By now, the benefits of robotic process automation, or RPA, are well-known. The power of RPA rests in increased efficiency and reduced costs, as well as the ability to truly unleash the creativity of employees by freeing them from uninspiring and menial tasks. However, cur- rently RPA is largely considered an ‘add-on’ that attaches to existing systems and processes in order to improve their efficiency. This is a tactical solution, which decreases costs and increases speed in a relatively short time.
For many financial service organizations, this will be sufficient. But taking an enterprise view of RPA offers a far more effective long-term solution. The quickest, easiest implementation of the cheapest robots available is unlikely to lead to sustainable improvements, whereas taking the time to truly understand your organization’s processes first will mean you can apply RPA in the right place, at the right time, and in the right way.
An enterprise approach to RPA can also fuel a shift in mindset within companies, in particular in their acceptance of and responsiveness to change and disruption. When staff see the benefits of RPA in action, future instances of RPA become easier to support, and from there it is easier to introduce other organizational or structural changes that may not necessarily be related to RPA. A company culture that is open to experimentation with RPA will likely be open to other opportunities as well, and over time will foster a willingness to be more creative and innovative.
An enterprise view of RPA also allows you to anticipate and overcome potential risks. With the increasing uptake of RPA solutions, it is entirely possible your organization will end up with multiple robots, from different vendors, working together on different parts of the same process. An enterprise view gives you the oversight necessary to ensure they are working together in harmony. In the same way, enterprise-level RPA can help sidestep some of the technical limitations of RPA robots themselves. Capturing existing knowledge and insights from staff before RPA is implemented is an important component of an enterprise view, and helps ensure business continuity in the event of unexpected issues with RPA software. Additionally, analysts suggest anyone implementing RPA robots today is likely to need to replace them within a 2-3 year period. Without an enterprise-level view of how RPA works across your organization, and a deep understanding of which processes are enhanced with RPA and how, this replacement becomes a significantly more burdensome task.
Some additional commentary related to the evolution from RPA to Intelligent Automation from Speridian Technologies includes:
Bots are actually a secondary choice to automate an entire business process:
1) Business processes end-to-end are complex beasts that require all type of task management, workflow management, and integration management. Bots on their own are the wrong technology to do this.
2) To focus on all the hard bits within a process means you invest over 80% of your time on tricky exception scenarios. The familiar 80/20 scenario. The more you try to automatea process end-to-end, you will end up diminishing returns.
3) We recommend to focus on those aspects of the process that can be automated easily. Really more like the 20/80 concept...for 20% of the effort, you realize 80% of the value.
4) We're recommending you focus on "task automation." Instead of a heatmap, we talk about "automation hotspots."
Speridian's RapidDiscovery methodology focuses on "Hotspot Identification."
1) Rather than trying to identify/document every scenario/path through a process, Speridian lowers the effort of discovery, which yields faster ROI
2) Speridian portrays a message right from the start that we understand the complexities of process automation, and that a little bot is not the answer.
Long Live Intelligent Automation
RPA by itself is moving to the rear view mirror....new technologies, like "Intelligent Automation" /AI/No-code platforms are working "in conjunction with bots" for a sustainable and effective enterprise automation strategy.
Learn more about M.Allen & Speridian Technologies "kick start" proof of concept for financial service companies by sending mslonaker@mattallendevelopment.com an email with a date/time that works for a half hour brief. In addition to the brief, M. Allen will provide a white paper on the 7 key steps to generate massive returns on your automation journey.
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