What is robotic process au­toma­tion?

Robotic process au­toma­tion (RPA) helps companies to make their business processes more efficient at a software level. Robots allow companies to com­plete­ly automate manual tasks. This can include certain tasks like contract ter­mi­na­tions and order pro­cess­ing.

What’s behind RPA tech­nol­o­gy?

RPA describes the au­toma­tion of business processes using software robots.

In this area of au­toma­tion, robots carry out repet­i­tive steps of processes pre­vi­ous­ly un­der­tak­en by humans. Such steps are often time-consuming and liable to errors. Such tasks include, for example, data entry and data transfer in the back office.

For this type of work, software bots, or robots, are used. These are able to access and use system com­po­nents via an interface as well as operate ap­pli­ca­tion software. This means bots can carry out tasks in a similar manner to humans within a process landscape.

RPA not only optimizes human in­ter­ac­tions through the user in­ter­faces of software systems, it also gradually dig­i­tal­izes in­ter­ac­tion paths. In practice, in­di­vid­ual tasks or even complete processes are recorded and then carried over in in­di­vid­ual software scripts or complete script chains.

The tech­nol­o­gy combines different in­ter­faces (such as APIs) with in­ter­ac­tions with the user interface to carry out repet­i­tive tasks.

The scripts can be deployed and executed in different lengths or runtimes. The cor­re­spond­ing runtime file is called Bot, which is where the name robotic process au­toma­tion came from.

How is robotic process au­toma­tion different from AI?

RPA is often falsely compared to and confused with ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence (AI). These tech­nolo­gies are different, but, in some ways, they do com­ple­ment each other. The dif­fer­ence between the two lies in their practical im­ple­men­ta­tion and how they are used:

• AI is data based
• RPA is a process ap­pli­ca­tion

RPA bots follow set routines that have been developed by pro­gram­mers. On the other hand, ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence relies on existing data. Through machine learning, for example, it can re­struc­ture existing data patterns or recognize and learn from patterns in un­struc­tured data sets.

Together RPA and AI mutually benefit each other. Some tasks within RPA routines can be com­plete­ly automated using AI. AI also makes more complex tasks possible. Bots, on the other hand, can support AI, by elim­i­nat­ing the need for manual im­ple­men­ta­tions.

When carrying out its tasks, RPA works au­tonomous­ly so that ac­tiv­i­ties on software systems can be carried out in­de­pen­dent­ly.

What are the benefits of RPA?

Firstly, robotic process au­toma­tion is there to optimize current processes and make them more cost-effective and efficient. Designed to con­sol­i­date resource-heavy processes in the back office, bots are used to carry out rule-based tasks so that other resources are freed up for more complex projects.

This leads to a better, long-term return on in­vest­ment and quicker dig­i­tal­iza­tion for companies that have invested in RPA-based processes. Another effect of increased au­toma­tion is a decrease in workload.

RPA not only enables in­di­vid­ual employees to become more pro­duc­tive by letting them focus on work that adds value, it also helps to con­tin­u­ous­ly increase employees’ level of job sat­is­fac­tion. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, employees can be given more complex tasks, for example, those which require human in­ter­ven­tion.

Ad­van­tages of RPA inside and outside of the company

• Less need for pro­gram­mers: You don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly need de­vel­op­ers to use RPA. Drag and drop makes con­fig­ur­ing the software easy, even for those employees without IT expertise.
• Fewer errors: Bots carry out repet­i­tive tasks based on scripts within the system. This means that, over time, human mistakes can be avoided. This includes tasks that require a lot of accuracy, such as com­pli­ance.
• Improved mon­i­tor­ing: By using RPA, you can also carry out mon­i­tor­ing and audits in a stan­dard­ized way, meaning that you can con­tin­u­ous­ly optimize scripts without the need for much work.
• Retention of func­tion­al­i­ty: If you use RPA, you don’t need any ad­di­tion­al systems and can avoid in­te­grat­ing APIs. Since bots work on the pre­sen­ta­tion layer of the system, your current processes won’t be affected by them.
• Improved customer sat­is­fac­tion: Bots aren’t tied to your customer service times and are able to work on customer requests outside of these hours. This means that your company will be able to work 24/7 on improving customer sat­is­fac­tion.
• Improved employee sat­is­fac­tion: By getting rid of highly repet­i­tive tasks, not only are employees more efficient and able to focus on more complex tasks, they also value their work more and are happier with their jobs.

Companies that are planning to introduce robotic process au­toma­tion should fulfill a range of basic re­quire­ments. This is because this tech­nol­o­gy can only bring about an increase in ef­fi­cien­cy if high-quality data is available and there is a clear com­mit­ment to fact-based data man­age­ment.

What are typical RPA use cases?

RPA tasks are par­tic­u­lar­ly suited to repli­cat­ing standard processes that occur in day-to-day work. This includes tasks that are carried out daily in most trading and service companies. Some real-world examples include:

• Order processes
• Customer request pro­cess­ing
• Document creation
• Ac­count­ing pro­cess­ing and general data man­age­ment in business areas

RPA has many benefits, es­pe­cial­ly when it comes to customer com­mu­ni­ca­tion. In fact, this is one of the areas where RPA is heavily used. This is due to the fact that many customers expect quick, if not immediate, answers to their requests.

The positive effects of au­toma­tion can quickly be seen when customers receive quick answers to their requests, and there is a reduction in errors when pro­cess­ing incoming letters or emails.

Using RPA also has a cost benefit since the reduction in errors results in less time being spent redoing work. With an increase in customer sat­is­fac­tion comes improved customer loyalty.

Automated form entry

One of the most common customer processes is contract can­cel­la­tion, which can be quite a cum­ber­some task for humans. You can automate this by using RPA, allowing you to receive the can­cel­la­tion request, check it, and then cancel it au­to­mat­i­cal­ly.

This means that employees will no longer need to per­son­al­ly fill out the forms required for canceling a contract. Instead, the bots will complete them and send them out, saving you and your team time.

Process orders au­to­mat­i­cal­ly

When an order is placed, a range of documents are produced, which belong to a stan­dard­ized document pool. This normally includes an order con­fir­ma­tion, followed by a payment request. Following this, a packing slip needs to be created and printed out along with an invoice.

This order process is perfect for RPA since the processes to create documents as well as the data needed to do so are stan­dard­ized and can be put into a script and then recalled over and over.

Summary: RPA is worth­while for companies who have sound data man­age­ment

By using RPA, you can improve your customer com­mu­ni­ca­tion which, in turn, can increase your customer sat­is­fac­tion and provide you with cost savings. In addition to being an important factor for companies who want to stay com­pet­i­tive, it also has an effect on employee sat­is­fac­tion and loyalty. RPA can take over manual and time-intensive tasks, freeing up your employees’ time for more complex and exciting tasks. This can have a positive effect on their working en­vi­ron­ment and improve employee mo­ti­va­tion.

However, RPA is not the perfect solution to every­thing. The key factor in this is having quality data as well as being knowl­edge­able about data man­age­ment. Without having this in place, it will be difficult to ef­fi­cient­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly automate your processes.