The Impact of RPA Implementation on an Organization's Bottom Line

According to Technavio, the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) market share is expected to expand by USD 7.43 billion from 2019 to 2024, accelerating at a 45.1% CAGR. Businesses around the globe are investing in RPA solutions, which help them reimagine efficiency and assist their employees in shifting their focus on value-added work that directly adds to their organization's bottom line.

Understanding RPA with an Example

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a software technology that enables the development, deployment, and management of robots that mimic human interactions with digital systems and software. By combining Robotic Process Automation with technologies such as Natural Language Processing (NLP), Computer Vision, Speech Recognition, and Machine Learning (ML), businesses are moving beyond simply adopting robotic automation skills to leveraging cognitive capabilities. By using RPA software, organizations can accomplish tasks faster and cost-effectively, with fewer errors than humans. RPA's flexibility allows for working with multiple applications simultaneously, ensuring that it matches specific business processes and workflows.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a valuable addition for businesses to perform the following:

Opening emails and attachments
Logging into web/enterprise applications
Moving files and folders
Copying and pasting
Filling in forms
Reading and writing to databases
Scraping data from the web
Connecting to system API
Making calculations
Collecting social media statistics
Following 'if/then' decisions/rules

Real-World Examples of RPA

Credit Card Applications

Most credit card applications can be processed using RPA bots. They can handle various tasks, including starting a credit card application, gathering the relevant paperwork for the applicants, running the necessary credit checks, conducting the required verifications, etc. All of these jobs can be completed automatically by RPA bots. RPA determines an applicant's eligibility for a card based on the information provided by the individual. A new card will be issued to a person if they are qualified. Once the card is successfully delivered, the process will be finished.

Employee Onboarding and Offboarding

By enrolling names, organizing meetings and induction sessions, and sending automated emails and messages outlining their tasks, RPA helps automate the onboarding process of new employees. RPA is an excellent way to guarantee that each employee is onboarded in compliance with established procedures and that they are given all the information necessary to comply with corporate policies. Besides, RPA also helps organizations in the offboarding process of their employees by automating the administrative offboarding process, such as auto-forwarding email setup, changing passwords to prevent access, and removing employees' information after a set time to remain in compliance with business policies.

Data Management

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can retrieve pertinent data from old legacy systems and migrate data to the latest applications. It also assists businesses in managing their data for backups and restoration. Data management tasks can be automated by providing RPA solutions with the necessary data, such as credentials, source, and destination details.

Robotic Process Automation - A New Normal in the Age of Disruption

Among the top performers in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Robotic Process Automation, Microsoft, for the second consecutive year, has been named a leader. Microsoft has helped its customers reap the business-wide benefits of automation.

Magic Quadrant for Robotic Process Automation

Understanding the Demand for RPA through Popular Use Cases

Coca-Cola Bottling Company United (Coca-Cola United) delivers Coca-Cola products to 200,000 restaurants and retailers. The company wanted to streamline invoicing procedures and orders to scale vending machine operations. The company achieved the goal faster than expected, leveraging Microsoft Power Automate Robotic Process Automation.
Using Power Automate and AI Builder, Komatsu Australia created a Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution to automate manual and monotonous processes for fixing invoices. It took them around four weeks from the time they bought licenses to the time they had an RPA solution. The Robotic Process Automation solution saved the company 300 hours per year in invoicing, particularly for this supplier.
For AT&T, using Power Automate RPA has been a game-changer. With the help of RPA bots, the company successfully reduced hours of manual work to concentrate on providing customer services and streamlining its operations.

Why do Many Organizations Struggle to Realize Benefits from RPA?

