Three Unrevealed Secrets of RPA
Bianca Patru
Solution Principal @ Ping Identity | Enabling Digital Transformation | Securing your Digital Identity
I will start by reinforcing that RPA is a good technology for its purpose and the perfect first step into the Digital Transformation journey ... But, it has its secrets.
“Put simply, the role of RPA is to automate repetitive tasks that were previously handled by humans. The software is programmed to do repetitive tasks across applications and systems. The software is taught a workflow with multiple steps and applications.” (Antony Edwards - Eggplant.)
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“Robotic process automation is nothing but instructing a machine to execute mundane, repetitive manual tasks. If there is a logical step to performing a task, a bot will be able to replicate it.” (Vishnu KC - ClaySys Technologies.)
Traditionally, what we have known about RPA is that, is a technology that automates repetitive, rule base tasks. RPA in today's world has evolved from just being task automation to being able to automate simple repetitive processes, to being able to run them in parallel and run automation in the background which increases the productivity of the human operator.
The RPA is often presented as Process Automation, or Intelligent Automation promising to deliver true Digital Transformation. It is easy for enterprises to fall into the trap of RPA, the Magic Bullet that solves all our issues, giving a cheap entry price.
1.??????Secret I – HIDDEN COSTS ARE HIGHER THAN THE VISIBLE ONES
The true price of RPA you will see only after you own an RPA platform.
When the license for RPA is quoted, enterprises are convinced they are making a great deal. The licensing cost represents only a quarter of the real investment that you must be ready to spend. The rest of 75% of the cost will be required in establishing a Centre of Excellence, ongoing costs like bot monitoring, and continuous bot maintenance.
As you scale up your RPA, the costs will become alarming as they will grow exponentially.
On the other hand, not investing to scale up your RPA solution will limit the team’s capability and will affect the trust in RPA.
Judging on the above, it is easy for enterprises to fall into the mirage of RPA being attracted by the lower entry costs, cheap license, and naivety that this cost will solve all your issues.
Another hook that makes enterprises fall into the trap of RPA, apart from the lower entry cost – the one that is visible, is the fact that Robotic Process Automation is more often than not presented as Intelligent Process Automation and Orchestration.
What a newbie in the Automation journey will fail to acknowledge is that RPA is Task Automation and with many, many bots you might achieve simple process automation and the ‘orchestration’ they present as ‘service orchestration’ is actually only the orchestration of bots, and tasks performed by those rather than actual service orchestration.
According to Gartner, by last year, 2021, 40% of enterprises will have RPA “buyer’s remorse” due to misaligned, siloed usage, and inability to scale. (Gartner Critical Capabilities for RPA – Dec 2019)
Intuition leads me to believe that the percentage is even higher but ... I'll say I am not the best at intuition as I never won the lottery ????
2.??????Secret II – EXPECTED ROI IS WAY HIGHER THAN THE REAL ROI DELIVERED
Team members are more tented to embrace and support an RPA initiative than to reject or challenge it. This is for a few reasons, one being that is something new and we all love innovative stuff but on the other hand, making a case for RPA is easy but planning it properly till the end is harder.
The assumption that all will go well on a single task is high and it only has a small probability of disruptions. When multiple tasks are chained together, the probability of disruptions grows exponentially and is harder to control and manage.
The Margin of Safety (advocated by Benjamin Graham) states that a security is worth investing in only if the market price is significantly lower than the intrinsic value.
In the RPA case, this will translate as follows: the cost of automation is significantly lower than the calculated benefits.
As this formula and the difference between the cost of automation and calculated benefits are not the planned ones, the ROI of RPA is letting many of the adopters with a sour taste.
The simplest way to calculate the ROI of RPA is:
The cost of Automation – (hours spent performing the process manually x labor price per hour)
Considering that RPA requires humans in the loop, the price of labor isn’t excluded after the implementation of RPA. The benefit should be calculated from FTEs productivity increase, reduction of manual processing error, and reduction in ‘dead time’ in the process.
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The real number of adopters who are now feeling trapped is high and many can’t figure a successful way out or forward without losing the investment and without investing further to make it work and risking ending up in a vicious cycle again.
3.??????Secret III – TALENT IS HARD TO FIND AND DEVELOP
Let’s establish first the difference between ‘Talent’ and an available individual who’s capable of performing basic tasks and taking orders, the latter is a ‘Resource’ and not a talent.
Talent is that person who has the ability to quickly learn, take initiative, and always ensure the best use of their time. Finding and retaining real talents isn’t an easy job and they are surely not cheap.
So, we establish now that there is a difference between Talent and Resources. Finding and developing new talents are resources consuming but you must attract the talent to run and scale your RPA.
RPA mandates you to keep the human operator in the loop, it assists with work, but it can’t deliver Zero Touch Automation.
SME experts who before performed the tasks & process before might be ‘resources’ and not a ‘talent’ and so, they won’t be trainable to run the RPA. A ‘Resource’ who can’t operate the bot will lead to failure. ????(SME- Subject Matter Experts)???????????????????????????????????
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ESCAPING THE RPA SPIDERWEB
Building on top of your RPA and taking the journey of Digital Evolution will maximise your investment and will release you from the RPA trap.
Now that the secrets are revealed, I want to establish that I am not completely invalidating the RPA capabilities and benefits. It is definitely better than old scripting and solutions that generations ago used … but it isn’t the ‘gold bullet’ that pretends to be.
Real Intelligent Process Automation, Service Orchestration & Achieving the Digital DNA is a totally new frontier. Part of the process of achieving the Digital DNA is having RPA/ Task Automation at the base, at the foundation.?
Many of the early adopters who are now stuck in the spiderweb will be relieved to learn that the Digital Evolution strategy will enable them to escape the trap without losing the investments made so far.
Digital Evolution Strategy Model
The above explains the Digital Evolution Strategy model which will unlock your Digital DNA. The right strategies & methodologies together with the correct technology that is agile enough to capture the changes and adapt to them, empower you and enable you to stay automated.
Many enterprises are somewhere in between Task Automation and Process Automation, depending on the RPA vendor they choose. It is natural to feel stuck here as RPA can’t move you to the next step. The risk is high here because the temptation and the mirage of vendors are leading you to sprinkle some ‘Magic’ (AI, ML, etc) on top of what you have hoped that all your problems will be solved. By doing this, you only go deeper into the trap.
Implementing AI, ML, and other more advanced technologies without having a strong foundation are like trying to build a roof on a house without walls.
The right technology can integrate with your RPA solution, fill the gaps and drive horizontal automation which will untie you from the siloed, island of automation while maximizing your investments in legacy and existing systems.
The Digital Evolution Strategy & Methodology will enable you to build a strong foundation, and powerful walls able to support a reliable roof. The correct technology added on top of those strategies and methodologies will drive you to achieve your Digital DNA without losing any prior investments made.
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Bianca C. Patru