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Robotic Process Automation, or RPA, involves structured inputs, and logic to automate various business processes. A company can essentially use a “software bot” to process transactions, understand and transform multiple data formats, and communicate with their internal ERP systems. It is predicted that the RPA market rate will grow in double digits through 2024 despite the economic pressure caused because of COVID-19.
RPA can be used for anything from basic processes like sending an email to complicated processes that encompass the whole job. However, it is better applicable to activities involving high-volume, routine tasks. By removing these mundane and time-consuming actions, you will encourage your employees to spend more time doing work in productive and unique areas that contribute to the organization’s productivity.
For example, when we look at manufacturing industries and their working way, the Bill Of Material(BOM) document must be generated, which contains all intricate details. It is a vital document concerning the manufacturing industry, which is to be used at every stage of the product manufacture cycle and must pass the various personnel involved. Even a small error in BOM can lead to an irreparable loss and affects the whole manufacturing cycle. The industries generate BOM using RPA, incorporating deep learning data extraction methodologies. RPA has become indispensable in the manufacturing sector.
Robotic Process Automation is also beneficial for processes that change regularly, and the flexibility that RPA offers is ideal for these situations. It can be implemented between several departments and systems, allowing an immediate increase in process efficiency and accuracy. Considering the wide circle of advantages of RPA, many companies take the road ahead involving RPA in their business.
Before making this transition, it is essential to consider the three pillars of the framework(process, technology and people). Getting a bigger picture of these three pillars and identifying the challenges will be the first step. Then drawing a working strategy to solve the challenges makes the three pillars, even more, stronger than before and thereby we can integrate RPA successfully into an environment.
Calculating ROI
A vital consideration in Robotic Process Automation’s business case is the return on investment, or ROI. For most of the projects and investments, this calculation is straightforward – how much money are you saving compared to the cost of the project.
With RPA, this calculation is a bit more complicated because something like a simple payback period calculation will not consider the many intangible benefits RPA offers. As a result, to truly measure ROI accurately and efficiently, it is necessary to evaluate both financial and non-financial benefits equally. These intangible benefits include better data quality, faster processing speeds, and increased employee satisfaction.
Process Velocity
Estimating process velocity is a great way to see if RPA can reduce the time it takes to complete a task. To do this, you need to calculate and compare the time it takes to run the process before and after implementing the RPA. It is also vital to consider potentially fluctuating parameters when calculating process velocity. Successfully implemented automation software can complete the task anywhere between 20% to 110 % faster.
Measuring Productivity
Increased productivity is one of the most significant benefits that Robotic Process Automation can provide. RPA software allows for faster and more accurate outputs, allowing employees to focus on more value-added tasks. The greater the amount of time saved, the larger the ROI you will have. One way to measure this is to take the time someone saves by not completing a process and applying it to an employee cost. This will give you a cost savings number that can be used in the RPA business case.
The retail domain requires labour-intensive work and continuous review of operational statistics. For example, in the supply chain management industries, it is essential that the warehouse is appropriately managed and that the stocks are kept full all the time. RPA bots are now being deployed in these areas to constantly look at the changing stock level and update the same to the system with the re-filling request. In this way, significant manual labour can be transferred to better contribute to more critical works involved in the organization’s development. This is why RPA is said to be very good at increasing productivity.
Compliance Considerations
An often-overlooked benefit of RPA is compliance improvement. Since process automation is based on a software executing a set of predefined rules, you can be assured that regulatory and compliance criteria are met each time a task is performed.
Also, most software bots can produce regulatory reports to confirm compliance and give managers the peace of mind that no shortcuts were taken.
Output Quality
Another quantitative factor that needs to be considered when calculating ROI for Robotic Process Automation is the quality of the data or reports being produced from a process. Since robots are not prone to error, you can expect to see a positive difference in the quality of work performed when analyzing a repetitive, high-volume task. This can be seen in the increasing number of organizations implementing RPA as a solution in many of the processes they follow.
Closing Thoughts
Robotic Process Automation creates an exciting opportunity for companies to improve efficiency, production quality, and tighten compliance procedures by automating tasks and processes. When designing a business case to integrate software bots into a system, it is important to consider both quantitative and qualitative factors. It is stated that almost five years from now every company will be using RPA in some form.
In the coming years, we will see the widespread implementation of RPA in every industrial sector and its performance, directly contributing to the company’s success.
