Tag: RPA
The strategic significance of advanced technologies as a critical business component is recognized by enterprises like never before. Besides business modernization and cost reduction, advanced technologies allow you to compensate for labor shortages, improve brand value and competency, and expedite research and innovation processes. However, several companies jump onto the bandwagon without properly understanding the practical applications and benefits of advanced technologies. The World Economic Forum indicates that only 23% of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) worldwide can invest in and grow with new digital tools. This data proves why businesses should crucially analyze advanced technologies before adopting digital tools.
To streamline things, here’s a quick rundown of five advanced technologies we believe will help you cope with the new business and economic environment.
- Simplifying Workflows With Cloud
- Low-code Applications
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
- Document Data Extraction
- AI Assistants
As these technologies become more affordable and handy, businesses are ardently pursuing them to automate customer service, streamline workflows, differentiate products and services, and reach new markets. Depending on your budget, implementation timeline, priorities, and unique business requirements, our team at Fingent helps you build the roadmap for technology adoption.
Read more: How to gain maximum value from your technology investments?
Let’s take a closer look at the five inevitable technologies for business transformation today:
1. Simplifying Workflows with Cloud
Workflow management is a highly overlooked enterprise strategy that directly impacts productivity. Managing different stakeholders, heaps of confidential data, and a series of preset and conditional tasks manually can lead to several errors, such as employees missing key steps, policy violations, compliance issues, and monetary losses. By taking your workflows online, cloud-based workflow management applications increase your productivity.
Cloud-powered workflows or workflow management tools:
- Are scalable, centralized, customizable to your needs, easy to integrate, secure, reliable, and hassle-free.
- Offer a seamless and unified collaboration interface by preventing users from toggling between different messaging apps or communication channels.
- Reduce your dependency on the in-house IT team by passing on the software maintenance responsibilities to the third-party software vendor.
- Can be accessed via any authorized network (with approved access credentials), on any device, from anywhere, 24/7. This has been a huge game-changer for several companies that switched to remote operations during the pandemic.
Example of a Cloud-based Workflow Tool
Finding a cloud workflow management tool that can be customized to your company’s requirements is daunting. The platform should integrate well with your organizational processes without disrupting your workflow. This is where digital workplace applications like InfinCE make the difference.
With InfinCE Digital Workplace, Fingent has improved its productivity by 20% through real-time, effective, and easy collaboration. Data-powered dashboards, dedicated servers, collaboration apps, productivity tools, virtual desktops, private mobile apps, and a host of exceptional business management features enabled us to achieve a significant operational breakthrough in streamlining workflows.
Read the full case study here.
2. Low-code Applications
Gartner estimates that by 2025, 70% of enterprise applications will use low-code or no-code technologies. Digital business transformation requires pushing custom software solutions to the market at lightning speed. This demand has given rise to low-code applications that will break the technological and organizational silos of application development, automation, integration, and governance. Low-code development enables business users to bring innovative ideas to life by dragging and dropping low-code elements through a graphical user interface.
Simply put, low-code development enables “citizen” developers or non-tech users (such as business analysts or marketers) to build dashboards and survey or contact forms faster. On the other hand, professional developers can leverage low-code techniques to perform more efficient tasks, such as legacy application modernization or back-end integrations, with improved agility and velocity.
Use Cases for Low-code Applications
- Customer engagement applications and portals
- Mission-critical applications such as ERP software, payments manager, etc.
- Data analysis applications, BI dashboards, and data management software
- Mobile apps for customer engagement
- Order processing, inventory, order fulfillment, supply chain, and accounting apps
Salesforce Lightning, Microsoft Power Apps, and Zoho Creator are some of the leading low-code applications today. SAP users can leverage the unified low-code/no-code (LCNC) solutions on the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) to rapidly build and extend applications and automate tasks and processes.
Read more: Low Code/No Code Development with SAP BTP: How It Is Turning the Future of Enterprise Resilience
3. Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Robotic Process Automation (RPA), often called software robotics, is an easy-to-use software technology that allows anyone to automate digital tasks within their business processes. RPA allows users to create software robots or “bots” to learn, emulate, and execute rules-based business processes. According to Forrester Research, RPA software revenue is expected to reach $6.5 billion by 2025, while RPA-related services revenue could hit $16 billion in the same year.
Potential Use Cases for RPA
We offer free proof of concepts to help you understand how RPA can improve your business efficiency and customer experience. Some of our top use cases include:
- Automating discharge protocols and data management to increase HR productivity in healthcare.
- Daily retail processes automation, such as order processing, inventory and warehouse management, etc., to save time and resources.
- Reducing customer wait times through RPA-enabled chatbots that answer customer queries in real time.
- Error-free, automated billing and invoices to keep your financial systems and reports up-to-date.
- HR teams can automate personnel data and records maintenance, streamline onboarding, and seamlessly manage payroll.
4. Document Data Extraction
Extracting quality data from unstructured or poorly structured data sources and documents for further processing, migration, and storing has been the biggest obstacle in automating back-office operations. If you enter structured invoices into a robust ERP tool like SAP, your payments can be automated, and system records can be generated automatically. Due to the high costs of data extraction, several businesses extract only critical information fields, for example, the payment field within an invoice. Businesses are compelled to manually extract data from other important fields, such as validating the invoice’s compliance with VAT.
AI-integrated OCR Software for Document Extraction
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is an affordable, game-changing technology that automatically extracts data from the digital images (photos) of large files, scanned documents, and sub-titles or captions superimposed on an image. It reduces the time spent in manual data entry and extraction by automatically converting typed, handwritten, or printed text into machine-readable text. AI-powered automated data extraction tools like DocuSign, Docsumo, Kofax Capture, and Amazon Textract leverage OCR technology to reduce the chaos involved in document data extraction and enable businesses to create an efficient workplace.
Our team helps customize document data extraction software that can save you time and money by eliminating transcription and transposing mistakes.
5. AI Assistants
One of the most common examples of small business automation today is using AI-powered virtual assistants. They can save your employees’ productivity by automating the most repeatable customer interactions, such as technical support, appointment scheduling, lead qualification, and order management. AI virtual assistants like Google Assistant and Alexa can understand and act according to your voice commands and customize responses to your queries. Understanding customer intent through natural language processing and recognition allows AI assistants to maintain a human-like conversation.
Chatbots are a popular category of AI assistants designed specifically for text-based channels like SMS, email, and live chat. Recent years have witnessed a rise in chatbot adoption among several business verticals, product and service lines, websites, mobile apps, customer portals, etc. Data shows that 58% of B2B companies and 42% of B2C websites use chatbots to make their websites and mobile apps more interactive. More than 56% of businesses believe chatbots to be driving digital disruption in their industry.
Case Study: AI Virtual Assistant for HR
Fingent’s HR team was pressed to transform their service delivery model as routine, transactional tasks affected their performance and efficiency. To solve their struggle, Fingent developed MUSA, an AI-powered virtual assistant (a chatbot), and integrated it with Fingent Hub, Fingent’s internal employee management system. MUSA is short for Multi Utility Assistant. Employees can ask MUSA any queries related to HR and IT DevOps processes at Fingent, and they’ll get answered instantly. MUSA has improved our HR team’s response time by minimizing their workload and allowing them to focus on areas requiring more attention.
Business and Technology Are Inseparable!
Gartner writes that businesses with technology employ advanced tech to boost customer experience and revenue growth, clearly understand their priorities, goals, and strategies, and invest in solutions tailored to their needs. Technology allows businesses to lower the walls within and between their organizations, customers, providers, suppliers, etc. Organizations perceiving technology as a key business consideration will be able to match the pace of business change and stay relevant and competitive.
How can your business embrace growth in a new era of transformation and technology trends?
If you’re getting caught in the technology maze, take a quick break to contact us. Our consultants can simplify your technology adoption strategy based on your priorities, customer needs, financial resources, and technical requirements.
