Part I: Why you should consider Robotic Process Automation - Getting Started..

Many times, organizations find themselves in situations when they have to decide what is good for the organization and what is not. In fact, this is the day to day concern of any executive charged with the responsibility of driving strategy and growth. Among those strategic decisions that need to be made include Digital Transformation Initiatives.

One of the questions that is often asked whenever I meet clients is Why should we even consider this technology? I mean things are working, we are getting the job done so why should we change? Perhaps the better Question should be, despite getting the work done? Are we being efficient while getting the job done? Are we operating optimally? These are some of the pertinent questions that drive the discussions around RPA.

Having engaged clients in their quest to adopt this technology, below are some of the reason’s organizations should consider as they make strategic decisions on how to drive their operations in the near future.

Motivate Employees: More often than not, we associate technology with job loss and in that sense have the notion that staff will not be motivated working with new technologies. But think about it, no employee wants to do the same tedious repetitive work day in day out that doesn’t mentally stimulate them to grow. RPA takes away the inconvenience of serial verification of time-consuming tasks and allows staff to work alongside bots, leaving them to focus on more value adding tasks. Since the repetitive task has been taken away from the staff, then they will definitely need to be reskilled to perform other tasks.

Drive Customer Centricity: - The customer we served 10 years ago, is not the same customer today. Our customers keep changing every day, their tastes, preferences, how they want to be served and the speed at which they want to be served has changed. Todays’ customer is more demanding, wants to be served as soon as possible. Now, if as an organization we have to go through a series of processes dependent on other people chances are we may not be able to meet that customer’s demand. Implementing RPA allows bots working with the staff to process information much faster and therefore serving the customer almost in real-time leading to more satisfied customers

Consistency:- We are all unique human beings and no one task can be done in exactly the same way, even if each one of us followed the same steps. by everybody. We will more often than not have different approaches and different ways of executing the same task. When you employ bots, you give the same set of instructions to the bots and they follow the same steps in a constant way to get the task completed. This leads to consistency not only on the output but on the process as well. We all have good and bad days and sometimes that affects the output of our work more so for repetitive tasks.

Accuracy:- When given some data to work with, say on an excel sheet. Chances are that if I start working at 8am, by midday I will naturally be tired. Having looked at the same set of data for hours and chances are I may miss a record, two or more If I am capturing data. Compound this with number of staff you may have working on a particular data set. In the end some data will have been lost or not captured properly. With RPA, the same set of data with the same set parameters are processed in a similar manner every time leading to increased accuracy!

Do more with Less:- If you are looking at scaling operations, then RPA is an option you may want to consider. As opposed to hiring more people to deliver, it is much easier to deploy multiple instances of the same bot to perform a particular task. This not only saves time as replication of bots can be done in a very short time but there is also no need of fresh training and acquiring other resources that go along with hiring more staff like sitting space, computers, licenses to the systems etc. Basically, an increase in work does not mean a significant increase in operational costs which makes companies more competitive.

Embracing the Kaizen Philosophy: - For anything to grow, it has to keep changing and so are enterprises this makes the Kaizen Philosophy of continuous improvement part and parcel of our daily lives. Even within the organizations we should constantly ask ourselves why do we do what we do? What value does it add? It is by asking such pertinent questions that we get to unravel the nuts and bolts that hold our operations together with the aim of becoming better. Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) is critical to organizations as they continue re-inventing themselves. However, running a BPR project end to end then implementing the changes later doesn’t always work. Most of these projects are not only time consuming but by the time the implementation is being done, the processes themselves perhaps require another change in their flow. Deploying RPA allows the organization to quickly make continuous improvement in manageable pieces, incrementally without completely destabilizing the entire eco-system while enjoying the benefits in quick turnaround time.

Reliability:- Human beings are social beings and therefore there are times when we just want to participate in other activities beyond work. For example take vacations, attend to emergencies or various ceremonies (birthdays, weddings, public holidays etc) which will require us to be absent from work for some time. Sometimes we also get interrupted by other events in our lives like falling ill, or taking care of loved ones that are taken ill. Take the COVID-19 Pandemic for example; the interruption to daily business operations meant we all had to be away from our offices with many getting infected or affected. While these are natural occurrences that we have to contend with, Bots are not affected by these events. They continue to work 24/7 365 days a year if need be making them very reliable.

Set the stage for innovation:- I see RPA as a foundational technology to employ to effectively leverage other technologies like AI and Machine Learning. Having RPA in place, enables organizations serve their customers consistently, collecting data accurately and this makes it easier to cascade other technologies on top of it. This derives even more benefit from these emerging technologies. I have heard some clients say they want to procure the best technology available in the market without having the fundamentals in place. Well it’s of no use buying a Ferrari then just keep revving it up in the parking lot. RPA is an enabler to other technology layers enabling organizations enjoy more benefits.

These are some of the reasons why organizations both public and private should consider RPA. It is important to really understand the reasons as we take on an RPA initiative. Forms the basis of the justification behind projections on the Return of Investment on RPA. Consider your “Why” and make the leap to adopt this amazing emerging technology!