Reply 2:
This is exactly why enterprises are moving toward platform-play offerings instead of standalone RPA tools. We consolidated from five different automation tools (UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Power Automate, custom Python scripts, and Excel macros) into one integrated platform with API management, BPM, and IDP capabilities. Bot sprawl dropped 35% when we enforced development standards and reusability requirements. Maintenance costs stabilized because we're not supporting multiple technology stacks. The citizen developer problem got solved with low-code governance where business users can build bots in sandbox environments, but IT reviews and approves before production deployment. Reduced our bot failure rate from 18% to 4% over six months.
Reply 1:
Bot lifecycle management becomes critical once you cross 50 bots, and you need orchestration platforms like Blue Prism Enterprise Operating Model or UiPath Orchestrator with proper CoE structure. We hit 200+ bots last year and maintenance was eating 40% of our automation budget until we implemented centralized governance. Now every bot has an owner, SLA metrics, health monitoring, and scheduled review cycles. When SAP updated three months ago, our orchestration platform flagged 28 affected bots immediately and auto-deployed updates to 19 of them. The other 9 needed manual fixes, but we knew exactly which processes were impacted within 20 minutes instead of discovering failures over two weeks.
Original Post:
Started our RPA journey eighteen months ago with twenty bots handling HR onboarding, data entry, and reporting. Now we're at 147 bots across departments and monthly maintenance costs hit $67,000 last quarter, up from $12,000 in Q1 2025. The problem is bot sprawl - no central governance, departments building their own automations with citizen developer tools, and zero lifecycle tracking. When applications update, twelve bots break and we don't even know which processes are affected until users complain. Organizations running 100+ bots, how do you manage this without a full-time bot operations team? What governance frameworks actually work for tracking bot performance, version control, and retirement?