5 Advanced Business Technologies You Should’nt Miss Out When Strategizing Brand Value and Competency!
The strategic significance of advanced technologies as a critical business component is recognized by enterprises like never before. Besides business modernization and cost reduction, advanced technologies allow you to compensate for labor shortages, improve brand value and competency, and expedite research and innovation processes. However, several companies jump onto the bandwagon without properly understanding the practical applications and benefits of advanced technology in their business. Only 23% of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) worldwide can invest in and grow with new digital tools, indicates the World Economic Forum. This data proves why companies should analyze advanced business technology examples before adopting digital tools.
Read more: Using technology to build customer trust: Your business plan for 2022
To simplify your understanding, here’s a quick rundown of five advanced business technologies we believe will help you cope with the new business and economic environment.
- Simplifying Workflows With Cloud
- Low-code Applications
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
- Document Data Extraction
- AI Assistants
As these business technologies become more affordable and handy, businesses are ardently pursuing them to automate customer service, streamline workflows, differentiate products and services, and reach new markets. Depending on your budget, implementation timeline, priorities, and unique business requirements, our team at Fingent helps you build the roadmap for technology adoption.
Let’s take a closer look at the five inevitable technologies for business transformation today:
Read more: How to gain maximum value from your technology investments?
1. Simplifying Workflows with Cloud
Workflow management is a highly overlooked enterprise strategy that directly impacts productivity. Managing different stakeholders, heaps of confidential data, and a series of preset and conditional tasks manually can lead to several errors such as employees missing key steps, policy violations, compliance issues, and monetary losses. By taking your workflows online, cloud-based workflow management applications increase your productivity.
Cloud-powered workflows or workflow management tools:
- Are scalable, centralized, customizable to your needs, easy to integrate, secure, reliable, and hassle-free.
- Offer a seamless and unified collaboration interface by preventing users from toggling between different messaging apps or communication channels.
- Reduce your dependency on in-house IT team by passing on the software maintenance responsibilities to the third-party software vendor.
- Can be accessed via any authorized network (with approved access credentials), on any device, from anywhere, 24/7. This has been a huge game-changer for several companies that switched to remote operations during the pandemic.
Example of a Cloud-based Workflow Tool
Finding a cloud workflow management tool that can be customized to your company’s requirements is daunting. The platform should integrate well with your organizational processes without disrupting your existing workflow. This is where digital workplace applications like InfinCE make the difference.
With InfinCE Digital Workplace, Fingent has improved its productivity by 20% through real-time, effective, and easy collaboration. Data-powered dashboards, dedicated servers, collaboration apps, productivity tools, virtual desktops, private mobile apps, and a host of exceptional business management features enabled us to achieve a significant operational breakthrough in streamlining workflows.
Read the full case study here.
2. Low-code Applications
Gartner estimates that by 2025, 70% of enterprise applications will use low-code or no-code technologies. Digital business transformation requires pushing custom software solutions to the market at lightning speed. This demand has given rise to low-code applications that will break the technological and organizational silos of application development, automation, integration, and governance. Low-code development enables business users to bring innovative ideas to life by just dragging and dropping low-code elements through a graphical user interface.
In simple words, low-code development enables “citizen” developers or non-tech users (such as business analysts or marketers) to build dashboards and survey or contact forms faster. Professional developers, on the other hand, can leverage low-code techniques to perform more efficient tasks such as legacy application modernization or back-end integrations with improved agility and velocity.
Use Cases for Low-code Applications
- Customer engagement applications and portals
- Mission-critical applications such as ERP software, payments manager, etc.
- Data analysis applications, BI dashboards, and data management software
- Mobile apps for customer engagement
- Order processing, inventory, order fulfillment, supply chain, and accounting apps
Salesforce Lightning, Microsoft Power Apps, and Zoho Creator are some of the leading low-code applications today. SAP users can leverage the unified low-code/no-code (LCNC) solutions on SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) to rapidly build and extend applications, and automate tasks and processes.
3. Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Robotic Process Automation (RPA), often referred to as software robotics, is an easy-to-use software technology that allows anyone to automate digital tasks within their business processes. RPA allows users to create software robots or “bots” that can learn, emulate, and then execute rules-based business processes. According to Forrester Research, RPA software revenue is expected to reach $6.5 billion by 2025, while RPA-related services revenue could hit $16 billion in the same year.
Potential Use Cases for RPA
We offer free proof of concepts to help you understand how RPA can improve your business efficiency and customer experience. Some of our top use cases include:
- Automating discharge protocols and data management to increase HR productivity in healthcare.
- Daily retail process automation such as order processing, inventory and warehouse management, etc. to save time and resources.
- Reducing customer wait times through RPA-enabled chatbots that answer customer queries in real-time.
- Error-free, automated billing and invoices to keep your financial systems and reports up-to-date.
- HR teams can automate the maintenance of personnel data and records, streamline onboarding, and manage payroll seamlessly.
Download our white paper to learn more about how Robotic Process Automation can simplify your business operations
4. Document Data Extraction
Extracting quality data out of unstructured or poorly structured data sources and documents for further processing, migration, and storing has been a biggest obstacle in automating back office operations. If you are entering structured invoices to a robust ERP tool like SAP, your payments can be automated and system records can be generated automatically. Due to the high costs of data extraction, several businesses extract only critical information fields, for example, the payment field within an invoice. Businesses are compelled to manually extract data from other important fields, such as validating the invoice’s compliance with VAT.
AI-integrated OCR Software for Document Extraction
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is an affordable, game-changing technology that automatically extracts data from the digital images (photos) of large files, scanned documents, and sub-titles or captions superimposed on an image. It reduces the time spent in manual data entry and extraction by automatically converting typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-readable text. AI-powered automated data extraction tools like DocuSign, Docsumo, Kofax Capture, and Amazon Textract leverage OCR technology to reduce the chaos involved in document data extraction and enable businesses to create an efficient workplace.
Our team helps customize document data extraction software that can save your time and money by eliminating transcription and transposing mistakes.
5. AI Assistants
One of the most common examples of small business automation today is the use of AI-powered virtual assistants. They can save your employees’ productivity by automating the most repeatable customer interactions, such as technical support, appointment scheduling, lead qualification, and order management. AI virtual assistants like Google Assistant and Alexa can understand and act according to your voice commands and customize responses to your queries. Understanding customer intent through natural language processing and recognition allows AI assistants to maintain a human-like conversation.
Chatbots are a popular category of AI assistants that are designed specifically for text-based channels like SMS, email, and live chat. Recent years have witnessed a rise in chatbot adoption among several business verticals, product and service lines, websites, mobile apps, customer portals, and so on. Data shows that 58% of B2B companies and 42% of B2C websites are using chatbots to make their websites and mobile apps more interactive. More than 56% of businesses believe chatbots to be driving digital disruption in their industry.
Case Study: AI Virtual Assistant for HR
Fingent’s HR team was pressed to transform their service delivery model as routine, transactional tasks affected their performance and efficiency. To solve their struggle, Fingent developed MUSA, an AI-powered virtual assistant (a chatbot) and integrated it with Fingent Hub, Fingent’s internal employee management system. MUSA is short for Multi Utility Assistant. Employees can ask MUSA any queries related to HR and IT DevOps processes at Fingent, and they’ll get answered instantly. MUSA has improved our HR team’s response time by minimizing their workload and allowing them to focus on areas requiring more attention.
Read the full case study here.
Business and Technology Are Inseparable
Gartner writes that businesses leading with technology employ advanced tech to boost their customer experience and revenue growth, have a clear understanding of their priorities, goals, and strategies, and invest in solutions tailored to their needs. Technology allows businesses to lower the walls within and between their organizations, customers, providers, suppliers, and so on. Organizations perceiving technology as a key business consideration will be able to match the pace of business change and stay relevant and competitive.
How can your company embrace growth in a new era of transformation and business technology trends? If you feel you’re getting caught in the technology maze, take a quick break to contact us.
Our consultants can simplify your technology adoption strategy based on your priorities, customer needs, financial resources, and technical requirements.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is not just a “nice-to-have” option anymore. If you want to remain competitive it is an absolute necessity.
As a most promising technology enabler, RPA helps improve speed, quality, and productivity. RPA strengthens the organization, ensuring that it is ready to deal with disruption and change. This blog will discuss how it is making a mark in Finance, Healthcare & IT operations.
What Is RPA?
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is an end-to-end approach that can automate workflows without the intervention of a human being. This approach allows users to configure software that enforces business processes. RPA software can collect, interpret and orchestrate applications to perform various repetitive tasks.
RPA is a technological breakthrough for industries like finance, healthcare, IT, telecommunications, banking, insurance, retail, property management, and many more. Industries that implement RPA can automate their workflows, infrastructure, and other labor-intensive and time-consuming processes.
RPA is both cost-effective and user-friendly. It is no surprise, industries are racing to unlock value from RPA, including digital labor.
Watch now: How Robotic Process Automation Is Building Better Workplaces
How Is RPA Revolutionizing Industries?
- Increased Accuracy: Bots are less prone to make mistakes or typos than human workers.
- No interruption of workflow: Virtual robots can operate 24/7 without staff initiation.
- Meet strict compliance standards: Configured bots can provide an audit trail for each step and retrace the steps, in case of a process review.
- Work with existing systems: Robots do not need extensive IT resources; they work with the layers of existing applications.
- Improve employee morale and experience: Bots offload manual tasks from employees and enable them to focus on strategic, revenue-producing activities.
These advantages sound good. But, how does this ‘digital worker’ (RPA) streamline business processes? Let’s see.
How Can RPA Streamline Processes?
1. Employee Onboarding
Employee onboarding is a costly and time-consuming process. Zippia’s research showed that the average cost per hire is $4,425, or 40% of an employee’s base salary. Not just that, it takes about 36 to 42 days to complete the onboarding process.
Fortunately, RPA can reduce both the cost and the time taken to onboard an employee. How can it do that? It can do it by automating all repetitive and rule-based tasks.
For example, a bot can accurately source an applicant 24/7, and without any bias. After which, it can assist in screening resumes and candidates. Further, a bot can handle much of the paperwork that the company needs to fill out.
2. Auditing
Although audit practice has improved over the last 30 years, a massive amount of manual, repetitive, and rule-based tasks still take up much of the auditor’s time.
Examples of these tasks include file organization, the performance of basic audit tests in excel, manual annotations, and many more. These tasks are not only labor-intensive, but they are also prone to error.
RPA offers the ability to connect otherwise unintegrated audit activities. In addition to the obvious time-saving benefits of RPA, there are financial advantages. For instance, PwC estimates that 45% of repetitive work can be automated, and this would save $2 trillion in global workforce costs.
Beyond simple cost savings, automation can enhance an auditor’s ability to do his job. By freeing up an auditor from mundane, repetitive tasks, RPA allows them to focus on the more complex aspects of their job.
By sifting data more accurately than human auditors, RPA can help human auditors to scrutinize whether an accounting treatment or client behavior is reasonable. With such improved efficiency, auditors can make a final determination about optimizing costs.
3. Invoicing
Invoice processing is a crucial business operation. Yet, these tasks are labor-intensive, error-prone, and do not directly generate revenue. RPA is designed to manage such tasks effortlessly and efficiently.
For instance, when invoices come through various channels, they have to be matched to purchase orders, and then most often, they need to be approved by different people for payment.
RPA allows you to automate the purchase order matching process to flag any errors for further scrutiny before submitting the payment. You and also create rules to send invoices to the right people for approval automatically. RPA can automate all the data entry and manual processing involved in accounting and finance.
These are just a few examples that show how RPA can drive faster response and improve business processes.
Now that we understand how RPA streamlines processes, which of the top industries benefit from adopting RPA?
Read Whitepaper: Learn how RPA can bring a difference to your business and give you a competitive edge!
Top Industries That Can Benefit
Some industries that think automation is a costly effort have witnessed early adopters of RPA outperform the rest of the businesses with an increased ROI. According to Gartner, the RPA market is expected to grow at double-digit rates through 2024.
1. Robotic Process Automation in Finance Sector
Finance sector applications include managing customer accounts, migrating data between accounts, updating loan and mortgage data, and more. Just by defining the rules, Robotic Process Automation can help financial services to meet compliance standards.
RPA technology is accurate. Hence, it significantly reduces risk in the finance sector. Faster RPA cycles are highly scalable and rapidly deployable.
2. Robotic Process Automation in Healthcare
The pandemic has increased the volume of patients substantially, and healthcare industries are prioritizing efficiency and cost reduction. These two are major benefits of RPA implementation in the healthcare sector.
- Improved quality: RPA implementation automated and simplified entry process, claim process, maintenance of medical records. This enabled healthcare personnel to tackle the large volume of patients, especially those who need individual care and attention.
- More human workforce to care for more patients: RPA implementation replaced the workforce that performs mundane repetitive tasks. Healthcare professionals now have more time to spend on core activities rather than perform mundane tasks.
3. Robotic Process Automation in IT
Today, business operations depend on how well the IT system is managed. Leveraging RPA in IT operations is worthwhile. Consider why:
- Helps manage high volumes of data: Managing high volumes of data from different locations and different departments can be challenging. In contrast, RPA can process large datasets with greater agility, and complete the process faster and with no errors. Moreover, Robotic Process Automation systems can also update changes in the data in real-time.
- Enhances customer experience: Employees are required to respond to any inquiry adequately and on time. Anything less could push your customers to your competitors. Automating repetitive tasks frees up agents to focus on more customer-related tasks such as pitching in a sale or providing end-to-end product engineering solutions.
- Better patch management: Manually patching IT systems is always a bad idea because it leaves more room for errors and is time-intensive. Implementing RPA can help synchronize the vulnerability database, scan machines for missing patches, and deploy the missing patches. This way automation ensures that the system is always protected.
Read more: Drive business growth with RPA!
How Fingent Can Help Deploy RPA Seamlessly
Successful implementation of Robotic Process Automation depends on a clear understanding of the task at hand. At Fingent we can make the implementation a lot easier. We can help you automate parts of your process or the entire thing.
With automation under one wing and cognitive technologies under the other, Fingent ensures you are in complete control. We can help you discover new, effective automation ideas. As a professional partner, we help you identify your strengths and areas of improvement and then work with you to build an action plan with tactical and strategic solutions.
Fingent also provides both onsite and offsite training and maintenance to ensure you get maximum ROI. Give us a call and let us help you get this rolling.
As digitalization is gaining a lot of significance, many enterprises are turning to emerging technologies such as Robotic Process Automation(RPA) to streamline their operations and reduce costs. RPA automates mundane processes allowing organizations to devote more time to serving customers or other important work.
According to Gartner, Inc. , Global RPA software is projected to reach $1.89 billion in 2021, an increase of 19.5% from 2020. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the RPA market is estimated to grow two times by 2024.
Read more: How to accelerate your business growth with Robotic Process Automation
What is RPA?
In simple terms, RPA is an application in which a software bot leverages a combination of automation, computer vision, and machine learning technologies to automate repetitive and high-volume tasks.
RPA solutions are best suited for processes that are labor-intensive, repetitive, and have predictable interactions with IT applications. Typically, these processes may be too small in value to be automated via IT transformation. RPA tools help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of such processes without changing the existing infrastructure.
RPA software bots can perform various business processes by mimicking how humans interact with applications through a user interface and simple rules to make decisions. As a result, robots can complete the entire end-to-end process with very little human interaction.
Benefits of RPA include;
- Improved accuracy
- Flexibility and scalability
- Speeds up the processing time
- Better employee morale
- Reduces manual and repetitive tasks
- Enables better customer care
- As per Forrester, projects see a 15-month payback, 229% ROI on average
Key business challenges RPA helps address are;
- Login automatically into a system as a user
- Helps navigate around the software, using menus and shortcut keys just like a human moving the mouse or typing on the keyboard
- Interpret labels to read values from the screen. If the screen content or web page is dynamic, RPA can help find the right value on the screen.
- Read values and data from PDF reports automatically and add them to data tables.
- Inputs values into a capture screen automatically by mimicking the user’s actions. However, it can process it several times over with different values for each pass.
- Read emails and messages to understand the information they contain. For example, is the sender placing an order, making a booking, looking for information, or sending an invoice? Based on the intent, RPA will trigger the process with the message.
- Help trigger a process in a system by logging in as a user and clicking buttons.
- Collate different pieces of information and identify the next best action in the process.
Read more: How Can Businesses Overcome The Barriers To RPA Adoption?
Who is using RPA?
RPA can be leveraged by any business, especially if it involves repetitive tasks such as banking, healthcare, finance, insurance, and telecommunications. For example, RPA can be used in finance to automate governance, reconcile accounts, or process invoices. Additionally, RPA can help automate processes such as data entry, predictive maintenance, and after-sales service support in the supply chain.
Telecommunication companies utilize RPA solutions to organize new services and all the related billing systems for new accounts. RPA also helps these companies pull data from multiple systems when old equipment outages or predicts problems.
Regardless of the industry, RPA benefits the larger organizations and small and mid-size companies with its ability to streamline business processes and improve efficiency.
Should you invest in RPA?
The pandemic has caused a sudden surge in RPA as businesses are turning to cost-effective solutions to fill the workforce gap due to a shortage of employees. But again, if there is a lack of data or the process is obsolete, opting for RPA may not be a wise decision.
With the RPA market evolving, it is becoming affordable for even small and mid-size businesses who want to stay ahead of their competitors. According to the Grand View Research report, in 2019, the large enterprise segment accounted for over 67% of the global RPA while the BFSI led the market in terms of application with over 29% share of the global revenue. However, from 2020-2027, it is estimated that SMEs will witness the highest CAGR, with the pharma and healthcare sectors leading the way application-wise.
While RPA can fill the gaps in the current system and benefit the organization as a whole, companies that have large volumes of data and time-consuming business processes with well-defined rule-based steps are ideal candidates for RPA implementation.
Once the decision-makers finalize the processes that need automation, assessing ROI for individual processes is essential to quantify the benefits. A successful deployment takes one-two month, and the ROI is approximately three-twelve months.
Read more: An Extensive Whitepaper on How RPA Can Bring a Difference to Your Business
Things to consider before implementing RPA
1. Third-party integration
You will have to redesign the existing Robotic Process Automation processes and ensure they are compliant with third-party tools. It improves the scope of what RPA can achieve for a business process. For example, ERP and CRM integration is something that you must consider.
2. Cost-effective
For RPA to become a cost-effective solution, an organization needs to know which tasks are suitable for automation. Ideally, mundane and repetitive labor-intensive tasks need to be automated to impact a direct bearing on the costs of the RPA deployed. As bots work more efficiently than humans, it results in better productivity, fewer errors, and cost less. All this impacts productivity in a significant way making RPA a worthy investment.
3. Training time
For a smooth roll-out of implementing the RPA system, organizations will have to set aside time to train their employees. Therefore, you will have to be certain about the time required, especially if you plan to implement RPA across functions.
4. Deployment speed
Typically, the speed at which an organization deploys an RPA software depends on how soon it wants to reap its benefits. While some businesses cannot wait to take advantage of the RPA system, others are skeptical about their roll-out plans. In most cases, businesses that wish to implement an RPA system adapt to save costs as quickly as possible.
How can Fingent help?
If you’re looking to improve profitability, productivity, and compliance with Robotic Process Automation, contact our experts today. Our experts will not just help you strategize an automation process but also get the most out of your investment by identifying the best time to introduce RPA into your business.
How AI is transforming businesses worldwide
Post the PC and the dot-com revolution, the world is witnessing another significant disruption- Artificial Intelligence.
Businesses that implement AI applications will have better access to data across multiple functionalities such as customer relationship management, enterprise resource management, fraud detection, finance, people operations, IT management, and other crucial segments. AI helps businesses find solutions to complex problems in a more human-like way and automate processes. Organizations can redirect their resources towards more creative aspects such as brainstorming, innovating, and researching.
The COVID-19 pandemic required solutions in days, not weeks or months, and business leaders needed to act quickly. AI-based techniques and advanced analytics are helping organizations augment decision making during crises like the coronavirus. While machine learning models were a great choice, developing machine learning models or advanced analytical models would take around four-eight weeks. So, the pandemic accelerated the demand for developing minimum viable AI models quickly.
Despite the many naysayers who believe robots will take over human jobs in the future, AI is already revealing itself as more of an enabler than a disruptor. Here are nine examples of artificial intelligence transforming business.
Read more: How Will Artificial Intelligence Transform The World By 2030
1. Sales and business development
As lockdowns and stay at home orders continue, people are now moving from personal interactions to digital interactions such as online shopping and mobile banking. This shift has created many new and unstructured data that is hard to interpret. That’s where AI comes into the picture and helps understand what consumers feel and need.
AI-powered sales performance solutions can identify which customers are most likely to buy a company’s product or service. This model will help people in sales prioritize their customers and improve their productivity and effectiveness.
2. Demand and Supply
Most companies are interested in matching demand and supply. For instance, a steel company may have information about various factors that may influence steel demand. Typically, these demand measures depend on external data to match up with what the company’s supply chains can generate.
AI solutions help analyze these external data and ensure that the company is not producing more than you need to satisfy the demand and not leaving any request unfulfilled.
COVID-19 crisis is unprecedented, and companies have to make sure that they use data that is representative. Historical data allows you to gain insights into upcoming demand patterns and predict possible outcomes.
3. Back-office tasks
Companies can leverage AI-powered cognitive assistants to perform their back-office tasks such as ordering new credit cards, canceling orders, or issuing refunds. If these assistants cannot handle complex tasks, human assistants can perform those tasks. It will ensure that the team members spend their time solving challenging problems and focus on productive activities.
As long as there are structured tasks, Robotic Process Automation can take care of back-office service operations. RPA is particularly useful for automating the claims processes of banks or insurance companies. Enterprise platforms like SAP offer Intelligent RPA that combines automation and artificial intelligence to augment business process automation.
4. Cash-flow forecasting
As revenue systems dry up, cash flow is likely to be a severe concern for smaller businesses. However, several AI solutions can analyze data (only if representative) for cash-flow forecasting.
Read more: 6 Ways Artificial Intelligence Is Driving Decision Making
5. Document and identity verification
AI can identify and verify documents easily. For example, think of a bank that needs to verify customer data for onboarding and compliance. Human agents manually verify documents such as driving licenses or payslips and other relevant records. It is a costly and inefficient process.
AI is used to identify the type of ID document captured, perform face-matching, determine if the ID’s security features are present, and even determine if the person is physically present.
6. Travel and transportation
The transportation industry forms an integral part of a country’s infrastructure. As many employees may have to self-isolate during the COVID-19 crisis, AI solutions can analyze the number of staff needed by a travel company to run its business in these unprecedented times. For example, a company can request AI to provide information on whether they have enough workers to staff a railroad. Here, AI can help identify demand and supply from the laborers’ standpoint.
AI is already being used in the transportation industry to reduce traffic congestion, avoid accidents, improve passenger safety, lower carbon emissions, and reduce overall financial expenses.
