Is robotic process automation right for your business? This blog post lists 9 benefits of robotic process automation that make it an attractive solution for organizations.
Robotic process automation (RPA) is a relatively new way to streamline and automate your manual processes and tasks using software-guided programming. It has been called the digital equivalent of outsourcing, but much more cost-effective, because it doesn’t require transporting paper or hiring another set of employees.
Think about all the “manual” processes in your life that you could use some help with: filing expenses, reconciling bank statements, processing invoices… The list goes on and on.
What Is Robotic Process Automation
Robotic process automation works by using software to automate the repetitive tasks that employees do when processing a transaction or performing a task. It typically consists of one or more software programs (robots) that scan documents and data, click through applications and websites, log in to an application, enter data into fields and make decisions to move on to the next step in a process.
This helps organizations save time and money as it reduces the need for employees who follow rigid processes when gathering information or processing transactions.
Robotic process automation is also known as “bionic” process automation because it uses software robots to do tasks that human beings typically would do. The term “RPA” is more widely used in Europe and Asia, while the term “bionic automation” is the one that is used in North America.
Benefits Of Robotic Process Automation
Business processes are often repetitive and time-consuming, making them ripe for automation with RPA bots. RPA software can help to automate these processes, freeing up human employees to focus on other tasks.
RPA can also help to reduce human errors in data entry and other processes. The implementation of RPA can help to improve customer satisfaction by automating mundane tasks and reducing operational risk.
This can help to improve business operations by streamlining processes and reducing the need for manual input.
1. Efficiency
By automating manual tasks, your organization can achieve greater efficiency and productivity. This is particularly important for any large organization or business that does not have a limitless amount of resources to spend.
By eliminating the need for human labor to perform repetitive tasks and tasks, you can free up employees’ time to perform higher value work or accomplish other tasks within your business such as delivering critical information to customers, developing new products and services or running in-house operations effectively.
2. Delivers More Value Faster
As you automate more processes, your processes are able to deliver more value faster. This means that customers will have a better experience when they work with your business.
3. Replaces Manual Tasks
Workers spend an average of 4 hours and 38 minutes each week on redundant jobs that may be automated. Robotic process automation eliminates the need for humans to perform repetitive, predictable tasks that do not require human judgment or decision making.
This can save your business money because you no longer need to pay employees to perform these manual tasks. However, it is important to note that RPA does not eliminate non-routine tasks; it just automates them so they can be performed faster and more accurately than they would be if performed by a human worker.
4. Better Customer Experiences And Higher Conversions
In the same way that customers can have a better experience when they have a one-on-one interaction with a human employee, they can also have a better experience when they are able to complete tasks in their self-service channel.
This is particularly important for companies providing information to customers or helping them to complete certain tasks on their own. By allowing customers to interact with your business process through self-service channels, you increase the likelihood of them completing the task or achieving their ultimate goal.
5. Less Need For Human Work
There is an expectation that robots could deliver a significant portion of current transactional activities. On average, it is expected that robots will contribute 20% of FTE capacity.
As you automate your manual processes, you need fewer employees overall (or at least fewer employees performing manual work). This is true for organizations that have a large number of repetitive, predictable tasks that are being performed manually by employees.
For example, consider a business that has an in-house call center. As long as the employees are able to complete their job functions in 30 minutes or less and the ability to access IT services and information while they perform their tasks (such as processing transactions), this type of process automation can be beneficial.
6. Easy To Maintain
Robotic process automation can be very easy to maintain because it will help you reduce the amount of time you need to spend on day-to-day tasks such as updating software or scheduling maintenance sessions.
While software robots can typically self-update and perform routine tasks, such as checking for software updates and launching applications, they will still require your intervention on a regular basis to complete more complicated processes.
7. Easy To Maintain Due To Less Frequent Changes
Since automated processes tend to require less maintenance overall, you will also spend less time updating your systems as well. This is particularly true for repetitive tasks that do not change often.
In fact, RPA can reduce the amount of staffing resources you need overall because you won’t need a human worker who is only there to perform these routine tasks such as entering data into fields or clicking through a website.
8. Reduces The Cost Of Human Labor
By merging hyper-automation technology with improved operational procedures, firms will save operational expenses by 30% by 2024.
As you automate certain routine tasks, you can reduce the cost of human labor as well.
This is especially true if your business requires a great deal of repetitive tasks that are being performed manually by employees. For example, consider a healthcare organization that has an employee filling out forms to ensure that the proper insurance coverage is provided for the patients under their care.
As long as this type of employee performs this task in 30 minutes or less and can access IT services and information during their shift, robotics process automation can be very beneficial for them.
9. Provides An Easy-To-Scale Workforce
As you continue to scale your organization, you may need to hire additional employees to help your business achieve its next level of success. Typically, this will require your company to invest time and money into recruiting and training new employees.
However, with robotics process automation, it is easy for you to add additional workers on a temporary or permanent basis. For example, if your call center was being hit with a high volume of calls during the holiday season, you could easily scale your workforce by adding more employees or hiring temporary help who can complete repetitive tasks in less than 30 minutes.
It’s also possible for businesses to reduce the number of people they employ during slow seasons by using robotics process automation instead.
10. Increases The Likelihood Of Completing Tasks
As you automate your organizational processes, there is a greater likelihood that a customer will be able to complete any required task – such as checking out at an e-commerce site or receiving information from your company.
As long as the customer is able to complete their task in 30 minutes or less and has access to the appropriate tools (such as data within an application or tool) during the process, this type of automation can be beneficial for efficiency and conversion rates.
