Robotic Process Automation (RPA) promises to take away manual, repetitive and mundane work. RPA is an opportunity to automate all the unexciting work you have been doing and go do some exciting work!
You can now gain time to spend on uniquely human activities of connecting and delighting your team, boss and customers.
Here are a few benefits I have seen with RPA.
Benefits
1. Real Savings
RPA delivers better productivity at much lesser costs.
1a. Improved Productivity
You can usually automate 60% to 90% of the effort of a typical process, which leaves the remaining 10% to 40% exceptions to be dealt with by Employees. Overall the automation will increase the output for each of your employees.
1b. Rapid Results and In-year benefits
This is a key promise of RPA as the tools are usually low code platforms and so the time taken from conception to deployment is in weeks.
Typical Agile Bot implementation can be completed as early as 2 weeks to as much as 8 weeks. Having pre-built components and bot stores also enable faster implementations.
1c. Low start-up costs
Each of the bot licenses can cost between 5K to 12K and the bot can perform the work of about 2-3 FTE depending on the complexity. Considering an agile build process and quick implementation, the start-up costs are low.
1d. Reduced Processing costs
The costs of processing are drastically reduced – the bot costs around 1/3rd the cost of an Onshore FTE and 1/5th the cost of an Offshore FTE.
2. Improved Operations
You can complement existing operational excellence programs with RPA.
2a. Improved Quality and Accuracy
Manual errors are reduced for the automated processes. The bots perform the work with 100% accuracy leaving only a few errors in the exception scenarios performed by people. Since the errors are reduced the cost of fixing them (Rework) is also reduced.
2b. Improved Compliance
RPA allows businesses to take control of executing their processes internally in place of outsourcing and offshoring. The RPA activities are saved in a log where they can be reviewed and monitored at any time. This means that you have a greater degree of oversight and control over your operations. You are therefore ready to deal with compliance issues more easily if and when they arise.
2c. Improved Service Delivery
RPA allows for improved service delivery performance by removing common service delivery risks like sickness and rework.
The bot is also able to switch from process to process depending on the demand. You can also add or reduce the Digital workforce as required to meet demands. This brings flexibility to manage service delivery.
3. Motivated Employees
Keep your team motivated to address business challenges and ensure customer satisfaction.
3a. Improved Customer Service
RPA can reduce demand for your service representative by taking over avoidable contacts like queries and follow-up.
RPA also allows reps to spend less time updating information across several systems ensuring that no system will be missed when adding new customer information.
RPA also works 24 X 7 without holidays or breaks allowing for longer processing hours.
3b. Reduced Monotonous work
You can free your staff from rules-based, repetitive tasks and move them to more stimulating and satisfying jobs. These higher level jobs are more rewarding and motivate your people to innovate and improve your business.
These were a summary of benefits. Note that these benefits are subject to proper implementation and ensuring proper change management. There is initial resistance and if that is not addressed, you may not be able to demonstrate the benefits.
