12 Ways to Slash The Cost of Your Automation Program

Intelligent Automation and Robotic Process Automation programs can lead to dramatic improvements in employee experience, customer experience and profit.?But it is critical to look after the bottom line of any automation program in order to maximize the value a business obtains from its technology investment. This article lists 12 ways to cut the cost of your Intelligent Automation and Robotic Process Automation program.

1.?Actively Manage Licences and License Costs.?Licence costs can mount up rapidly as an automation program scales. Discounts are usually available when purchasing a higher volume of bot licences. However, it is still possible, in this very competitive market, to press vendors for further discounts on published licence costs. So, ask for a discount on published prices. Remember, it is also possible to rent licences for a limited period of time. If your organisation experiences peaks and troughs in its business cycle, then renting licences may be your business’s most affordable licensing option.

2.?Don’t simply follow the herd and aim for the top 3?or even top 10 Intelligent vendors.?Choose the Intelligent Automation and Robotic Process Automation platform that best suits your businesses strategic goals and budget. The so-called three or top ten platforms may, or may not, be the right answer for you.

Take time to pilot a range of platforms.?Multiple all-encompassing cloud based open source Intelligent Automation and Robotic Process Automation platforms are now available, so remember to include those in your consideration set.

3. Shared Risk of Outcome based model.?Consultancies and system integrators are becoming more creative when engaging with organisations. Shared risk or outcome based models ensure vendors have 'skin in the game'. Traditional time and materials model place all of the project risk on you. Ask your consulting partner if they are willing to engage in an outcome based or gain share delivery model to reduce the cost and risk of such a program.

4. Begin with an end goal in mind. In the rush to digitally transform, many Intelligent Automation and Robotic Process Automation programs were set up quickly. However, their success was not tied to strategic business outcomes. This often leads to multiple fault lines appearing in automation programs when the CFO asks the IT department to evidence the returns from an IA / RPA program.

Always begin with the business end goal in mind. Align a business’s automation program to its business strategy from day one. This will enable you to avoid an expensive lesson in ‘how not to automate’.?If your Intelligent Automation and Robotic Process Automation program is currently misaligned then reset, and go again.

5. Pareto.?Teams and groups fall into the trap of selecting simple, and low value processes to automate. Whilst it makes sense to automate the easy stuff to begin with, this also represents a business risk over the medium to long term.

Low value task automations often fail to deliver significant financial returns. Businesses should focus on identifying and automating the 20% of business processes that offer 80% of the highest possible value to ensure their automation program delivers material financial returns.

6. Focus on reusable code. Code reusability should be high on every business’s agenda. Centres of Expertise should encourage developers to build reusable code libraries from the outset. This may mean that an Intelligent Automation and Robotic Process Automation program takes a little longer to return value from a standing start. However, by doing so, businesses should expect to see automation velocity increase, and build costs decrease, over the longer term. Automation is a long term strategic play. Therefore, build for the long term not the short term.

7. Use process mapping tools to identify processes to automate and develop process documentation.?Businesses can save a large amount of effort, if the right processes for automation are identified early on. Process mapping tools help businesses identify and document processes more quickly than a team of business analysts.?The quicker automation teams build a healthy pipeline of automatable processes the quicker an automation program will deliver value.

8: Use Agile Scrum | DevOps to deliver automation programs in waves of value.? Digital demands that businesses move fast and develop at pace. Therefore, businesses must adopt methods that support 'digital' ways of working. DevOps and Agile are two such methods.?DevOps?is a practice of bringing development and operations teams together. Whereas?Agile?is an iterative approach that focuses on collaboration, customer feedback and small rapid releases.?

DevOps?promotes a fully automated continuous integration and deployment pipeline to enable frequent releases, while?Agile?Scrum provides the method to rapidly adapt to the changing requirements and leads to better collaboration between different teams.

Businesses that simultaneously adopt both practices are able to deliver fast and continuous waves of automation enabled value to the business.

9. Seek advice and direction from IRPAAI LinkedIn Automation | Analytics | Digital Transformation Community.?There is broad range of free materials and expertise online. Got stuck? Go search or ask an expert in the IRPAAI or LinkedIn automation community for help. But do remember to give back and not simply take, take, take.

10. Offshore or Outsource.?Businesses should look to outsourcing and offshoring to access affordable talent to build their automation delivery teams. Businesses operate in a global market place and talent is available across the world at a reasonable cost. Technology has killed distance. So, don't just look in your local area to hire the best of the best.

11. Maximise Robot Utilisation. Robots are there to be used 24/7/365. ?Ensure your robots are working to their maximum capacity so that licence costs remain low and robot productivity constantly remains high. Businesses that employ dynamic work scheduling and auto-scaling are able to sweat their digital workforce by not leaving unused robot hours on the table. Your business needs to do the same.

12. Build and support a healthy Citizen Developer community. An automation Centre of Expertise (COE) should not be the only source of automation, enterprize analytics and digital transformation value. Businesses should harness the intellectual capabilities of their entire workforce to develop new digital components to add value to their digital, automation and analytics transformation programs. Citizen Developer programs, hackathons, assignments or attachments within a COE are key to shared learning and automation program success.

Not everyone can be an 'automation or digital ninja' but businesses find most people have something of value to contribute to their automation programs when they ask for ideas.?If a business does not ask, then they miss an opportunity to leverage the wisdom of its workforce.

Conclusion:

Intelligent Automation and Robotic Process Automation programs do not have to be expensive to run in order for a business to digitally transform at an affordable cost.?There are a range of actions that businesses can implement, to deliver an affordable and valuable program. But they must take proactive action to manage cost.

What other suggestions do you have to help businesses maximize the value of their Intelligent Automation and Robotic Process Automation programs?

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