7. Healthcare
From robot-assisted surgeries to safeguarding personal records against cybercrime, Artificial Intelligence is transforming the healthcare industry like never before. The healthcare industry has suffered in terms of medical costs and inefficient processes.
AI-enabled workflow assistants are helping doctors free up 17% of their schedule. Virtual assistants are reducing redundant hospital visits, thereby giving nurses almost 20% of their time back. Also, AI helps pharmaceutical companies research life-saving medicines in a shorter time frame and reduce costs. More importantly, AI is being used to help improve healthcare in underdeveloped nations.
Read more: 7 Major Impacts of Technology in Healthcare
Examples of AI in healthcare:
- PathAI creates AI-powered technology for pathologists to help them analyze tissue samples and diagnose them more accurately.
- Atomwise uses AI and deep learning to improve drug discovery and to speed up the work of chemists.
- Pager is using artificial intelligence to help patients with minor pains, aches, and illnesses.
8. Finance
The financial sector relies on real-time reporting, accuracy, and processing of high volumes of quantitative data, where AI can enhance the processes. The finance industry is rapidly implementing chatbots, automation, algorithmic trading, adaptive intelligence, and machine learning into financial operations. For instance, Robo-advisor, an automated portfolio manager, was one of the biggest financial trends of 2018.
A few examples of how artificial intelligence transforms the financial industry:
- Betterment uses AI to learn about an investor and create a personalized investor profile based on their financial plans.
- Numerai is an AI-powered hedge fund that uses crowdsourced machine learning from many data scientists worldwide.
Read more: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: The Cyber Security Heroes Of FinTech
9. Social Media
With over 3.6 billion active profiles and about $45 billion in annual revenue, social media is invariably in the battle to personalize and provide a better experience for users.
AI can organize massive amounts of data, recognize images, predict shifts in culture, and introduce chatbots. The technology has the potential to make or break the future of the social media industry.
Similarly, machine learning enables social media to identify fake news, hate speeches, and other anti-social activities in real-time.
Final thoughts
With the advancement in technologies, AI is improving possibilities taking businesses to the next level. These examples of artificial intelligence prove that artificial intelligence can transform business models if deployed correctly.
Case Study: Development of AI-enabled chatbots and teaching assistants – How Fingent helped a leading university to create an Automated Intelligence-driven ecosystem
Fingent helps you leverage AI to drive the smart reinvention of your business workflows, processes, and technology. If you are looking to develop an intelligent infrastructure for your business or improve the security process or enhance the customer experience, contact us today!
Manufacturing technologies set to hold the reins in 2021
From big data analytics to advanced robotics to computer vision in warehouses, manufacturing technologies bring unprecedented transformation. Many manufacturers are already leveraging sophisticated technologies for manufacturing such as the internet of things(IoT), 3D printing, Artificial Intelligence, etc., to improve operations’ speed, reduce human intervention, and minimize errors.
As 2021 rapidly approaches, manufacturers will have to move away from Industry 4.0 and embrace Industry 5.0. The latter is all about connecting humans and machines (smart systems). Interestingly, Industry 5.0 may already be here. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic only accelerates its arrival.
Read more: Digital Transformation in Manufacturing
Here are the top 10 technologies that positively impact the manufacturing industry.
1. Robotics
With advances in robotics technology, robots are more likely to become cheaper, smarter, and more efficient. Robots can be used for numerous manufacturing roles and can help automate repetitive tasks, enhance accuracy, reduce errors, and help manufacturers focus on more productive areas.
Benefits of Using Robotics in Manufacturing:
- They improve efficiency right from handling raw material to finished product packing
- You can program robots to work 24/7, which is excellent for continuous production
- Robots and their equipment are highly flexible and can be customized to perform complex jobs
- They are highly cost-effective even for small manufacturing units
Collaborative assembly, painting, and sealing, inspection, welding, drilling, and fastening are a few examples of the jobs done by robots. Today, robots work in several industries, including rubber and plastic processing, semiconductor manufacturing, and research. While they are mainly used in high-volume production, robots make their presence felt in small to medium-sized organizations.
Read more: What Are Cobots and How Can They Benefit Industries?
2. Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology has grown to a great extent in the last few years. It involves the manipulation of nanoscopic materials and technology. Though its widespread use is relatively new, it will be indispensable to every manufacturing industry soon. Further research and experimental designs suggest that nanotechnology can be highly effective in the manufacturing industry.
Applications of Nanotechnology in Manufacturing:
- Create stable and effective lubricants that are useful in many industrial applications
- Car manufacturing
- Tire manufacturers are using polymer nanocomposites in high-end tires to improve their durability and make them wear resistance
- Nanomachines, though not used widely in manufacturing now, are, for the most part, future-tech
3. 3D Printing
Post its tremendous success in the product design field, 3D printing is set to take the manufacturing world by storm. The 3D printing industry was worth USD 13.7 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach USD 63.46 billion by 2025. Also known as additive manufacturing, 3D Printing is a production technology that is innovative, faster, and agile.
Benefits of Using 3D Printing in Manufacturing:
- Reduces design to production times significantly
- Offers greater flexibility in production
- Reduces manufacturing lead times drastically
- Simplifies production of individual and small-lot products from machine parts to prototypes
- Minimizes waste
- Highly cost-effective
Major car manufacturers use 3D printing to produce gear sticks and safety gloves.
Read more: 3D Printing: Fueling the Next Industrial Revolution
4. The Internet of Things (IoT)
IoT in manufacturing employs a network of sensors to collect essential production data and turn it into valuable insights that throw light into manufacturing operational efficiency using cloud software. This connectivity had brought machines and humans closer together than ever before and led to better communication, faster response times, and greater efficiency.
Benefits of Using IoT in Manufacturing
- Internet of Things (IoT) reduces operational costs and creates new sources of revenue
- Faster and more efficient manufacturing and supply chain operations ensure a shorter time-to-market. For instance, Harley- Davidson leveraged IoT in its manufacturing facility and managed to reduce the time taken to produce a motorbike from 21 hours to six hours.
- IoT facilitates mass customization by providing real-time data essential for forecasting, shop floor scheduling, and routing.
- When paired with wearable devices, IoT allows monitoring workers’ health and risky activities and making workplaces safer.
The ongoing pandemic has expanded the focus on IoT due to its predictive maintenance and remote monitoring capabilities. Social distancing makes it difficult for field service technicians to show up on short notices. IoT-enabled devices allow manufacturers to monitor equipment’s performance from a distance and identify any potential risks even before a malfunction occurs. Additionally, IoT has enabled technicians to understand a problem at hand and come up with solutions even before arriving at the job site so that they can get in and get out faster.
Read more: Upcoming IoT trends that can shape the business landscape
5. Cloud Computing
After making its presence felt in other industries, cloud computing is now causing ripples in manufacturing. From how a plant operates, integrating to supply chains, designing and making products to how your customers use the products, cloud computing is transforming virtually every facet of manufacturing. It is helping manufacturers reduce costs, innovate, and increase competitiveness.
IoT helps improve connectivity within a single plant, while cloud computing improves connectivity across various plants. It allows organizations across the globe to share data within seconds and reduce both costs and production times. The shared data also helps improve the product quality and reliability between plants.
Read more: Why It’s Time to Embrace Cloud and Mobility Trends To Recession-Proof Your Business?
6. Big Data
The manufacturing industry is complicated in terms of the variety and depth of the product. As far as opening new factories in new locations and transferring production to other countries is concerned, companies can leverage big data to tackle it.
As the process of capturing and storing data is changing, new standards in sharing, updating, transferring, searching, querying, visualizing, and information privacy are arising. Think of manufacturing software like MES, ERP, CMMS, manufacturing analytics, etc. When integrated with big data, these can help find patterns and solve any problems.
