Robotic Process Automation use cases in major business areas.

Business benefits of RPA

More and more companies today are implementing Robotic Process Automation (RPA) into their operations because of cost advantages and many other benefits of RPA in wide business areas across industries. In this article, I have discussed the major RPA benefits and Robotic Process Automation use cases in major business areas.

One of the biggest business benefits of Robotic Process Automation is that companies can automate their routine rules-based business processes to free up employees from repetitive tasks so that their expertise can be utilized in other higher-value work. Advancements and improvements in Artificial Intelligence technologies are making it easier for businesses to make use of robotics technology and take advantage of its benefits without requiring the allocation of a large budget for development work. Before we take a look at the benefits of RPA let us first see what is Robotic Process Automation.

What is Robotic Process Automation? 

Robotic Process Automation or RPA is a form of business process automation that uses robotics technology to automate highly repetitive, routine tasks normally performed by knowledge workers. Now, what is Robotics technology?

Robotics technology is a software technology that uses software robots or ‘bots’ which are programmed to interact with any application or system the same way people do with the exception that the robots in the automated robotic systems can operate nonstop, round the clock, much faster and with 100% reliability and precision.

Why businesses need to adopt RPA?

The use of robotics technology is a step forward in the evolution of business processes. The most important consideration for businesses for adopting RPA is strategy. Companies can use automation tactically for cost savings. But businesses use RPA as a broader strategic tool to get a lot more out of it.

Companies are increasingly implementing the automated robotic system in their operations due to many benefits of RPA which include improving safety in the workplace, cost savings, improving quality and efficiency, maximizing productivity, reducing downtime, and increasing the speed of processes.

How does Robotics help?

Robotics allows companies to automate tasks just like a human being was doing them across applications and systems taking the help of robotic software. The main goal of RPA is to automate repetitive rules-based high-volume activities, normally performed by knowledge workers. It helps to free up employees who can dedicate their expertise to more value-adding initiatives, which are imperative for the bottom line of a company. It is expected that by 2022, about 60% of business processes would be automated which means that humans will have much more time and space for creative and non-repetitive tasks.

Here’re some of the major areas where automation/robotics can help:

> Completes complex operations that can have a high degree of human error, such as machining and painting, intricate welding, etc.;

> Helps in predictive analytics about the condition of industrial equipment;

> Helps in shifting human labour away from toxic fumes, elevated pressures, or high temperatures;

> Helps in automated loading and unloading operations through big bag loaders preventing injury to humans;

Major benefits of Robotic Process Automation 

Here is a list of some of the well-documented business benefits of RPA:

1. Reduces costs: Automation will make some employees redundant which will substantially reduce manpower costs. This is because software robots are far less expensive than the wage costs of employees providing equivalent services;

2. Improves business results: Human resources freed from low-value tasks can be channelized to other important, higher value-added tasks which are imperative for improving the bottom line of a company;

3. Increases productivity: Software robots can work round the clock and complete the same tasks at a much faster rate as compared to humans, creating the capacity for more work to get done which can increase productivity;

4. Improves quality of data: Reduces the number of data entry errors and eliminates other human errors which improve the quality of data making data analysis more reliable;

5. Easily scalable: A robotic workforce can be as large or as small depending on business requirements. Due to the highly flexible automation that RPA offers, additional robots can be deployed easily to match your changing needs for either no extra or minimal cost;

6. Increases customer satisfaction: As software ‘robots’ perform all the tasks error-free at significantly higher speeds in comparison to humans, the automated robotic system brings higher customer satisfaction;

7. Increases employee satisfaction: Employees welcomed the technology because they hated the mundane repetitive tasks that the machines now do. The freed employees from these repetitive tasks can focus on more interesting and challenging tasks which enhances employee satisfaction;

What are the disadvantages of Robotic Process Automation?

Although the number of disadvantages of Robotic Process Automation is very less as compared to the advantages of RPA, whenever we want to use RPA in our system we need to understand its weaknesses. Unless we prepare well before applying RPA to the system the process may be in trouble which may have a heavy economic impact on business. Here’re 5 major disadvantages of RPA that we need to know:

1. Possibility of Job losses: One of the biggest concerns for employees with the implementation of robotic automation is job loss. Tasks such as data entry and labeling are often simple and do not require a high level of skill to complete. Therefore, Software Robots will replace humans to solve them better and faster. This may result in a major threat to the labour market.

2. Sprawling technology: As workloads increase, businesses will need more bots to perform more tasks. If not properly managed there is the risk of creating a collection of bots that are uncontrollable. Hence, the companies will have to spend a lot of money to manage and maintain the bots.

3. Added complexity: RPA makes it easier for businesses to change business processes by creating layers upon layers of software rather than systematically updating the software. This creates complexity if something goes wrong and can make it difficult for RPA to fix the problem and make business improvements harder to achieve.

4. Initial Investment Costs

Since RPA is still in its transformation phase it isn’t easy for organizations to decide whether they should invest in robotic automation or wait until its expansion. Because of considerable initial investment costs, a comprehensive business case must be developed when considering the implementation of RPA technology. Otherwise, it is not worth taking the investment risk if returns are marginal.

5. Hiring of Skilled Staff

Many organizations believe that to work with RPA, the staff must have automation knowledge because working with robots requires programming skills and knowledge of how to operate them. Therefore, to meet the criteria the organizations are required to recruit skilled staff or train the existing workforce.

Key steps to follow to maximize the benefits of RPA  

The main objective of implementing RPA is to improve efficiency and reduce costs by automating manual processes using advanced software. Following are the 4 key steps that need to be followed for the successful implementation of an automated robotic system:

1. Understand your current processes

When it comes to the successful implementation of robotic process automation the most important thing is your initial understanding of what you want to achieve by automating certain processes i.e. to gain maximum benefits of RPA. This would help you to determine which particular processes can prove to be good candidates for automation. Selecting the right set of your processes to automate, holds the key to success of RPA implementation.

2. Optimize processes to avoid unforeseen issues

The automated robotic system works best on processes that have few variations or exceptions and little complexity. The more the variations the software robots need to handle, the higher the risk of running into unanticipated issues. The most common reason for running into unforeseen problems in RPA is – too many exceptions in the processes. Therefore it is ideal to select more mature processes for RPA that have minimal or no variations to your process execution.

While process variations are inevitable, the use of RPA without problems is possible only on the most common ones and not on all exceptions. Therefore, you need to know about the state of your processes in order to begin any RPA project. To check process variations you can use Process Mining Software which will let you know how many cases of exceptions you have in your processes that need to be fixed and optimized. The software can also help to reduce the number of exceptions and also to identify the segments where you can automate easily.

3. Identify the best processes to automate

It is essential to ascertain the adaptability of the process to automation. All processes are not worth automating. Successful RPA implementations are possible when the right process for automation is selected. So make sure you think critically about the ones you’re looking to automate. There are some processes that do not deserve to be automated as they are too complex or will not increase the business value or will not bring employee happiness on automating. Then which processes need to be automated? You can identify processes to automate based on the following key considerations for successful RPA implementation:

> Stable and well-defined;

> Structured and  Rule-based;

> Having high transaction volume;

> Repetitive and not requiring human interaction;

> With low exceptions or variations;

> Having high ROI potential;

> Prone to human error;

4. Follow up and monitor

Monitor the automation process compliance and check if the processes are executed as designed and achieve the desired outcome. This is to ensure long-lasting transformation and increase the use of RPA to span as many processes as possible.

Below are some of the robotic process automation examples that are being used by industry leaders to take advantage of many benefits of RPA.

Robotic Process Automation use cases

There are several robotic process automation use cases that can lead to significant gains in efficiency and time. Some of the major RPA use cases where companies can have the greatest returns on RPA investment are mentioned below:

1. In Customer Service

RPA can be used for providing customer services in support desks to deliver quick responses and effective solutions to many tasks with the help of automation. These tasks may include billing queries, updating records, incident management, user administration, and many more;

2. In Invoice Processing

Invoice processing has many challenges such as sorting various invoice formats, consolidating data from various sources into a single database system, quicker vendor payments, avoiding penalties for late payments, etc. The large volume of invoice processing has repetitive manual tasks which can result in delayed and incorrect payments. RPA is a perfect solution for paper-intensive invoice processing tasks and can automate all over the process from receipt to payment. RPA can automatically make data input, reconcile errors, and process certain decision-making required for invoice processing, which minimizes the need for human intervention;

