You probably have a vague idea of how robotic process automation (RPA) works.
TL;DR – Successful RPA implementation involves deploying software robots, to automate mundane, repetitive tasks through machine learning and artificial intelligence. While this can happen without coding anything, it’s often better to trust the experts.
But before investing in a robotic process automation solution, it’s essential to understand how RPA technology might impact your business down the line.
Let’s take a look at how RPA software might impact your:
- Customer satisfaction
- Operational visibility
- Staff effectiveness
- Staff engagement
- Standardization
- Efficiency
- Accuracy
- Security
- Training
- Agility
#1 Greater Customer Satisfaction
Staff members at RPA-enabled organizations can pull up data and run administrative or data-entry tasks much faster. This leads to quicker customer resolution times.
Compounding Effect:
Higher Net Promoter Scores and word of mouth advocacy, leading to lower customer churn and acquisition costs.
Who Can Benefit:
Companies in industries with lower Net Promoter Scores, such as healthcare and financial services, can improve their customer experience through RPA.
#2 Greater Operational Visibility
Businesses make better decisions with detailed insights. RPA bots can gather, organize, store, analyze, track, and report on the valuable data in your database.
Compounding effect:
Accurate, up-to-date business insights help you make better decisions.
Who can benefit:
Retailers, consumer service providers and healthcare organizations are just a small sample of the business-types that benefit from data management. Any business that generates a lot of consumer or patient data can implement improvements using an RPA tool.
#3 Higher Staff Effectiveness
With RPA solutions in place, teams no longer need to work on mundane tasks that sap their time and enthusiasm.
Businesses can redeploy staff toward higher-leverage tasks and let process automation take care of the rest.
Compounding effect:
You enjoy higher ROI on each new hire as they work on activities that contribute to business growth, not administrative work.
Who can benefit:
Businesses with workloads heavy on data entry, report creation, scheduling and other administrative tasks, can benefit significantly from an RPA solution, as they can shift their focus from manual data entry to higher-value tasks.
#4 Higher Staff Engagement
Teams are more invested in and engaged with their work when mundane tasks no longer bog them down.
Higher-quality work means employees derive greater satisfaction from their jobs.
Compounding effect:
Through RPA adoption, your business will experience greater staff retention and employee advocacy, reducing hiring costs.
Who can benefit:
Companies in industries that experience high staff turnover, such as hospitality venues or call centres, can leverage RPA to spend less time and money replacing lost staff.
#5 Greater Standardization
Though businesses can define standard operating procedures, employee adherence to them may differ according to locations or needs.
Defined processes and higher accuracy from RPA mean you can replicate your best processes across every branch location.
Compounding effect:
RPA delivers scalable efficiency across your organization, no matter where business happens.
Who can benefit:
Manufacturers and other businesses adhering to strict quality control standards should consider robotic process automation for their operations.
#6 Higher Efficiency
Computer software doesn’t sleep – it runs 24/7. Humans need to take breaks, and you pay for those hours of downtime.
By comparison, RPA bots complete tasks faster, indefinitely, and at a comparatively lower cost.
Compounding effect:
RPA delivers greater productivity in less time without increased personnel costs.
Who can benefit:
Businesses that cannot afford lengthy downtimes in their service delivery, such as telco companies, are ideal for RPA implementation.
#7 Higher Accuracy
RPA bots do precisely what you tell them to do every time, leading to consistent results.
Compounding effect:
RPA reduces the margin of error on routine tasks, which means less money spent on fixing or troubleshooting issues.
Who can benefit:
Businesses where accuracy is a top requirement, such as the financial services sector, are prime candidates for business process improvement through RPA.
#8 Higher Security
RPA-completed tasks minimize the need for unauthorized parties to change or disrupt established processes.
You can also configure RPA bots to avoid specific data or tools while running set tasks.
Compounding effect:
Implementing RPA results in better software governance and cleaner audits.
Who can benefit:
Companies that must adhere to high security, privacy, and governance standards, such as those in healthcare, can benefit significantly from RPA.
#9 Less Training
There are plenty of no-code RPA solutions out there. But while they sound empowering in theory, you would need to train your staff on how to build and use them in their roles, for each of the tasks. It should be noted that many of these solutions don’t offer the integrations and flexibility required for RPA to be used effectively in companies with more complex tasks.
The good news is your staff don’t need to know how to build or manage RPA bots for the company to benefit. We can provide everything from the set up to the management and optimization of these bots through the various solutions available here.
Once RPA is set up in your company, all of the tasks (and subsequent processes) that are now handled by the bots no longer require employee training.
Compounding effect:
Thanks to RPA, you can enjoy easier and faster employee onboarding.
Who can benefit:
Companies with complex employee onboarding processes are prime use-cases for RPA-enabled business process improvement. RPA can help you shorten each employee’s time-to-ramp and realize ROI faster.
#10 Increased Agility
Developers are expensive and need time to make code changes.
Due to its no-code nature, RPA software is less cumbersome than coded solutions to automate processes in your organization.
Staff members can quickly adjust RPA instructions to serve new use cases.
Compounding effect:
Your teams can quickly adapt to business and process changes, leading to greater agility.
Who can benefit:
In sectors where change happens quickly, such as e-commerce, the ability to adapt business processes on a dime calls for RPA deployment.
3 RPA challenges to avoid in your automation journey
Just as the benefits of RPA compound, so do the drawbacks.
There are three compounding negatives to look out for when planning, executing or reviewing an RPA implementation:
Process rot
Complexity
Bot bloat
#1 Process rot
Good processes scale better with technology – but so do flawed processes.
Businesses must review, reengineer, and optimize their processes before deciding which ones to automate through an RPA robot.
These steps prevent well-meaning teams from amplifying inefficient processes, errors, or costs — potentially handicapping their RPA strategy.
#2 Complexity
Implementing automation anywhere without the right process or proper documentation can harm your best efforts.
This is doubly true when planning the successful implementation of an RPA project.
Without these foundational elements, you risk compounding the complexity of your digital transformation initiatives.
This makes it harder for tomorrow’s teams to untangle today’s mess.
#3 RPA bot bloat
Robotic process automation is relatively easy to implement in an organization.
Because of this, businesses may go on a ‘bot bender’ and simply unleash new bots without setting proper ownership or governance rules in place.
This leads to a situation where the number of apps and tools you use rises, contributing to business process complexity and weak operational oversight.
The solution is to consider each bot’s role in your business processes carefully.
Determine who will ultimately own each bot, how you’ll measure its outcomes, and how often you’ll review its use to determine its viability.
Get started with RPA today
Compounding is the 8th wonder of the world. Innovative businesses understand this intuitively.
As one of Canada’s top RPA solutions providers, Thrive Automation has helped businesses leverage compounding growth through intelligent automation.
Our RPA implementation services have delivered results for various sectors, driving business growth through information technology.
View our case studies to understand better how RPA services work for other businesses today.
And contact us today to discuss the future of your business through intelligent automation.