According to KPMG, between 30% and 50% of RPA projects fail. The reasons are:

Underestimating the complexity of the task
Overestimating the cost reduction
Lacking global governance and strategy
Setting unrealistic expectations

“Getting the most out of RPA requires a shift in mindset from research to transformation. Organizations wanting to succeed in creating a "quality" digital workforce must make the right strategic selections - laying the right foundations.” – Frank Braski at Softura.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) – Myth Vs. Reality

RPA does not replace back-end systems or legacy applications. Instead of replacing the back-end systems, RPA modernizes the legacy systems by streamlining regular workflows effectively and quickly. Moreover, using RPA Bots, businesses can extract insights by providing quick responses. Also, RPA helps automate workflows involving legacy systems that lack virtual desktop infrastructures (VDIs), Application Performance Interfaces (APIs), or database access.

Implementation of RPA Doesn’t replace your back-end systems or legacy applications

How Does the Right RPA Implementation Impacts Organizations' Bottomline?

Increase in Data Entry Accuracy and Speed

RPA makes data entry more accurate and efficient than manual entry. Automated Bots eliminate the scope of mistakes or entering information into wrong fields. An RPA bot can accurately extract a document's metadata and content and insert relevant data into an application. For example - invoice processing. Extract invoice details from PDF and input the data into the ERP system for payment processing.

Saves Time & Increase Productivity

Due to RPA's round-the-clock nature, bots can accomplish more work in the same amount of time as human workers. Repetitive tasks, such as data extraction, data entry, email classification, invoice processing, and accessing applications by entering credentials, can be automated to save employees time and let them focus on high-value strategic work.

Scalability with Innovation

RPA easily adapts to the needs of the business. For example, if the workload for Bots increases, it's feasible to deploy more bots. It is simpler and less expensive than employing and training human employees. By combining business intelligence with digital transformation, RPA can also be the start of a journey toward AI.

Validating ROI through FTE Advantages

RPA solutions create digital workers who complement employees in completing tasks. Full-time equivalent (FTE) refers to the hours saved by the RPA solution. For example, if an RPA solution saves 40 hours per week, that's the equivalent of 1 full-time employee working 8 hours per day for five days a week. RPA ultimately frees the capacity of full-time employees, reduces the scope of errors and manual work, and increases productivity.

Increase Compliance

In today's complex and ever-changing compliance landscape, RPA solutions can support internal audits for companies looking to strengthen compliance. The various ways in which RPA bots can help during an audit are:

Data Extraction
Document Validation
Workflow Automation (auto-approvals)
Fraud detection

The Future of RPA – What it Holds?

According to Statista, The Robotic Process Automation (RPA) market is expected to reach 23.9 billion U.S. dollars by 2030 from 2.65 billion U.S. dollars in 2021. This market is forecast to grow with a CAGR of 27.7% from 2021 to 2030.

RPA software is currently gaining a lot of attention as businesses learn how to use it and experience its advantages, such as time and cost savings. Here are some scenarios for how cognitive automation (AI-powered RPA) will transform companies:

Cognitive Automation - Deeper Integration of RPA with AI

Businesses are already combining RPA potential with technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to automate several complex operations requiring logical reasoning and sentiment analysis. For instance, organizations can use RPA tools to digitize documents, but RPA technologies that have AI incorporated into them will also comprehend the content of the documents and classify it accurately, without any errors.

Citizen development and RPA Center of Excellence (CoE)

To maximize ROI from investments into RPA and automation, companies are creating a Center of Excellence (CoE) that acts as an enabler in gathering automation from business users and bringing it to production at an enterprise scale. Citizen developers can submit automation ideas to CoE, and the CoE will leverage development teams to create and bring automation to production.

Thinking About RPA Implementation?

According to Statista, the Robotic process automation (RPA) market revenue is anticipated to reach more than 10 Billion USD by 2023. Most business leaders worldwide are already considering RPA as a medium to reshape their customer experience. If you are looking for an RPA provider to modernize your IT infrastructure with RPA, consider Softura, your technology partner. Connect with our experts to modernize your IT infrastructure by leveraging Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

The Impact of RPA Implementation on an Organization's Bottom Line

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