Robotic Process Automation (RPA) robot is a custom program usually used to perform low and middle-level complexity repetitive tasks with/without human intervention. Businesses primarily implement RPA to achieve cost reduction and eliminate human errors in well-defined business processes.
Some other RPA benefits:
- -Businesses can scale up operations rapidly to meet seasonal workloads by replacing or augmenting humans with robots.
- -24/7 virtual workforce.
- -Less operational overhead and complexity.
- -Enables the business to focus on higher-value or creative tasks.
- -Develop IP and competitiveness.
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Present Situation and Future Scope of RPA Technology
Image source: Everest Group
Industry-wise Examples of Functions where RPA can be implemented.
- BFSI
- Insurance
- Claims processing
- Generating renewal premiums
- Financial services operations
- Data and document gathering
- Business intelligence
- ETL processes
- Telecom
- Report generation and data aggregation
- Manufacturing
- Accounts payable
- MIS reporting
- Operations
- Reporting
- Bulk data entry
- Extract, transform, load
- Human Resources
- Benefits management
- Onboarding
- System access and setup
- Supply Chain Management
- RFQ process automation
- Accounting & Finance
- Processing accounts payable
- Payroll processing
- Report generation and distribution
The Emergence of RPA software
To gain full benefit from Robotic Process Automation implementation, a business must weigh several factors first. Cost and performance being one of them.
Lower Costs, Better Performance.
Increasingly, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is seen as a quick and intelligent way to reduce costs and improve performance, with the RPA software automating several tasks performed by humans.
RPA technology often adds the most value for clients who have manual, high-volume, repetitive, rule-based processes involving structured data, such as transaction processing. Financial services, for instance, have seen higher rates of adoption than other industries.
To gain RPA capabilities, a business generally purchases a subscription license from a software provider for a fixed period of time. Also, they source RPA implementation services from a partner of the software provider.
Mastek is the official partner of RPA software provider of UiPath and Automation Anywhere.
But before doing any of that, it’s important to understand how RPA works, and how it can be best applied to your business.
RPA at Work
An RPA “bot” can execute well-defined processes by acting like a super-efficient human in the following ways:
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Current Human Process |
Robotic Process Automation |
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Logging into a sequence of applications or systems to execute a process or program. |
A bot executes the same process or program as a human does; logs into the same set of applications. |
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Using a notepad application to capture data and re-key it into the next application, or cut-and-paste. |
Bot captures all details of the process and then stores it for potential auditing later (for instance: no notepads). |
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Work a normal day and subject to natural limitations (for instance: fatigue, etc.). |
The bot works 24-7, without pausing, at machine speed (1 bot equates to approximately three full-time equivalents). |
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Scaling the process requires hiring and training new people which can take up to a few months. |
Bots are 100 percent compliant with the business process and changes can be implemented instantly without training. Scaling the process is instant and as simple as drag-and-drop to an additional bot. |
Consider this
In evaluating RPA facilitators, you must go beyond price. Be sure to understand:
- Existing staff commitments on behalf of the Robotic Process Automation implementers, versus the additional capacity needed to meet the organization’s requirements.
- Experience is measured by the number of robots deployed and processes fully automated, and lead-time to provide resources for a given automation project.
- The number of Robotic Processes’ Automation industry specialists experienced and trained in the software to be deployed.
- Quality of various references and applicability with the industry and industry-specific requirements.
Top 10 RPA tools in the market
- UiPath Platform
- Automation Anywhere Enterprise RPA platform
- Blue Prism
- Microsoft Power Automate
- Appian RPA
- WorkFusion Intelligent Automation Cloud
- Kofax RPA
- Pega Robotic Automation
- NICE Robotic Automation
- Automation Edge
Next steps: Taking action
The landscape of automation technologies is rapidly changing and developing.
It’s advisable for the organizations to assess the suitability of processes within their organizations for potential replacement via RPA and the resulting benefit versus potential adoption of other automation technologies (for example, BPM tools).
As part of this analysis, a company will likely discover opportunities to consolidate demand for the technology across multiple company units and drive savings by negotiating based on the consolidated demand.
The significance of Robotic Process Automation can be far-reaching, affecting where existing services are supplied from as the transactional costs drop.
To maximize utility, organizations need to delve deeper into their structures and understand how their internal service supply chain is justified. It’s highly recommended that any business strategy they adopt should be holistic, considering the end-to-end process changing to automation (RPA).