THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO RPA FOR MOST OF YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS IN 2022
RPA is doing much more than we expected. 2022 witnesses a rapid change and experimentation with RPA tools. RPA as an industry growing exponentially. A prediction by Forrester shows it will increase from $250 million in 2016 to $2.9 billion in 2021. The big organization believes that if the on-going trend continues, we will witness a vast adaptation of RPA in almost all sectors.
In indeed, if you are planning for RPA, you are likely to see the fruit of investment. However, if you are still wondering where to start, here is an ultimate guide for your business needs.
What is RPA (Robotic Process Automation) Software?
In simple words, Robotic Process Automation is a software that is programmed to replicate what employees can do that is very transactional is not rule-based. It is typically faster, more accurate and works more flexibly than what humans can’t. As governed by Artificial Intelligence, RPA helps in several processes; however, application and system data gathering and interpretation is the most common use case of RPA.
RPA compared to traditional process transformation approaches
How does RPA work?
RPA solution helps to automate the everyday manual tasks executed by configuration analysts. Manual jobs include application configuration, data entry, validation of files, creation of test data, data load and report generation.
RPA uses the following components:
Cognitive Automation Platform (CAP) – It is powered by machine learning & predictive capabilities to generate meaningful data from any format of unstructured data.
Unified Test Management Solution (UTMS) – It is supported by bots to boost productivity and efficiency by performing labor-intensive mundane tasks.
Configuring the application
The configurations are generally rules-based. A typical configuration has around 1500 rules. An analyst typically takes about 4-6 weeks for each project to complete the configurations. When a configure analyst performs these tasks, implementation consultants wait to do the validation. This contributes to a lengthy implementation cycle.
So, here the RPA improves not only the timelines but also the quality & productiveness of resources. Business requirement documents and other input documents such as price sheets, IDM, payroll schedules, etc. are stored in the cognitive automation platform to identify the required configurations. Static data and business rules are required to onboard a project.
How CAP and UTMS ensures a smooth workflow?
Structured roles output is generated from CAP. It includes static data, the project-specific data such as benefit areas, plan options and much more that needs manually entering into the configuration tool.
Business rules are temporary and custom rules generated in the process to enable system functionalities. All of these rules are kept on the configuration pool. The CAP ensures structure rule generation from different unstructured file formats stored in it. The UTMS offers the capability to create the robotic scripts ensuring that the process rules are stored to the configuration tool without any manual support.
Utilizing the unique capabilities of CAP and UTMS, we reduce configuration effort by 60% and the product implementation time by 30%
The RPA is applied in different industries with the use of a wide range of RPA tools. The most popular RPA tools are UiPath, Blue Prism, Kofax and Automation Anywhere. These tools succeed because of their user interface, maintenance & support and vendor experience.
What is RPA used for?
RPA can effectively complete any routine business process that follows simple rules to make a decision. So, you can perform an entire end-to-end process for your business.
Robotic Process Automation is best suited to use for:
- Rules-based task.
- Time-critical and particular period.
- Prone to error.
- Highly repetitive and mundane work.
According to Deloitte, 1 minute of a task for the bot is equal to about 15 minutes of work for a human employee. So, work like email attachment collection, saving PDF data in excel document, generating reports, and then confirm process completion via email can be efficiently done with the help of RPA software.
For different sector, it comes with different advantages, however here is a list of some of the tedious work where RPA is applied:
In Finance, RPA is used for accounts payable. Processes like data validations, data migration between applications, customer account management, report creation, form filling, financial claims processing and many more are efficiently performed with RPA software.
In the Retail domain, most of the tasks can be handled by RPA. Extracting product data from manufacturer’s websites, automatic online inventory updating, importing email sales are some of the popular tasks automated.
In Healthcare, RPA is used in patient data migration, data storage, patient data processing, sending emails from medical billing systems and claim status, etc.
In Insurance, it is used to automate the administrative and customer service activities associated with receiving, review, analyze and suspend claims.
What are the potential benefits of RPA?
Accuracy– RPA software is generally less prone to errors. It works with high uniformity and precision.
Consistency– All the tedious works are executed in the same manner.
Cost-cutting technology– Decrease the manual workforce and hence reduces the cost of operation.
High productive rate– Execution time is faster; this, in turn, increases the overall productivity.
