Key Success Factors on your Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Journey
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a type of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) in the form of a “software bot”. It is commonly use for performing repetitive desktop tasks such as data extraction from system, data entry into system, basic data analysis on spreadsheets. RPA bots work 24/7 with high accuracy and cost a fraction of hiring a human worker. Hence, it is now a very attractive proposition for corporate leaders. Even traditional Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) organisations are considering RPA to lower their cost and increase their ability to compete on pricing.
With all the hype on RPA, you and your management team might have decided that RPA is the way to do. The next question would be how do we go about doing this and doing it right?
RPA is a type of “disruptive technology”. Status quo would be challenged and the foundation of human-only workforce in the office would change. With any large paradigm shift transformation, there would be many areas the management team would need to consider in order to harness the true benefits of RPA and scale up the A.I. ladder.
Here are 3 key success factors on the adoption of RPA that you might want to consider:
1. Selecting the right RPA software
There are a whole range of different RPA software out in the market. Selecting the right RPA solution is important as RPA software serves as your automation platform where you build your processes. Besides product features like user interface, automation widgets, you might want to look at the bigger picture and think about the scalability of the solution, their product roadmap and their A.I. capability. There are software products with limited capabilities and roadmap, most works like a macro, marketing themselves as RPA solution.
An RPA software with good product features and scalability would allow you to build more efficient processes with lesser human interventions and provide the stability for rolling RPA enterprise wide. Combined with a strong product roadmap focusing on A.I., you can leverage on the software to scale up to cognitive RPA and other aspects of A.I.
Therefore, it is important to select the right RPA software and not risk having write-off unsuccessful implementation and start again.
2. Partner with the right industry expert with good process improvement track record and RPA expertise
RPA is not a once-off system implementation but a journey of transformation and moving up on the A.I. ladder. The technology requires extensive skills in process improvement as well as deep industry knowledge to understand the essence of the industry, pain-points & struggles, competition landscape, controls and regulatory in order to design an efficient process with good controls and in compliance with regulations. Hence, you might want to take time to evaluate and select a suitable RPA consultant to partner your organisation in the journey.
The journey starts at the very important phase of planning and business case. The right RPA consultant would be able to bring forward RPA experience and industry best practices to scope, plan, design, implement and provide continuous sustainability. Extensive experience is required to scope the right processes, design the robotic process and configure in a manner where it can be moved to maintenance mode.
RPA is the first step in bring the A.I. technology into your organisation, the next step would be cognitive RPA with natural language processing, unstructured data and eventually deep learning. Your RPA consultant would be able to build the foundation with you and navigate the continuous A.I. journey ahead.
3. Have a robust change management strategy and execution plan
Change management is always critical to the success of any large transformation. It helps ensure that organization is able to adapt to change. For RPA, the impact is huge and it hits the core of an organization. Many people fear that that RPA would start to take over the workplace. This often causes resistance to change.
A good change management strategy and execution plan that is aligned to your corporate culture would help employees better understand change, their roles after the change and in the longer term they are able to define their roles and make adjustment to their skills.You would create a workplace that is more open-minded and inviting to change.
Change management can help ease this tension and create a smooth adoption of RPA and future A.I. in the workplace. A good RPA consultant would also be able to bring forward good RPA change knowledge, success stories and partner you in the change RPA and future A.I. would bring about.
Are you ready for your RPA journey?
Picture from Freepik
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