UiPath: Fairly Valued But Competition Is Increasing

UiPath (PATH) is in the process of building an end-to-end automation platform, which positions them for further success in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) market. The company's financial performance has been robust in recent years and despite the extremely high revenue multiple of the stock, UiPath's share price is probably justified, provided they can maintain their market leadership.

UiPath

UiPath provides RPA software that aims to unburden employees from repetitive tasks and enable the fully automated enterprise. UiPath was founded in 2005 in Romania and was initially focused on building automation scripts and developing computer vision technology, both of which remain the foundations of the company to this day.


UiPath's software lowers the barriers to adoption for automation solutions, allowing customers to build, manage and measure automations across their organization. Much of this functionality is provided by Artificial Intelligence (AI) based computer vision, which enables software robots to perform a wide array of actions including logging into applications, extracting information from documents, moving folders, filling in forms and updating information fields. Additionally, these robots are able to learn from and replicate the actions of workers, driving continuous improvement. UiPath's platform enables automation through a variety of means though, including communicating with APIs, simulating clicking/typing across User Interfaces (UIs) and executing scripts written in other coding languages. The platform is built to be used by all employees and to address a wide range of use cases, from simple tasks to long-running, complex business processes.

UiPath also offers a variety of pre-built activities and connectors to accelerate customer deployment of robots. They have an open ecosystem that is architecture agnostic, allowing organizations to automate existing infrastructure and accelerate digital innovation without the need to replace existing infrastructure. UiPath has built a number of technology partnerships and alliances (approximately 75) to provide connectors and other tools which enhance the capabilities of their platform. Technical partners include Amazon Web Services (AMZN), Adobe (ADBE), Alteryx (AYX), Box (BOX), IBM (IBM), Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), Salesforce (CRM), SAP (SAP), ServiceNow (NOW) and Workday (WDAY).

UiPath also has a global network of nearly 1 million automation professionals who are building and sharing automations. These professionals help to extend the capabilities of the platform and allow UiPath to address new use cases. In this manner, UiPath can act as a true platform, where users build applications on the platform, and this may lead to the development of a larger marketplace in time. UiPath utilizes a group of 3,900 individuals from their customers and partners who influence product direction as part of their Insiders Program, helping to ensure that customer needs are fulfilled.


UiPath's platform is built with a number of features that they believe differentiate it from competitors and enable end-to-end automation:

AI Computer Vision - computer vision technology utilizing AI that can recognize and interact with constantly changing elements of on-screen documents, images and applications.

Fully AI-Enabled Platform - AI is utilized in a number of areas of the platform which enables organizations to embed AI into their operations.

Document Understanding - computer vision technology is combined with optical character recognition, natural language processing, and a variety of Machine Learning (ML) technologies to classify and extract data from documents and images, handwriting and scans.

Low-Code Development Tools - intuitive low-code, drag-and-drop development tools that are easy for non-technical knowledge workers to use.

Enterprise-Grade Governance and Security - centralized governance and data security capabilities allowing customers to securely deploy automations at scale.

Open and Extensible Platform Architecture - UiPath's platform delivers UI automation and API integration on a single platform.

Flexible Deployment - UiPath's platform is designed to be multi-tenant and deployable across on-premises, private and public cloud, and hybrid environments as required.

UiPath is in the process of moving from a focus on RPA to a full-suite of automation solutions through a mixture of internal development and acquisitions. They acquired the process mining company ProcessGold in 2019 to help customers understand their processes and identify opportunities for automation. They also acquired the process documentation vendor StepShot in 2019 to help customers record, document and share processes. UiPath acquired Cloud Elements in 2021 to strengthen its API-based automation capabilities, which gives customers the flexibility to automate processes using a mix of UI-based and API-based automation. Cloud Elements brings more than 200 new native integrations to UiPath and enables new capabilities such as event-based triggering of automations.

UiPath has introduced over 12 new products and multiple new features over the last 18 months. Continued product innovation is important to expanding the capabilities of the platform and driving adoption for new use cases over time. In support of this, UiPath continues to invest in R&D to improve its technology and enhance the platform's usability.

UiPath's platform includes seven modular product pillars to address the automation lifecycle:

Discover - combines AI with desktop recording, back-end mining of both human activity and system logs and visualization tools, which help users to automate processes.
Build - low-code development environments with drag-and-drop functionality that allow non-technical users to create automations.
Manage - centralized tools designed to securely manage, test and deploy automations and ML models.
Run - allows enterprises to deploy robots leveraging hundreds of native connectors built for commonly used line-of-business applications.
Engage - provides multiple ways for users to remain connected and interact with robots running in a range of environments (data center, cloud, desktop).
Measure - enables users to track, measure and forecast the performance of automations.
Govern - centralized governance capabilities designed to help businesses ensure compliance with business standards.



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