Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has grown exponentially over the last few years, and it’s expected to continue in the years to come. In 2016, the RPA market was worth around $250 million. In 2021, the market was worth well over $2.8 billion (Forrester).
What explains RPA’s accelerating value? Of course, their accelerating adoption.
More and more business leaders have realized the extensive benefits of RPA implementation. And it’s not just IT or technology. Healthcare, manufacturing, retail, finance — a wide range of industries is exploring RPA services, deploying automation solutions, and enjoying the numerous benefits of welcoming digital transformation. Indeed, Deloitte’s last Global RPA Survey found that over half of its participants had already begun their RPA journey. In the next five years, it expects adoption to go global.
Here’s what the adopters get to gain from RPA implementation.
RPA Implementation Services: The Benefits
Implementing RPA has several key benefits that, together, lead to a vast increase in ROI. Here’s a look at the biggest four.
1. Accuracy
Human beings are prone to making errors. Business leaders may think minor errors don’t amount to much. And they don’t. But the sum of minor errors made by even some hundred employees over many years amounts to a lot.
Inefficiencies at scale can cost businesses staggering losses — trillions, according to HBR. A well-planned RPA implementation (we’ll get to that) eliminates them, saving money and the time spent fixing them.
2. Productivity
The number one requirement for RPA implementation is automating rule-based, high volume, high cost, low-risk tasks. Every organization is familiar with them: they are manual, repetitive, and cognitively undemanding, hence more prone to error.
RPA bots automate them, saving teams ample time to focus on more creative and strategic tasks that add significantly more value to a business. Indeed, the Everest Group has found that automation solutions can save up to 70% of an organization’s resources, including 5-10 times of time and over 60% cost.
Let’s not forget that RPA software and services don’t take rest or vacations. They are at it every day, 24×7.
3. Well-being and satisfaction
It’s fair to say that nobody likes dull, repetitive work. What we instead seek is engagement and opportunities to be free and creative. And that’s what automation solutions offer a workforce.
As already outlined, automating repetitive tasks leaves plenty of time for creative tasks. Such tasks add value to a business, but also add value to employee well-being, making one feel valuable and full of purpose. A sense of meaning and purpose motivates us to do better every day, and that’s why cultivating that sense lies in the best interest of businesses.
4. Agility
RPA solutions deliver consistent results. What that means is, as business requirements change, an RPA implementation can be scaled up (or down) quickly and cheaply, accordingly, making the business more flexible or adaptive. Agile.
Challenges to RPA Implementation and Ways to Overcome Them
But that’s not the whole story.
Yes, RPA solutions have extraordinary benefits. But they also have their challenges.
- RPA delivers accurate and consistent results, but only if workflows are standardized.
- RPA enhances productivity, but only if use-cases are clearly defined.
- Depending on the use-case, solutions may have high implementation and maintenance costs.
- Implementation must be scaled not just for quantity, but also for accommodating future advances like AI.
Here is a 4-step process to overcome the challenges and get the most out of your RPA implementation.
1. Preparation
A good, detailed plan can make or break implementations. First, collect as much data as possible on the processes that constitute your workflow. The aim is to create a clear and thorough map to fully understand all ins and outs of your business. The detailed map will illuminate roles and responsibilities, who’s accountable for what, but also the risks and bottlenecks involved in different domains and operations.
2. Define the use-case
Don’t just identify, but prioritize use-cases. A use-case can be identified and prioritized by transaction volume, speed, time, and other factors that affect value. Use-cases that have the largest business impact must be prioritized. But arriving at one demands clarity and rigor. That’s why planning is so critical: a rigorous plan makes it easy to identify what must be streamlined and re-engineered.
Read more: Think #RPA Will Transform Your Business? Wait Till You Combine It With #AI
3. Implement
Fast implementation involves high risk. Instead, business leaders must deploy automation solutions in iterations, gradually scaling them with time, including more and more stakeholders, from business analysts and project managers to customer support and sales.
4. Measure
RPA implementation is incomplete without documentation and measurement. The two are critical because, first, they allow us to identify more opportunities for automation. And second, they make implementation adaptive. Why is that critical? Because we don’t want to overspend, nor do we want to under-clock. We want to optimize.
SG Analytics is a leading provider of automation solutions with proven expertise in RPA implementation. We get the most out of implementations by, first, delivering solutions that are tailored to your unique needs. And second, by ensuring the solutions deliver not just today, but also tomorrow. That’s the aim — to make our clients future-ready. Contact us today.
