to efficient BPM driven digital transformation of an organization based on process discovery achieved during RPA deployment. It is important, however, not to consider RPA as an ultimate goal but as a starting point in digital modernization.