Less coding required– RPA software doesn’t require much programming knowledge.
Besides, improving the timeline it enhances the quality and productivity of the resources.
Note: While adopting RPA in an organization, scalability, reliability, speed, and intelligence are the main features you need to check.
RPA developers usually have hands-on experience on top RPA tools such as Kofax, Uipath, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism.
Learn: Top 10 tips for a successful RPA implementation
How fast RPA get implemented?
Before any implementation, Proof of Concept (POC) or a pilot RPA project is necessary and we are still doing that. We know companies have more expectations with POC and curious about the more significant return on investment. Involving a partner like us can accelerate the POC and companies can work on a hybrid model by consistently developing their capabilities and reducing the involvement of external workers.
To reach substantial automation goals, companies need a comprehensive RPA strategy. Well, depending upon the project, an organization can implement automation in three months. However, at the enterprise level. RPA implementation might take a little longer, but it is often shorter as compared to traditional IT approaches.
How RPA increase the efficiency for company?
Automation comes with the potential to offer a holistic transformation to companies. To effectively increase the enterprise-wide transformation, companies must start from the identification of inefficient processes. However, a company can still begin to leverage its potential that fit the automation criteria while also optimizing needful processes across the entire organization.
Organizations that begin with a precise aim and well-defined metrics combined with robust control are well prepared to scale their practice.
How to measure the success of RPA investment?
Many organizations find themselves in the necessity of inventing new KPI’s and developing their tools to solve it. Measuring RPA implementation success primarily relate to these metrics-
With RPA, companies can eliminate errors. To track it, measure the amount of work that needs to be redone before & after RPA implementation. The more companies develop their processes and eliminate the diversion, the more efficiently RPA software will work. Also, a check on employees highly exposed to the effect of automation, where they are operating the robots or interacting with it is necessary. It is vital to ensure employees understand what is happening in the organization and how they can take advantage of the transformation.
How to secure RPA ecosystem?
To secure the overall RPA implementations, companies must consider the technical process and human employees involved with the workflow. The entire product lifecycle from requirements, selection, architecture, implementation and ongoing operations must be within a secure design.
Your RPA consultant can guide with a secure RPA
What’s the future of RPA?
More than 40 % of enterprises will develop futuristic digital workers by combining AI with RPA. By the end of 2019, automation will cut 20% of many service desk interactions. However, as you see, more and more sectors are embracing RPA for their daily tedious tasks; it is sure to make a position for future development.
The best RPA tools usually have three amazing qualities:
- It should interact with different systems either through screen scraping or API integrations.
- It should make decisions and determine their deeds based on inputs gathered from other systems.
- It should have an interface to program the bot.
Summing up what is RPA
RPA works as a virtual employee. It can work with your existing applications, software and business strategy to carry out structured processes automatically. The remarkable part is that it works on the existing systems, just like any other human employees. For example, processing an invoice, report generation and even employee onboarding, RPA efficiently handles all these tasks (along with more other) for any businesses.
RPA bots can either follow the rules defined by the users or can use machine learning capabilities to suggest the user with the recommendation and generate meaningful results. RPA can be used to automate a huge amount of tasks in the field of Human Resources, Finance and accounting, Healthcare, Supply chain management, customer service, etc. Each industry can use RPA in its way to reduce the manual workforce and work efficiently.
Read more: The Top RPA tools and their comparison
Top Trends in RPA in 2019 [in short]
- RPA is already an ROI positive investment.
- Seamless RPA integration with different tools and varied technologies.
- Increase in RPA adoption.
- Most of the companies will deploy RPA in mainstream.
- Better employee engagement and customer experience.
Takeaway points
- RPA along with other technology is creating better opportunities for developers & organization to experiment.
- Automating processes fast and with minimum business, impact is one of the vital features of RPA.
- Using Cognitive Automation Platform (CAP) supported by machine learning & predictive capabilities and Unified Test Management Solution (UTMS) supported by bots reduces configuration effort by 60%.
- RPA tools come with exceptional attributes to simplify an end-to-end business process.
- RPA implementation takes a little more time, but it is often shorter as compared to traditional IT approaches.
- Companies can measure the success of RPA using performance metrics.
- The RPA deployment is increasing for both for better employee engagement and customer experience.
You can be the next company to do big.
For any assistance on RPA, talk to our developers today!