Benefits of Using Big Data:
- Improve manufacturing
- Ensure better quality assurance
- Customize product design
- Manage supply chain
- Identify any potential risk
Explore our use case: Adding New Dimensions to Equipment Maintenance with IIoT, AR, and Big Data
7. Augmented Reality
In manufacturing, we can use AR to identify unsafe working conditions, measure various changes, and even envision a finished product. Augmented Reality can help a worker view a piece of equipment and see its running temperature, revealing that it is hot and unsafe to touch with bare hands. An employee can know what’s happening around them, like what machinery is breaking down, a co-worker’s location, or even a factory’s restricted sites. Simply put, AR applications can help inexperienced employees to be informed, trained, and protected at all times without wasting significant resources.
AR has made it possible for technicians to provide remote assistance by sending customers AR and VR enabled devices and helping them with basic troubleshooting and repairs during the COVID-19 crisis. Also, more and more customers are open to allowing manufacturers to implement AR with the long-term goal of creating permanent solutions. After all, it helps both the customers and field technicians by reducing the risk of exposure.
Read more: How Augmented Reality Can Simplify Equipment Maintenance
8. 5G
5G will have a tremendous impact on the manufacturing industry. It will be more transformational for devices that drive automated industrial processes.
The amazing low-latency and connectivity of 5G will power sensors on industrial machines. It will help generate a lot of data that will open new avenues of cost savings and efficiency when combined with machine learning. Currently, China and South Korea are leveraging 5G this way. Soon the US and the UK are expected to compete with them.
Read more: From Remote Work to Virtual Work, 5G is Reinventing the Way We Work
9. Artificial Intelligence(AI)
Manufacturers are already employing automation on the plant floor and in the front office. In the future, AI-powered demand planning and forecasting will continue to develop that will help manufacturers align their supply chain with demand projections to get data that were not possible previously.
A study from IFS shows that 40% of manufacturers plan to implement AI for inventory planning and logistics and 36% for production scheduling and customer relationship management. 60% of the respondents are said to focus on productivity improvements with these investments.
Read more: The Future of Artificial Intelligence – A Game Changer for Industries
10. Cybersecurity
Moving manufacturing operations to the cloud and building and integrating systems using IoT will equally create opportunities and challenges. In an increasingly insecure digital era, there is a pressing need for heightened security.
Manufacturing experts are investing in secure cloud-based ERP like SAP and Odoo to resolve the security challenges. Enterprises-big or small- will soon increase their dependence on cloud-based ERP systems to address security glitches and save costs by paying for usage.
Read more: Top 6 Reasons Why You Should Move to a Cloud-Hosted ERP
White Paper: What difference does RPA bring to your business? How can you embrace this disruptive technology to remain competitive? Download to learn more!
Conclusion
Technologies for manufacturing will decrease labor costs, improve efficiency, and reduce waste, making future factories cheaper and more environment-friendly. Additionally, improved quality control will ensure superior products that will benefit both the consumers and the manufacturers.
COVID-19 has changed the way the manufacturing industry operates. If your business wants to remain competitive, you will have to embrace manufacturing technologies to shape your company’s future. To know more about the forward-thinking strategies that integrate the latest trends and technologies, please connect with us today.
Transforming Businesses with RPA- Leading Use Cases in HR and Banking
Various organizations use RPA tools to automate simple to complex tasks and perform them with minimal or no human intervention.
From an IT perspective, you tend to bucket all RPA uses cases into data integration or testing. However, from a business perspective, you need to find out how to get a better time to value and how to overcome obstacles that hinder the business value. Then you can determine use cases that fit into this characterization.
For example, you want to roll out a change in your business process, and need integration into another system. You can do that in two ways:
- either through APIs and get into the IT changed management routine,
- or by using RPA to drive interfaces without an API and get the change rolled out in weeks instead of months.
So, time to value is the calculation that businesses need to do, and check whether the change is worth it.
Read more: What Makes a Business Process Apt for Automation
Suppose you have to perform tasks that are very repetitive in nature – like filling in excel forms, web forms, things like visual basic or word with data which you already have access to, or which you need to aggregate from various systems. Here you can have an RPA bot to pull that data or even push out that data to multiple systems. You won’t have to rekey that information manually. You can always use an RPA bot to do that in an automated fashion. In both these cases, you can write integrations or you can have a system do it for you.
RPA gives you a way to configure that behavior rather than write a code for it. In other words, RPA use cases need to be data-intensive, rule-driven, and repetitive. The drivers almost always tend to be time to value, time to market, and so on.
Now that you’ve understood where to use RPA in your business, let’s have a look at some of the use cases.
RPA Use Cases in HR
According to UiPath, 40% of your HR professionals’ time can be reclaimed using RPA. Robotic Process Automation can be combined with your existing HR systems like SAP or Workday that allows you to create digital process automation with ease. Here are the two key HR areas where automation leads to transformation.
1. Payroll:
Payroll operations consist of a large number of repetitive, rule-based tasks with activities like data collection, calculations, and scheduling tasks. Payroll workers have to collect data from various departments or units in different formats. The next step is data validation and entering that information into other applications. All these tasks are prone to error.
These activities can be automated using RPA technology since all the data that payroll staff deals with is structured. RPA can make payroll more organized without using expensive software.
The benefits of RPA in payroll are improved accuracy, lower costs due to reduced manual labor and data security. Since the number of menial, time-consuming tasks performed by employees is reduced, they can focus on tasks with higher strategic value.
2. Onboarding and offboarding:
Every time you get a new employee, the candidate’s details have to be uploaded to all systems that you use. They may need a Windows account, access to your time reporting tool, email addresses, IT equipment, and so on. If someone from the HR team manually enters all this data they would be stuck in mundane tasks. Instead, you can have a script doing these repetitive tasks. With RPA, you can automate the entire onboarding procedure since the process is the same for every new employee.
Employee exits too, have to be managed consistently. Manual processing makes these tasks error-prone and may raise auditory concerns. If RPA is implemented in this case, the bot analyzes the incident to find out which tasks need to be executed. It notifies the IT team to terminate access and recover the equipment, terminates the employee from the HCM, revokes system access, generates exit documents, and processes final payments.
Read more: Jaw-dropping Facts about Robotic Process Automation
RPA Use Cases in Banking
A slow economy and rising customer expectations have caused banks to look for cost optimization methods. The back-end processing activities in the banking sector consist of tasks that are rule-driven, repetitive, labor-intensive, and high in volume. RPA technology can help to automate these processes, thus eliminating the need for human intervention. Here are the two major banking functions that can be automated for improved results.
1. Loan application processing:
The processing of loan applications is a tedious process. For document verification, employees need to manually verify different documents and associated information and then organize all data into a single file. Very often, employees get stuck in this task and spend too much time on it. RPA employed in this procedure can automate the whole process by opening different web portals and validating the information. The bot then initiates an email to the employee for a final decision. Thus, the bot helps to save valuable time and improves the time to client response.
2. Account opening:
The account opening process is cumbersome, time-consuming, and prone to errors. RPA can help speed up this process and make it more accurate. Bots draw out information from forms and enter it into separate host applications. Thus RPA eliminates errors and improves the quality of data in the system.
Read more: How Robotic Process Automation Simplifies Business Operations
RPA tools have the potential to help various industries improve efficiency, drive faster operations, and reduce costs than most automation techniques. RPA is gaining popularity as enterprises try to counter competition, increase productivity, and meet customer expectations. Early adopters of RPA have reaped its benefits and its high time that you did too. Get in touch with our experts to learn more about how RPA can simplify your business operations.
Can Robotic Process Automation Rescue Businesses From An Economic Recession
COVID-19 is panning out to be a historic tragedy both for the human race as well as our economy. While most businesses are stalled due to the economic recession induced by COVID-19, there is a ray of hope. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is rising up as the savior for many businesses by offering recession-proof operations. RPA might be that one alleviating factor that can keep your business and the economy afloat.
