Do you really need RPA in your Business?

Irrespective of which business vertical you are working in, process automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence are the words which you would come across day in and day out. Every business today is looking for ways to reduce cost and maximise revenue by using these technologies. However not all business processes and operations are fit for automation. This articles intends to cover the aspects which should be considered before jumping to conclusions on implementing automation for a particular business process.

Do I really need it?

• Would this automation reduce man hours? The main aim of any RPA implementation is to reduce the human efforts and increase efficiency. Thus an business which is considering RPA as a solution should work out n th number of man hours this implementation would reduce. The more the merrier. This can also be in terms of number of employees which are currently deployed to complete the process.

• Is the process based on business rules or on human judgement? Processes which are based on business rules are ideal candidates for automation. For example “if customer has provided a copy of the passport then issue air tickets else not”. Rule based processes can be converted into algorithms high can be understood by bots. Some processes may or may not be fully business rules driven and thus may be good candidates for attended automation.

• Are human inputs in binary formats or standard templates? Machines understand the language of 0 or1. If the process requires standard human inputs or human inputs are captured in standard formats such as forms, then the process is a good candidate for automation. On the other hand of inputs are non standard and require human judgement, such processes are not good candidates for automation.

Other factors? Other factors which determine the feasibility of RPA implementation include factors like how soon the process under consideration is expected to change.  Processes which are expected to change in next couple  to  months are not good candidates for RPA. Also if the number of exceptions are high in a process then it would need human intervention and thus RPA implementation would not be as fruitful/

Conclusion : RPA technology has huge potential for all industry sectors but businesses need to take a cautious decision while choosing which processes should be automated