Robotics Process Automation (RPA) is a trend that is already impacting teams and workflow. RPA involves using technology, particularly software robots governed by workflow logic and structured inputs, to automate processes. RPA can play a massive role in modern operations because it can automate manual or repetitive work many times after than people, allowing staff to focus on more important work.
Key-value is process speed and accuracy
Robotic process automation can perform various repetitive manual task performance; it never sleeps, and it makes zero mistakes with near-zero risk of error. It can mimic almost all user actions like sending emails, scheduling sales calls, moving files and folders, logging into applications, copying and pasting data, filling in forms, extracting data from documents, and many other user interactions. Although these jobs can be assigned to your team as part of running a company, they don’t need to be done manually.
Some of the benefits of RPA include reducing staffing costs and human error. But how do you know when your company is ready for RPA?
Signs you are ready for benefit of Automation
1. Your staff are regularly doing “swivel chair” workflow management.
When your employees have to respond to prompts from one system, then take action in another system using data retrieved from the previous system repetitively, it might be time to think about RPA. RPA can integrate these repetitive jobs into one system to prevent employees from literally, swivel their chairs to extract information from different applications or computers.
Usually, when employees spend a lot of time on repetitive jobs, other operational areas suffer. That is when RPA becomes vital because it reduces the risk of human error and frees up time for different parts of your firm.
2. You have a substantial backlog of integration requirements.
Integration backlogs are universally despised. It can be frustrating when you continuously receive new requests to integrate some new cloud app with an existing system-of-record. Are you always frustrated because backlogs are holding up your projects? Well, that is a sign that your team is ready for robotic process automation. Having an RPA integration platform, especially for IT companies, is the perfect blueprint for managing countless integration requests. Interestingly, RPA can be implemented as a top layer without time-consuming and costly system integration initiatives, especially when different vendor packages and legacy systems are involved. For instance, businesses in the banking and finance sectors can use RPA to easily integrate their numerous legacy systems to extract data from files.
3. Your company’s key workflows were halted or significantly impacted during the height of the first wave of the pandemic.
The Covid-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented disruptions for a lot of companies across the world. During pandemics, margins are tight, and resources are scarce. If your workforce mainly carried out your company’s key workflows, the chances are those operations halted during lockdowns. Nobody foresaw the outbreak of Covid-19; however, organizations need to plan by taking advantage of emerging technologies. Fortunately, RPA has proved to be recession-proof for business continuity and a great way to jumpstart your business that has been hard hit by Covid-19.
4. Your customers have raised concerns about their service experience.
You cannot run a successful company without excellent customer service. The experience your customers gain communicates your brand image, mission, and values. If you have realized an increased surge in complaints, then you need to safeguard against customer loss. Major global companies have lost their reputation because they failed to create and maintain a high level of customer satisfaction.. Implementing an automated customer service delivery can significantly reduce the time spent on identifying issues and behavior patterns to deliver better customer support. While you focus on growing your company, this unique technology can automate several routine tasks that are labor-intensive, like responding to customer complaints or requests efficiently to deepen their bond with your orgnaization.
RPA integrations can also help create customized content for your customers and automatically trigger actions via email, text message, or social media based on customer behavior and schedules. This integration will boost your customer service agents’ confidence as they won’t be bogged down by repetitive tasks that usually tie them down from other responsibilities.
5. It takes days to complete invoices.
In this time and age, you don’t have to workflow and send out invoices manually. Workflow software takes care of the manual work and reduces your billing cycles. When you eliminate paper, you free your accounting team to focus on financial reporting and expectations.
6. Digital transformation has not lived up to the hype.
Digital transformation refers to integrating digital technology into all areas of your organization, including the day-to-day operations and delivering value. As a leader, there are countless reasons why you should take digital transformation seriously. Adapting to cultural change is crucial for your sales to growth, especially if you’re a brick-and-mortar organization that wants to reach a broader market. Covid-19 has taught us that, to ensure stability, it’s critical for entrepreneurs to adapt quickly to supply chain disruptions and respond to rapidly changing customer expectations and market pressures to offer the best possible, seamless customer experience.
7. Compliance management keeps you up a night.
Are you concerned about new privacy laws about tracking opt-ins and providing audit trails? Governments are enacting new regulations to keep pace with emerging technologies. Some of these new laws are more strict, and the cost of non-compliance is usually hefty fines. Integrating RPA tools into your business processes can drastically simplify compliance and tracking of government and institutional regulations.
8. You have a line of sight to areas you want to improve.
One feature of RPA is that it does not uncover new challenges; however, it helps solve problems you are already aware of in your organization. Therefore, to have a successful experience with RPA, leaders who aim to enhance organizational performance need clear sight of what they want to improve within their company. RPA implementation is pretty straightforward if you have a clear and detailed roadmap. It will help if you run an assessment of your business to know your weaknesses and challenges to achieve your objectives. You can download our free RPA use case assessment tool to assess your RPA opportunities and calculate your full-time equivalent (FTE) savings.
9. You have a well-established data collection and management workflow.
RPA, just like Artificial Intelligence (AI), capitalizes on data. For successful implementation, RPA tools require feeding it with many data from different sources. It needs good quality and original data for training since incomplete data gives incorrect assumptions. If you have an up to date and well-organized data collection workflow, RPA might be a sure bet to managing it simultaneously.
RPA implementation is rapidly gaining momentum in various industries such as Banking & Finance, IT, HR & Administration, Healthcare, Insurance, Manufacturing & Retail, Travel & Logistics, among many others. It offers massic scalability of software and although RPA has significant advantages, it is equally important to upgrade at the right time! Don’t know when to integrate RPA? Get in touch with us now!