Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

What is Robotic Process Automation?

Robotic process automation is the use of specialised computer programs, referred to as software system robots – to automate and standardise repeatable business processes. Working as a virtual assistant, bots complete tedious tasks, liberating time for employees to focus on revenue-generating tasks for the organization. The advantage of RPA technology is that even non-technical employees will have the tools available to configure their own software robots to solve their automation challenges.

RPA allows business professionals to simply put together software robots to automate repetitive, routine work between multiple systems. These bots work directly across application user interfaces, mimicking the actions that an individual would perform, as well as, logging in and out of applications, copying and pasting data, opening emails and attachments and filling out forms.

RPA is turning into a crucial automation tool driving digital transformation and the future.

The basics of Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

What are the benefits of RPA?

As an easy and cost-efficient tool, robotic process automation provides variety of benefits that are drawing interest from organizations across several industries. The business benefits of RPA include:

Low technical barriers

Programming skills are not necessary to configure a software robot. As a primarily code-free technology, any non-technical staff can use a drag and drop process designer to set up a bot—or even record their own steps to automate a process through a process recorder feature.

Existing systems remain in place

Unlike traditional automation initiatives that may require extensive developer resources to integrate across multiple applications, RPA involves no disruption to underlying systems. Robots work across the presentation layer of existing applications even as an individual does. This is particularly helpful for legacy systems, where APIs may not be immediately available, or in situations where organizations do not have the resources to develop a deep level of integration with existing applications.

Increased accuracy

Bots are extremely accurate and consistent – they are much less prone to making mistakes or typos than a human worker.

Increased productivity

Process cycle times are more efficient and can be completed at a faster speed compared with manual process approaches.

No interruption of work

Operations can be performed 24/7 as these bots can work tirelessly and autonomously without requiring staff to manually trigger bots to initiate business processes.

Meet regulatory compliance standards

Bots only follow the instructions they have been configured to follow and provide an audit trail history for each step. Furthermore, if steps in a process need to be reviewed, bots can also play back their past actions. The controlled nature of bot work makes them suited to meeting even the strictest compliance standards.

Improved employee morale and employee experience

Employees will have more time to invest their talents in more engaging and interesting work.

What processes are relevant to RPA?

RPA is a versatile, ascendable technology that may apply to several completely different departments and industry processes. RPA technology is especially applicable to processes that generally are:

  • Consistent and routine
  • High volume
  • Prone to human error
  • Limited in requiring a person to make a decision
  • Manual data entry or “swivel chair” work
  • In several cases, RPA can bring immediate value to core business processes including:
  • Payroll
  • Employee status changes
  • New hire recruitment and onboarding
  • Accounts receivable and accounts payable
  • Invoice processing
  • Inventory management
  • Report creation
  • Software installations
  • Data migration
  • Vendor onboarding

RPA as part of the Digital Transformation Journey

RPA is an important tool in solving automation challenges and pushing organizations to grow into digital workplaces. However, it is just one part of an organization’s digital transformation toolkit. Going beyond automating everyday repetitive tasks, RPA combined with traditional content services and business process management technologies can help organizations reach even higher potentials and make the most of them of automation strategies. Whether optimizing end-to-end automation initiatives or enabling employees to be more efficient in handling one-off projects, RPA helps fill in the gaps as a powerful, complementary technology to reduce costs and increase productivity.

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