What is Robotic Process Automation?

what is Robotic Process Automation, benefits of RPA, challenges of RPA, applications of RPA, what is RPA

ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION

In this blog, we will see the basics of robotic process automation. Its impact on transforming businesses and their processes.

How do some companies always have a responsive and efficient help desk? or how a single organization can pay thousands of vendor invoices every day without an army of people? or you may recently started a new job and wondered how all the documents you provided were processed and accepted? or may be applied for a mortgage and wondered how did all those documents get instantly approved? Robotic process automation is behind all this.

What is Robotic Process Automation?

Robotic process automation is a software technology that automates repeatable rule-based processes and tasks. It uses the graphical user interface (GUI) and application programming interfaces (API) of other applications. A software “bot” uses machine learning, scripting, and computer vision and can automate repetitive rule-based tasks previously handled by a human. This technology falls under the domain of intelligent automation. Which is the combination of several technologies, including; AI and RPA, to automate business processes. RPA interacts with all sorts of systems like a human. Companies find this powerful software incredibly useful because they often have disparate systems that have no realistic way to integrate.

What are some benefits of RPA?

Robotic process automation has a wide range of benefits in various industries.

·       It has increased speed, accuracy, and capacity. RPA can perform various error-free tasks at a fraction of the time required by humans with incredible volume.

·       Reliability - Bots can work 365 days with no breaks, no time off. RPA can also improve customer experience.

·       The software provides a greater opportunity for human communication by relieving the staff of doing mundane and repetitive tasks. This allows them to focus on higher-value activities like serving the customer.

·       High productivity rate- It improves productivity and process cycles time are much faster compared to manual process approaches.

·       Scalability and Flexibility- It quickly scale up to accommodate unexpected volumes.

·       Consistency- All the repetitive tasks are performed in the same manner.

·       RPA does not need the development of code and no direct access to a database.

·       Robotic automation is compatible with the existing IT system architecture with simple system integration.

·       RPA can reduce errors. It ensures error-free data entry; there are no typos, no miss keys, no careless errors or mistakes.

What are the Challenges of RPA?

There are some challenges in adopting this technology. Though RPA has progressed over the past decade and it only takes a few weeks to implement. It still faces many practical challenges for adoption.

Many people believe RPA will overtake human jobs. But, the data suggests this is not the case. RPA is more often leveraged to speed up and augment people to enjoy their jobs and to perform better.

RPA platforms are still lacking end-in functionality. These systems still struggle to provide end-to-end process automation. But, the technology has made advancements, leveraging machine learning, computer vision, and low code to enable more functionality organizations will still need different technologies to automate a process end to end. But, this gap is quickly closing.

The total cost of ownership is still a challenge. These are the costs of the licenses plus implementation, consulting services, maintenance, hiring new employees, training, and general change management. There are strategic approaches to adopting this technology that will reduce the total cost of ownership. Adopting such practices will increase the value over any costs. Also gives you a much better return on investment.

The technical issues keeping automation up and running and in sync with other enterprise systems can bring RPA programs to a screeching halt. To be successful, RPA requires a coordinated effort between business and technology.

What are the Real-World Applications of RPA?

The customer help desk helps automate responses and actions for common requests. Streamlining these tasks and processes improves the customer experience.

Data entry, moving data from one system to another. For example, moving data from excel to an accounting system or from a web page to an ERP platform. RPA is excellent at moving data from one system to the other error-free and with incredible speed. Human resources automate the processing of onboarding documents. So new employees can start their new job. This improves their experience and reduces the errors when processing their documentation fraud detection. RPA can look at incredible volumes of data from many systems to help determine potential fraud. This saves both companies and consumers money.

In mortgage processing, RPA can process mortgage applications, verify income, credit, and other financial documents. This will help to improve the speed and accuracy of the loan process.

These are a few examples. But the types range across all industries and all types of functions within an organization. There are endless others, and the examples keep growing every day.

What is the Future of RPA?

The Future of RPA growth has started impact will be seen in BPO, Banking, Insurance, Healthcare, Telecommunication, etc. Each of these has thousands of processes that need to be automated and a huge opportunity for a very large amount of quality-trained human resources in robotic process automation. RPA will continue to expand its capabilities and functionality. It will add more AI, machine learning, and computer vision aspects.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Solutions

There are a few platforms available in the market. Some of the RPA tools:

Blue Prism - It is software that provides businesses and organizations with a digital workforce to automate complex activities. It supports the multi-environment development model. It allows for Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS cloud deployment.

Automation Anywhere - A Cloud-based RPA platform. Provides a rich content of pre-build packages that can be leveraged to speed up build times.

UiPath - This software helps organizations automate business processes. UiPath supports both desktop and web-based automation.

Features include:

Task Mining: 

Task Mining identifies and aggregates employee workflows and applies artificial intelligence (AI). This will identify repetitive tasks that have a high potential for automation.

Automation Cloud: 

With Automation Cloud capabilities, you can run your robots in our cloud, or you can run them in a public cloud. Such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure. Added a migration tool that allows you to move everything from on-premises to the cloud.

Power Automate -Microsoft’s offerings. Its ability to into the 365 Microsoft office package is of great advantage.

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