Everything You Need To Know About RPA

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

This revelation by the Red Queen may have perplexed teenage Alice in Through the Looking Glass, but for modern executives, these words sound painfully familiar. As the culture of speed permeates every industry, today’s businesses move at a feverish pace. They take advantage of just-in-time production, fast turnaround cycles, real-time decision-making, and instant user interactions to resonate with their customers and build a competitive edge.

For many companies, speed and agility are the most valuable assets. The faster information, decisions, and interactions, the shorter the time to meet market demand and turn a profit. However, certain processes are massive stumbling blocks to the sustainable efficiency of these ambitious businesses. There’s a definite number of tasks a human worker can perform within a specific time limit; low productivity directly impacts a company’s bottom line.

If you’ve never heard about Robotic Process Automation, the term may seem a bit intimidating. Indeed, the technological setup underlying RPA solutions is quite elaborate. It can involve voice or image recognition, predictive analytics, cognitive decision-making, self-healing, and much more.

From the business perspective, the good news is that the concept of robot-enabled automation is rather simple to grasp. It all boils down to delegating high volume, monotonous work to bots for optimized business processes, and reduced operational costs.

Any business process that is

● repeatable

● rules-based

● high-volume

can be optimized with Robotic Process Automation.

Here is a short video to better explain the concept:

RPA technology consists of bots, or software robots, that mimic a human to perform repetitive, high volume tasks faster and with greater accuracy. For example, the bots can read and input text, assign item categories, retrieve data, perform queries, and maintain records. (Scroll down to the section ‘RPA for industries’ for specific examples).

Of course, there’s slightly more to RPA than this. But at this point, this simple definition will suffice. One more thing that’s worth realizing upfront is the distinction between attended vs. unattended automation:

Attended automation – As the name suggests, attended automation needs guidance and cannot function on its own. Attended bots require collaboration with humans, assisting users and employees with tasks, and interacting with them to provide support. They are typically used in front-office activities to boost productivity, eliminate human error, increase compliance, and speed up task execution.

Example: Call center automation robots that assist agents, e.g., by prompting them on the next step of the script or finding answers to a customer inquiry.

Unattended automation – By analogy, unattended automation is fully autonomous and runs regardless of human assistance. Unattended bots are pre-programmed to work independently, following a rules-based process. They can be triggered by specific events to take action or scheduled on a timer (see also RPA & AI: What’s the difference?). This type of robotic process automation excels at batch back-office activities.

Example: RPA bots that can extract data from multiple sources, such as invoices, bills, or bank statements, and compare them for accuracy, approve, reject, or send for further processing.

Whether running on a desktop or a server, RPA provides companies of all sizes with numerous benefits, from improved productivity, better quality and accuracy, to lower processing costs. What’s more, it brings a level of advancement to automation that is much more evolved than the previously available technologies.

At the same time, robotic process automation is easier to use and faster to deploy than, e.g., sophisticated AI algorithms; therefore, quite often, it becomes a quick, low-risk starting point for streamlining work and optimizing profits through digitization. These factors account for an intensifying interest in RPA solutions.

“While we see RPA as a huge driver of improved performance and efficiency, the impact correlates back to accuracy and customer experience.” Prakash Mall, Senior Director at RPA, Target

The advantages of RPA for business are as follows: