6 Benefits of Using Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Did you know that the Australian Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software market is positioned to maintain its double-digit revenue growth this year, rising by 12.2% to reach $109 million?

The market is also expected to grow up to $130 million next year, increasing by 18.9%.

This just shows that so many more companies are now investing in the automation of repetitive and routine tasks while also making the best use of their human workforce for the more complex or creative tasks.

RPA empowers businesses like yours to ramp up processes and achieve incredible internal efficiencies, so you can remain competitive today as well as accomplish business goals over the long term.

Let’s explore how RPA works and the various benefits RPA offers businesses.

RPA is key to Intelligent Automation

Intelligent Automation (IA) is the collaborative use of innovative technologies such as:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Machine Learning (ML)
• Smart analytics
• Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
• Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR),
• Process Mining and
• RPA

All of these develop end-to-end business processes that can boost productivity, streamline decision-making and save costs.

How does RPA work?

RPA technology optimises software robots (“bots”) to replicate human actions to perform high-volume, repetitive tasks. By following pre-defined instructions, RPA automates manual work efficiently and more accurately, so your team can focus on more value-adding activities.

When RPA is combined with other intelligent automation technologies such as AI, you can tap into the full potential of automation to process not only structured tasks but also those that require some level of reasoning, judgment or analysis.

For more, have a read of Intelligent Automation: When Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Meets Artificial Intelligence (AI).

How exactly does Robotic Process Automation help businesses?

RPA takes your employees away from doing manual and time-consuming tasks, giving them more time and opportunities to:

• concentrate on delivering quality customer service,
• collaborate with other departments for value-adding projects
• and practise critical and creative thinking.

In addition to these initial business businesses, RPA also offers the following:

• Robotic Process Automation maximises the efficient use of a company’s available resources.

Efficiency is achieved by mitigating the risk of error. Unfortunately, this risk is significantly high for dull, repetitive tasks performed by humans because people are doomed to boredom and all of its negative effects such as suboptimal concentration and distraction.

As an example, consider mail merging projects – that is, the process of creating personalised letters and pre-addressed envelopes or mass mailings from a form letter. RPA can minimise the risk of errors and speed the entire process up easily. It’s just a case of using bots rather than having staff manually enter addresses and print the stickers onto each envelope.

This avoids having letters return due to errors and having to relabel and resend them again. As address validation is a rule-based process, it can be easily automated and made accurate using software robots.

• Robotic Process Automation is more than just a macro or a shorthand representation for lines of code.

RPA is a dynamic and adaptable tool that goes beyond the inherent disadvantages in macros, such as:

• full reliance on their designer (for solving any problem that may occur on the way),
• the overabundance of macros in an organisation with no security or management overlay
• or the risk of becoming inoperable after software updates.

The flexibility of RPA and its capacity to adapt to a particular scenario makes it far more functional than macros, which can only repeat elementary steps over and over again in a somewhat “mindless” way. RPA is also constantly evolving – meaning, it is more likely to fulfil the requirements of new technologies that businesses might adopt in the near future.

As opposed to macros, which are built for individual machines, RPA is installed on a server. This allows RPA to become more scalable than macros, making its implementation less costly when it comes to the needed time and money for training.

• RPA and workflow tools are a match made in heaven that businesses can use to their advantage.

RPA and workflow tools complement each other efficiently. Therefore, using them both is likely to achieve optimal cost-effectiveness.

This is how it works:

• An RPA tool awaits a signal from the workflow tool, calling upon it for process completion.
• When it receives the signal, it becomes active and completes the job.
• Afterwards, it finalises the process and then feeds it back into the workflow tool.

To better understand how they round each other off, think about a customer who has an enquiry or an order adjustment. In this situation, the automation tool can apply the changes to the customer’s account and then feed it back into the workflow for human authorisation. This way, the customer knows they’ve been acknowledged instantly, and RPA can complete the task, only requiring a simple sign-off from a manager.

• RPA enables the high-level exchange of information and documentation

RPA can complement or even replace information tools in conveying professional and meaningful messages.

Document automation software, for instance, manages all the documents of a company and ensures that all changes are applied consistently across the board. Suppose an employee got married and consequently changed their surname name. With the help of RPA bots, this change could be easily made in a single document where the name occurs, and then be applied to all other relevant documents in just a few simple clicks.

RPA can also be used as a tool to create documents automatically by comparing data stored in different systems.

“RPA can be used to ensure the end users are receiving accurate and current data,” states Daniel Pullen, Co-Founder at CiGen and RPA Specialist.

• RPA allows users to schedule the activation of automated processes.

RPA software typically has scheduling abilities built into its system to determine when a task is executed. This way, your team has total control.

There are two ways in which scheduled automation can be run – with and without human intervention, respectively.

• In attended automation, the software tracks a human’s use of an application and starts to run a support process when triggered by specific actions, such as a button click.
• In unattended automation, on the other hand, the trigger need not be a human action – it can be just an email or a particular file that activates a process.
• RPA does not require the setup of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) prior.

This is advantageous as implementing APIs can be expensive and time-consuming. Furthermore, APIs also call for a high level of expertise in the underlying system which can increase company expenses.

RPA software has a faster and more readily available method for interacting with other applications, called Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). These are easier to use and require less technical knowledge. They also allow RPA to perform the same interactions as a human being, such as pressing buttons, sending keystrokes and reading text through the same user interface as a human would.

Do you want to experience these RPA business benefits?

The six benefits that we discussed have highlighted the fact that RPA improves business processes and increase efficiency.

RPA releases your skilled employees from the boredom of dull and repetitive tasks, allowing them to make better use of their creativity so they can focus more on complex and value-adding tasks.

So, even though there are people who are concerned about automation being a threat to their jobs, many experts have actually emphasised the positive effects of RPA in empowering the global labour market.

At CiGen, we partner with organisations like yours to help you achieve these benefits of intelligent automation and establish a flexible operational environment for your future growth.

Our ultimate goal is to energise organisations and the workforce of tomorrow as digital technologies increasingly evolve toward Artificial Intelligence (AI), Computational Intelligence (CI) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

Harness the true power of automation with CiGen On Demand  

Our team of RPA specialists are here to ensure you reap all of the rewards of business automation, while we mitigate any potential challenges.

We even provide an affordable automation service to small and medium-sized businesses through our CiGen On Demand subscription solution, making it even easier for your business to harness the true power of automation and earn back your valuable time.

Contact us today for more information on how we can help your business to succeed through robotic process automation.