3. In Sales and Marketing

RPA implementation can reduce repetitive, routine manual tasks of employees of the sales and marketing section of a company by nearly 80%. Many employees of these sections are burdened with manual, repetitive tasks that demand a lot of time and effort. This prevents them from focusing on marketing and selling products which is their main task. Many companies have, therefore, implemented RPA which can automate highly repetitive, routine tasks of the marketing units the same way the employees do. This will free up a lot of time for the sales and marketing teams, allowing employees to focus on finding business leads, attracting customers, and generating revenue. This is one of the key benefits of RPA which is driving companies to implement robotic automation;

4. RPA use cases in Finance and Accounting

Almost everything that the financial services professionals of a company do in the finance and accounting department involves repetitive, routine manual tasks like day-to-day records keeping, Excel spreadsheet maintenance, and manual data entry. To free up the time of these valuable employees to enable them to focus on more strategic work and to improve overall compliance many companies are implementing robotic process automation (RPA) in the finance section which takes the help of robotic software for more efficient handling of high-volume processes and streamlining highly repetitive, routine manual tasks.

Here are some of the most common robotic process automation use cases in finance and accounting:

> Accounts payable and receivable management;

> Vendor Management;

> Invoice Management;

> Fraud Detection;

> Intercompany Reconciliations;

5. In Healthcare

Healthcare providers are carrying out multiple procedures and repetitive tasks such as billing and claims management, collecting patient reports, providing prescriptions, and many more which are draining their energies and turning their attention away from their core task of patient care. By implementing robotics process automation (RPA) the robotic software can take on and automate many of these onerous rule-based tasks which mess up the healthcare system. Here is a list of common RPA use cases in Health Care:

> Managing inventory;

> Scheduling patient appointments;

> Extracting and optimizing patient data;

> Helping to make accurate diagnoses and offer tailored treatments;

> Speeding up account settlements;

> Simplifying claims processing;

> Implementing discharge guidelines;

6. In HR department

The HR department of every company is responsible for quite a large number of tasks many of which are repetitive, time-consuming, and dependent on manual-driven processes to help the employees. Such reliance on labour-intensive processes is not only costly and less efficient but also can often lead to considerable errors and can compromise compliance levels. HR departments of many companies are, therefore, turning to automated robotic system to solve these issues. Robotics technology can handle highly repetitive, routine tasks normally performed by humans, in a precise and controlled manner.

Here are some of the most common RPA use cases in HR functions:

>Short-listing Resumes;

>Crafting offer letters for new employees as per company regulations;

>Simplifying new employee onboarding process (familiarizing a new employee with the organization);

>Expense management;

>Employee data management;

>Attendance tracking;

>Payroll processing;

>Maintaining Compliance of changing regulations;

>Employee exit management;

Frequently asked questions

Before I conclude let me also address some of the questions often asked by people related to robotic process automation.

How does RPA work?

Robotic process automation (RPA) uses software ‘robots’ to handle mundane rule-based repetitive tasks without human interaction.

What are the disadvantages of RPA?

The initial investment cost is typically one of the biggest disadvantages of robotic automation. This obstacle will decide whether or not a company will invest in RPA, despite its many advantages.

Are robots taking our jobs?

One of the biggest concerns of introducing robotic automation is its impact on jobs for workers. Robots have already started to take over jobs from hourly paid workers. Research from McKinsey found that 45% of current jobs can be automated in near future.

You may also like to read this related post: https://www.the-tech-addict.com/artificial-intelligence-facts/

Conclusion

It would be apparent from the discussion above that before implementing robotic process automation you need to plan thoroughly, as it is not a short-term journey.

Apparently, losing out jobs to automation may look like a matter of concern to many. But it would be evident from the key business benefits of robotic process automation listed in the post that the positive effects of robotic automation far outweigh the disadvantages of robotic process automation. RPA may fundamentally alter the way organizations work on various levels.

The Robotic Process Automation use cases listed above eventually show that one of the main benefits of RPA is that it helps to free up the employees from repetitive manual tasks who can dedicate their expertise to more value-adding initiatives which are actually helpful in making enterprises more efficient and in improving satisfaction level of both employees and customers.

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