When implemented successfully, RPA can help many sectors experience an undeniable upsurge. How RPA can help businesses get through these unprecedented times? This post takes a look. We will also examine a few automation cases.
Related Reading: Jaw-dropping Facts about Robotic Process Automation
Businesses Can Stay Afloat in These Unprecedented Times
RPA goes beyond allowing businesses to stay afloat. It also helps them respond instantly to drastic changes in demand during such critical situations as COVID-19. It has proven to be an invaluable technology for businesses by ensuring that employees remain productive even if they have to work remotely and from home.
Here are some benefits of RPA.
Increased flexibility
RPA allows your business to run smoothly despite ever-changing demands while automating manual processes and increasing efficiency. Furthermore, it is helping organizations combat the spread of COVID-19 and is providing customers with timely support as businesses move on to new operating models. For instance, deploying chatbots or automated answering machines in contact centers or help desks can help handle bulk volumes of customer service calls and emails, especially when organizations are forced to function remotely or operate with a limited number of employees.
Less dependency on the individual employee
Though we can’t deny the need for human intervention in most processes, certain tasks need to be accomplished with precision and speed. Here is where RPA becomes useful as a fast and flexible way to replicate employee-driven processes. RPA enables businesses to automate certain critical processes with greater precision and efficiency. And soon, RPA will free businesses from being dependent on the limitations caused by employees’ absence.
Related Reading: How to accelerate your business growth with Robotic Process Automation
Keep up with production
RPA enables organizations to keep up productivity by providing assistance to an overwhelmed customer using attended automation or front office bots. This frees up employees to attend to other critical aspects of the business. RPA can cater to an increase or decrease in the supply chain demand while allowing you to rely on automated back-office activities.
Industries leveraging RPA
Here are a few examples of industries who have successfully leveraged automation: (examples cited by UiPath)
Healthcare
Health of the workforce: Updating all relevant data of sick employees in real-time while keeping track of healthy employees could be painstaking. With RPA, bots can be set up to keep track of hospital employees. This minimizes manual errors and ensures employee safety.
Increasing demand in virus testing: With the increasing demand for virus testing, the wait time for registration also increases. Cleveland Clinic in the United States reduced their patient verification and registration time considerably by deploying an attended robot that collects and prints patient data, thereby reducing hospital backlogs.
Accelerating clinical testing: Filling test reports itself would take about 3 hours per day in the life of a staff nurse. But since Mater Hospital in Dublin automated its process through robots, medical personnel are able to use their precious time taking care of their patients rather than chasing admin tasks.
Banking and financial services
Surge in trading volume: Global markets have seen a trading surge by about 300% daily. This is tremendously increasing the operational burden. Leveraging automation has ensured business continuity while maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction despite the huge spike of activity in areas such as trade allocations and reconciliations.
Acknowledging customer complaints: Acknowledging customer complaints in line with UK regulations has been especially challenging for financial services because of their reduced staff. Automation has allowed the banking and financial services to acknowledge complaints in time in compliance with UK regulatory government requirements.
Retail
Helps HR specialists to remain focused on analysis: COVID-19 has overwhelmed the HR department with a large volume of sick leave requests. Automation of two phases of this process has reduced backlogs in processing leave requests while allowing HR specialists to stay focused on their people.
Supply chains
Optimization of the supply chain: COVID-19 has forced factories to shut down leaving their production line idle. RPA allows companies to optimize their supply chains. This has resulted in accurate delivery estimates, optimized vehicle routes, efficient shipment consolidation as well as accountable sourcing.
Manufacturing
Reduced manufacturing expenses: Prolonged closures of manufacturing plants have forced manufacturers to cut down their operational costs. RPA automates repetitive and manual tasks thus reducing operational costs.
Related Reading: How Robotic Process Automation Is Revolutionizing Industries?
Weather These Turbulent Times with Robotic Process Automation
Robotic Process Automation will enable businesses to efficiently allocate funds to areas that need greater focus. It can automate qualification ad validation processes, update public health data in real-time, and much more. Educational institutes can also leverage automation to schedule and activate their classes using LMS and eLearning platforms.
Obviously, COVID-19 has brought about changes in the working style of both the consumers and clients. RPA will cater to their needs and help ensure that businesses can stay afloat during these difficult economic times.
Download our White Paper: Learn how RPA can bring a difference to your business and how to embrace the disruptive technology to maintain a competitive edge.
How Can You Get Started?
Start small! Start by automating small tasks that will give you the needed confidence and experience in automation solutions. Research and evaluate how far automation is applicable to your IT environment. Talk to experts at Fingent and find out how you can build on the benefits of RPA.
How is RPA turning into a highly sought-after technology
Robotic Process Automation or RPA is one of the fastest-growing segments in the global enterprise software category. Research analyst Gartner says that the market growth rate of RPA was a whopping 63% in 2019. With more enterprises using this innovative technology, RPA’s market value is set to reach 3 billion USD by 2022, shows a prediction by Statista. Early adopters of the RPA software are already raking in benefits as RPA streamlines workflows, automates tasks and allows human workers to focus on high-value work. RPA software appeals to organizations across the world due to its quick deployment cycle time.
How RPA helps businesses: A quick recap
Robotic Process Automation or RPA refers to software programs or ‘bots’ that are programmed to mimic human actions. An average back-office employee has to carry out lots of repetitive, time-consuming and dreary tasks such as producing reports, filling out forms, updating records and other high-volume transactions that do not require judgment or reasoning. RPA simply offers an easy way to perform these tasks more accurately and quickly.
Since RPA does not require any specialized coding knowledge, businesses have welcomed RPA into their processes with open arms. Let’s now have a look at some jaw-dropping statistics and facts about RPA.
Related Reading: How Robotic Process Automation Is Revolutionizing Industries?
Jaw-dropping statistics and facts about RPA
Statistics
The statistics behind the widespread use of this technology can provide us valuable insights into how RPA is impacting the world.
- According to the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), organizations that implement RPA can reduce costs from 35-65% for onshore process operations and 10-30% in offshore delivery.
- McKinsey and Co. suggest that around 45% of the tasks in a business can be automated.
- In their Annual Global RPA survey, Deloitte found that 53% of the survey respondents had already started their RPA journey. Deloitte predicts that we would witness the worldwide adoption of RPA within the next two years.
- Among those surveyed, the ROI was reported at less than 12 months with an average of 20% full-time equivalent capacity provided by robots.
- The Deloitte RPA survey respondents also reported an improvement in compliance (92%), quality/accuracy(90%), productivity(86%) and a reduction in costs(59%).
- The Institute for Robotic Process Automation claims that RPA software robots cost about one-third of the price of an off-shore employee and one-fifth of the price of an onshore worker.
These compelling figures help us to see how RPA is adding value to organizations looking to operate with maximum efficiency.
RPA Facts
- RPA cannot replace humans: One of the biggest misconceptions about RPA is that it will eat up human jobs. RPA works alongside humans to make their lives easier. RPA software carries out jobs that are repetitive and mundane. This can enable us to focus on fruitful endeavors thus improving efficiency.
- RPA will change the nature of outsourcing: RPA has disrupted the outsourcing industry. The increased efficiency and usability that comes with RPA implementation, has threatened traditional BPO relationships. Since RPA can handle more transactions without making mistakes or taking breaks, traditional outsourcing relationships have declined over the last few years. However, if BPOs embrace the benefits of RPA or any other transformative technology they’ll continue to work.
- RPA software implementation is complex: It’s true that RPA has delivered huge benefits to its users. However, many users have also found that the implementation of RPA was quite challenging. Selecting the wrong RPA is one reason that can cause the RPA project to become more complicated than it actually should. If your company doesn’t have an interconnected system that updates cloud or on-premise infrastructure, then RPA implementation can be a big challenge.
