Robotic Process Automation

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) tools can help businesses improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their operations by eliminating manual tasks, automating desktop activities and delivering greater consistency and control over systems, data and processes.

RPA uses software, commonly known as a ‘robot’, to capture and interpret existing IT applications to enable transaction processing, data manipulation and communication across multiple IT systems. They are best suited for processes with repeatable, predictable interactions with IT applications. 

RPA solutions perform routine business processes by mimicking the way people interact with applications through a user interface and following simple rules to make decisions.  The best processes to automate are those which are repetitive, prone to human error, involve digital data, time critical and are rule based.

Robotic Process Automation Solutions:

Benefits of RPA include

RPA provides organizations with the ability to reduce staffing costs and human error. Companies are saving money and achieving better customer service by using software agents to automate core transaction. Bots are typically low-cost and easy to implement, requiring no custom software or deep systems integration.

• Customer satisfaction - freeing up customer-service personnel from forms, paperwork etc so they focus on delivering personalised customer service
• Increase productivity and reduce staffing costs - automates repetitive, rules-based processes and complete tasks five times faster
• Improved employee engagement and morale - enabled them to add more value by removing the repetitive tasks
• Improve Accuracy - 100 percent accurate, 100 percent consistent and 100 percent compliant with policies
• Visible Return on Investment - RPA workforce can prove ROI with lightening speed

Enterprises can also supercharge their automation efforts by adding cognitive technologies to RPA, such as ML, speech recognition, and natural language processing, meaning that they can automate higher-order tasks that in the past needed the capabilities of humans.

Top Tips for effective Robotic Process Automation Implementation:

• Do your research:

RPA is a relatively new technology and the market as well as product offerings and features have shifted in recent years.  Before buying an RPA solution, do your homework and invest the time to build a business case for it. Moreover as finding internal expertise will likely be difficult, it might make sense to seek help from an expert adviser when developing a strategy, selecting a vendor, and deploying and maintaining the technology.

• Educate your employees on RPA

Because it’s a disruptive technology, RPA can cause a lot of angst among workers. For that reason, it’s important to clarify what the technology will and will not do with regard to employees’ job roles.

• Decide where the technology will work best

When deploying RPA tools, it’s best to identify processes where you’re most likely to see a positive business impact. Doing so, will greatly increase your likelihood of success in modernizing your business processes. But keep in mind that figuring out the best RPA targets might not be easy.

• Take time to think about your design

Many implementations fail because design and change are poorly managed. In the rush to get something deployed,  companies can overlook communication exchanges, between the various bots, which can break a business process. Before you implement, make sure you map out how you expect the various bots to work together.