Risks Of Robotic Process Automation
There are many different RPA tools available on the market, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. However, all of these tools share one common goal: to automate critical tasks that would otherwise be performed by human workers.
This can be extremely beneficial for businesses, as it can help to improve efficiency and accuracy while reducing costs.
Additionally, RPA can be used to automate legacy systems, which can be a major benefit for businesses that are still using older, outdated software.
1. No Guarantee Of Predictable Work Output
Organizations that have piloted RPA anticipate a 9-month payback period, whereas those that have implemented and scaled RPA have seen a 12-month payback. Robotic process automation is all about efficiency, which means that no two processes will produce the exact same results.
Depending on how you set up your systems, this can be a very good thing or a very bad thing for your business. This is due to the fact that robotic process automation is not an exact science and does not produce predictable output like a computer program would.
You can use RPA for certain tasks and it will work just fine – but other times, it simply won’t work at all. This means that you must ensure that your robotic process automation works well with the tasks you are hoping to automate, such as filling out forms or providing customer service through mobile apps.
2. Failure To Add Value
Those that have used RPA believe that robots may deliver 52% of FTE capacity. This can enable the human workforce to be redeployed to more value-adding activities. While robotic process automation can save your business money and time by automating certain processes, they can also have a negative impact on your business.
This is especially true if you are not able to provide additional value to your customers through the automation technology or if you cannot easily replace human workers with this new technology or a combination of both. For example, imagine that you own a large hotel and you spend a lot of resources on training your employees.
As part of that training, you tell them how to smile at guests and make them feel more welcome during their stay. However, if you use robotic process automation for those same tasks, your guests may feel like your employees are not really trying to help them and that your hotel is just looking to profit off of them.
3. Failure To Automatically Perform Critical Processes
While there are many routine tasks that can be performed by robotics process automation, some of the most important and critical processes will be more difficult to automate. For example, imagine that you own an online bookkeeping business and you rely on an employee to manually check the finances of each client once a month in order to make sure that their books are balanced properly.
This is a very important task because if the books aren’t balanced, it could lead to fines or even criminal charges for tax evasion. As you can imagine, it can be quite difficult to automate this process.
However, if you create an automated process that manually performs the same check on each client, then your business will be able to stop relying on human employees for this critical task – which increases the likelihood of your business being profitable.
4. Companies Could Oversell Their RPA Systems
Many small businesses think that they need RPA in order to make a profit, but they might not necessarily be right. This is because more businesses may invest more into starting with RPA than they need in order to increase sales – and it could backfire in the long run.
If your business relies on too many processes that can be automated by RPA or you are unable to quickly add new processes to your system, then this could lead to over-utilization of a system like RPA and eventually, it will fail.
This is because robots perform very repetitive tasks, which means that they will be able to complete any task more quickly than a person – meaning that the company will have more work and less time for other tasks.
5. People Might Not Feel As Safe In Their Workplace
RPA systems will likely make some people feel uncomfortable at the office and may cause headaches for the company. This is because their employers may not be truly aware of how their RPA systems work or how they should be used.
For example, imagine that you are the head manager at a customer support call center, and your employee is using an RPA system to answer customer calls. The customer service representative is handling calls that they can handle quickly and effectively, but if times get busy or they get stuck on a question, the robotic call handler could step in.
You may not be pleased with how this makes your employees feel since they will likely be working overtime with no extra pay. However, you also may not want to fire one of your employees for doing their job too well – so it’s possible that you would have to search for another replacement for these positions.
6. Increase The Likelihood Of Employee Dissatisfaction
Some robotic process automation systems are built to work with fewer employees than those who need to use a human-operated system so that only one person can handle the entire job. This means that if you have employees who are currently performing their jobs manually, then they will likely be unhappy about working with RPA systems.
For example, imagine that you own a call center and your employees are complaining about how they must deal with heavy workloads while other call centers operate with just two employees handling 50 calls per hour. If your company decides to add RPA, it is possible that this could cause serious dissatisfaction among your existing employee population.
7. Increased Costs
RPA becomes expensive very quickly and it will drain your company’s savings account faster than you think – especially if you choose to use a robotic process automation system that actually enables more employees to work without human intervention.
This is because the employees will have to be trained in order to use RPA, and this might not be cheap. On top of paying for salaries for these employees, you will have to train them on how to use the RPA system in order for it to work correctly.
In addition, you will also have to pay an additional office space where they can conduct their training and probably pay additional rent and utility charges, too.
Why Is Robotic Process Automation Important
Robotic process automation is important because it gives your business the ability to perform complex, repetitive tasks without having to hire more employees. Actually, RPA may help save your business money by keeping the workforce lean and efficient.
This is because with an automated system in place, you can reduce the amount of workers that your company needs to hire in order to complete certain tasks – meaning that you won’t spend money on additional salaries and payroll taxes.
RPA may cut labor-intensive jobs by up to 80%. RPA should also allow you to focus on the most important aspects of running a business like growing sales and managing sales teams, so it could actually help improve your profit margin in the long run.
Final Note
However, the lack of workers with technical abilities is not a problem that will last forever.
As the cost savings associated with RPA tend to be quite small compared to other modernization options – especially when you have to consider the cost of your time and the amount of training that you need to spend in order for your employees to learn how to use automation systems in your business.
However, the lack of workers with technical abilities is not a problem that will last forever. As industry consolidation continues , we are likely to see a shortage of qualified workers who know how to manage these tasks instead of an excess.
Last Updated on October 11, 2023 by Priyanshi Sharma
