Insights

What is RPA, and why should every business care?

Gwen Larussi, Solution Architect, Quality Services Practice Lead – UST Xpanxion

The world is moving faster than ever before. This has created a demand for faster delivery and faster response to market needs, not just to keep pace with evolving market conditions but to maintain a competitive advantage. Successful businesses know that to meet these demands, innovation and automation must become a core part of their business operation. This is where new-generation cognitive computing technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), and the adoption of hyper-automation come into play.

Robotic process automation (RPA) is a glowing example of the seemingly endless possibilities of automation when applied to workflows and procedures. Although it has been around for decades, this new era of speed has brought RPA onto center stage as the premier solution for optimizing how businesses and humans work across the enterprise.

RPA deployments are gaining momentum among enterprises looking to increase efficiency in operations, reduce costs, and maximize productivity. Consequently, the RPA software industry has been on an impressive upward trajectory in the last few years. Experts in the industry echo the sentiment that RPA is transforming business and underpinning most digital transformation efforts. Forrester predicts that RPA-related services could bring in $16 billion by 2025, and the global RPA market will reach $22 billion by that same year. Gartner foresees that by the end of 2022, 90% of large global enterprises will embrace RPA to some degree, and those same companies will triple their RPA portfolios by 2024.

What is RPA?

RPA is a revolutionary way to automate manual human tasks using small software programs referred to as “bots” that emulate repetitive, mundane, rule-based tasks typically carried out by humans. For example, RPA can copy and paste, parse emails, log into applications, scour web data, make calculations, open and move files, connect to application programming interfaces, and remove unstructured data. A more sophisticated example of RPA in action is to pull data from one application, perform some calculations, and then add the results to another application.

Two types of RPA

• Attended RPAs: Like a personal virtual assistant, attended RPAs work side-by-side with employees to enable and support their job duties with interactions at specific times when human decision-making is required.
• Unattended RPAs: With the ability to make some decisions and work independently, unattended RPAs do not require human input. Instead, they follow a rules-based method and a predetermined schedule to perform automated functions.

Benefits Of RPA software

RPA software aims to be error-free and work 24/7 to automate high-volume, repetitive, and laborious job responsibilities. The primary advantage of RPA is its ability to increase efficiency through streamlined workflows. However, the ramifications of this single benefit are far-reaching. If defined and programmed appropriately, RPA software can drive the following benefits:

1. Increased ROI and cost savings
2. Improved team productivity
3. Near-100% reliability and consistency
4. Built-in scalability, flexibility, and agility
5. Advanced analytics
6. Enhanced security
7. Improved employee and customer satisfaction

1. Increased ROI and cost savings

• Accelerate and scale activities that lead to outstanding service 24/7
• Provide near-perfect precision across multiple platforms to reduce errors and reconciliation time, resulting in 25-50% efficiency improvements

2. Improved team productivity

• Decrease data processing time to get the correct data in the right place at the right time
• Increase team capacity by 30-50%, freeing employees to focus on the most critical work that propels business value

3. Near-100% reliability and consistency

• Gain nearly 100% data accuracy and reliability by eliminating human errors
• Proactively respond to issues before users learn about them

4. Built-in scalability, flexibility, and agility

• Adjust to any interface or software with flexible software robots (bots)
• Avoid altering existing business systems, processes, or applications
• Increase or decrease capacity at the push of a button
• Adapt automated processes over time to evolve with the business

5. Advanced analytics

• Gain a better understanding of work patterns, process inefficiencies, errors, and process gaps
• Empower your company with higher quality information and data that leads to better decision-making across the business

6. Enhanced security

• Reduce human touch on sensitive data to lessen data loss leakage and increase security compliance
• Reduce the risk of security breaches with a governance framework, audit logging, and behavior monitoring

7. Improved employee and customer satisfaction

• Shift employees' focus away from low-value work and toward more meaningful, strategic projects that require more of their insights and effort to deliver more value to the business and supreme customer experience in a customer-centric world
• Enable employees to contribute higher-value work to the business, which also enables their pride and satisfaction to grow

The rise of tiny software robots is coming to a sector near you

RPA has been adopted by organizations of all sizes across diverse industries and is at its finest in environments where heavy, intense data processing, data management, and back-office processing occur. Some examples include:

• Accounting firms automate budgeting, transactional reporting, and operational accounting and improve quality control in audits with RPA.
• Banking and financial institutions implement RPA to automate governance, reconcile accounts, and process invoices.
• Healthcare providers automate patient scheduling and bill processing, maintain and update patient records, facilitate claims processing, and handle customer support with RPA.
• Telecommunications operators use RPA to automate the configuration of new services and billing systems for new accounts.

Bots are not replacing humans; they still need us, just for different reasons

For all its benefits and promises, RPA software does have its limitations. For example, it cannot perform a task beyond the rule it was programmed to conduct. It still requires humans to build, program, and maintain the automation properly as your business operations and processes evolve. Contrary to popular belief, software bots are not replacing humans. Instead, RPA enables teams to focus on higher-priority activities, elevates skill sets, and promotes employee satisfaction while helping organizations grow, compete, and innovate.

As with any technology solution, RPA requires a well-thought-out strategy customized to your company’s needs and business goals. This will enable your organization to identify the right processes and operations to automate and maximize the value of your automation investment.

Have you thought about integrating RPA solutions into your company but don’t know where to start? UST Xpanxion can be your automation partner and help you reach your digital transformation goals. Contact us to learn how we have helped companies like yours maximize their automation strategies and propel digital transformation goals forward.