- RPA cannot improve a flawed business process: RPA automates processes but does not improve any defects in the existing processes. Due to the hype surrounding RPA, organizations view it as a solution to all their woes. While RPA does help to streamline and modernize processes that are well established, it does nothing to improve a flawed process. So before automating, it’s better to have a clearly defined business process.
- RPA cannot be used to automate all kinds of processes: RPA can be used where high volumes of repetitive transactions based on business rules are carried out. For eg: banking and financial services, insurance, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, travel, logistics, etc. However, if the processes involve reasoning, making decisions, taking different actions according to scenarios, then those processes will not be able to enjoy the full benefits of business automation.
- Future of RPA: RPA has advanced considerably and is the future of IT automation. RPA will be increasingly adopted in various industries such as manufacturing, oil, and gas, retail, etc. Humans will no longer perform data entry and data rekeying jobs. All such jobs would be automated. RPA would evolve to SPA (Smart Process Automation) making business processes smarter. By integrating emerging technologies such as machine learning, AI, big data, with RPA enterprises can promote new levels of productivity and efficiency.
Organizations need not scrap their legacy systems while implementing RPA. The ability of RPA software to integrate legacy systems has helped organizations to accelerate their digital transformation initiatives. They have also unlocked the value associated with past technological investments. As businesses look for new solutions to increase gains, RPA will continue to develop and gain relevance.
Related Reading: How Can Businesses Overcome The Barriers To RPA Adoption?
Have you implemented RPA in your organization? Do you have any insights to share? Do let us know!
How to Determine If Your Business Process Qualifies for Automation
A large number of businesses are adopting Robotic Process Automation (RPA) today to drive their critical enterprise operations quickly and affordably. While RPA offers a wide array of automation capabilities, you need to first identify which of your business processes are ideal to be automated so that your business enhances operational efficiencies to deliver positive outcomes. For instance, some companies achieve better outcomes when implementing rule-based automation when compared to non-standardized, variable types. Forrester recently reported that RPA Market will reach USD 2.9 billion by 2021, which makes it one of the most sought-after enterprise technologies. The picture is clear: it is crucial for companies to know the different ways to determine which of their business processes need automation.
This post attempts to walk you through the major questions and answers which can help you decide the candidature of a process for Robotic Process Automation:
Criteria to determine if a process is fit for RPA automation
Deciding whether a business process requires RPA implementation or not depends on two criteria:
- Process Fitness
- Automation Complexity
Process Fitness
To determine if a process is reasonable enough to offer tangible results by implementing RPA, it is first critical to understand the process type being considered. RPA can automate only clear and well-defined processes. For this, it is first required to know which category the workforce’s tasks belong to:
Repetitive/ Automatable processes
Automatable processes relieve the human workforce from performing repetitive tasks such as clerical and data entry works or data manipulation tasks. Automating such redundant tasks allows human workers to focus on core, value-adding functions.
We can differentiate four types of processes:
- Manual and Non-Repetitive Processes: The steps are performed by humans and are performed every time the process is executed.
- Manual and Repetitive Processes: The steps are performed by the user. A few of these steps are the same every time they are executed.
- Semi-Automated and Repetitive Processes: A few of the steps in these processes are already automated, using Macros, Outlook rules, and so on.
- Automated Processes: These processes are those that have already been automated by technologies other than Robotic Process Automation.
While the above four are somewhat repetitive/ automatable, there is another category: Manual Or Non-Repetitive processes that are not great candidates for RPA. This is because these processes need to stay manual or are non-repetitive due to the high exception rate or factors that cannot be integrated into business logic.
Rule-Based Processes
For a process to be automated, it should be rules-based. Human-made rules are applied based on which the system executes the process. Rules can be related to storing, sorting, and manipulating data. The rules-based system is a logical program that uses a predefined logic to interpret data or make decisions. These processes are always easy to use and understand. The rules-based processes have an exception rate which is either low or can be included in the business logic as well.
Standard Input Processes
Standard input processes are those that need to be either electronic/ easily readable or are readable using a particular technology that can be associated with RPA. An example of a standard input process is the OCR. The Optical Character Recognition or OCR algorithms have processes whereby printed or handwritten documents are scanned and analyzed automatically and the text data is converted into editable formats for efficient processing. Using OCR is a much more reliable way to automate tasks such as invoice processing.
Stable Processes
Stable processes are processes that have remained the same over some time and no changes are expected in the coming months. These processes are good candidates for automation, provided they meet with other critical criteria as well. The output of these processes is fairly predictable.
Related Reading: Robotic Process Automation: Choosing The Right Solution For Your Business
Automation Complexity
It’s also crucial to analyze the complexity of a process to see if it’s fit for automation. The complexity of deciding to automate a process depends on several factors such as the number of applications or systems, the number of times human intervention is required, or even the number of steps required to execute the given task.
Following are some of the factors you need to look at:
- Number Of Screens: RPA in this scenario works by programming the robot to perform functions at the screen level. That is, when the screen changes, the logic is taught. The number of screens is directly proportional to the elements to be captured and configured. For instance, the higher the number of screens, the larger is the number of elements to be captured and configured before process automation.
- Types Of Applications: There are different types of applications. Some can be easily automated such as the Microsoft Office Suite or Java. Some other processes require complex automation effort, such as Mainframe applications.
- Business Logic Scenarios: The complexity in automating a process increases with the increase in the number of decision points within the business logic.
- Types And Number Of Inputs: Standard Inputs are desirable. For instance, an invoice that is a standard input and needs to be configured for each supplier will be impacted by automation. On the other hand, non-standard inputs will have varying complexity grades. Among these, free text is the most complex one.
Using the above-mentioned four factors, the processes can be split into four major categories:
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No RPA Processes
These are processes in which change happens frequently. The system environment is volatile and multiple non-digital or manual actions are needed.
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Semi-Automation Processes
Semi-automated processes are fragmented down into multiple steps that are automated. These steps include the ones that need to be manual such as the validations of physical security tokens.
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High-Cost RPA Processes
These processes are digital and can be automated. High-cost RPA processes either make use of some complex technologies such as Optical Character Recognition or OCR or require advanced skills in programming.
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Zero-Touch Automation Processes
These processes are digital and involve a highly static system and process environment. This makes it easy to be broken into instructions and define simple triggers.
The Stages In RPA Implementation
RPA offers a multitude of ways in which the degree of automation can be increased. There are commonly 6 stages involved in RPA implementation:
- RPA Preparation: Here, the processes are defined, assessed, prioritized, and then the plan is implemented.
- Designing The Solution: Here, each process to be automated is documented ( as “as is” and ”to be”). The architecture is now created and reviewed. This is followed by the preparation of test scenarios and environments. With this, the solution design is now created and documented for each process.
- Building the RPA: In RPA building, the processes are automated, the workflows are tested, and validated. This is followed by the preparation of the UAT.
- Testing the RPA: The UAT is now performed, followed by the debugging of the workflows. The process is now ready to be signed off.
- Stabilizing the RPA: In this phase, initially, the Go-Live is prepared. The process is then moved to production, monitored, and measured. The lessons learned are now documented.
- Constant Improvement Phase: This phase involves the assessment of process automation performance. This is followed by tracking the benefits and managing the changes.
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Utilizing RPA Effectively
Every company planning to use/ already using RPA applies automation to fulfill different operational goals. While businesses at the beginning of their RPA journey want to uncomplicate and rapidly execute their workflows, the veterans in RPA might wish to expand the scope of their existing automation solution and improve their regulatory compliance. Each one wants to leverage technology differently.
Whatever your goal is, Fingent helps businesses in leveraging RPA to deliver high business value, drive significant cost benefits, and enable technology to have a positive impact on your operational activities. Get in touch with us to know how we can realize your automation goals.