In today’s fast-paced, competitive world, organizations are facing a pressing need to improve productivity by automating as much as possible. What if I tell you that you can now automate basic tasks like logging into programs, opening and moving files, copy-pasting, scraping web data, doing routing analysis and reports, and more with the help of software bots.
Imagine how much time that would free up for human workers to focus on core business activities such as solving problems, improving processes, connecting with customers, and enhancing productivity. This is exactly what Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is promising to do—and then some more!
If you’re not familiar with RPA and how this piece of technological advancement can transform your workplace, keep reading.
What Is Robotic Process Automation?
RPA refers to software bots that are focused on automating tedious and repetitive back-office functions, ranging from processing insurance claims to payroll, bank reconciliation, quote-to-cash, and invoices.
The software can be programmed to carry out tasks with multiple steps and applications, such as accepting filled-out forms, sending a receipt message, ensuring the form is completed, filling the form in a folder, and updating a spreadsheet with the name of the form and date filed.
In short, it creates and deploys a software robot capable of launching and operating other software. This significantly reduces labour costs and optimizes processes by speeding things up and minimizing human error.
Advantages of Robotic Process Automation
Saves Money
Since the main goal of RPA is to reduce the workload of your teams, employees can be more efficiently reallocated to do other priority work that actually requires human input. This also reduces the need for outsourcing certain functions, leading to increased productivity and ROI.
Boosts Employee Morale
By removing the responsibility of repetitive, high-volume tasks from your team, RPA ensures that they’re not stretched thin and can focus on more strategic, creative, and decision-making activities that require their expertise. This shift has proved to have a positive impact on employee morale, with 57% of executives reporting that RPA has increased employee engagement.
Enhanced Compliance and Accuracy
RPA bots can be trained to follow specific workflows and rules. So by using RPA bots, organizations can greatly minimize human error and ensure better accuracy and compliance. Moreover, they also provide audit trails, which make it easy to monitor progress and resolve issues as and when they arise.
What Industries Can Benefit from RPA
With its increasing compliance and filing requirements, the finance industry can greatly benefit from RPA. The software bots can easily and efficiently handle many back-office functions, including filing, data manipulation, and ensuring a recent credit check is included on a loan application.
Apart from banking, insurance, and investment management companies, RPA can prove useful in any industry that involves data and filing. This includes:
– Customer Service and CRM
– Supply Chain Management
– Healthcare
– Human Resources
– Accounting
Limitations of Robotic Process Automation
The major drawback of RPA is that these systems can be quite expensive to customize and deploy. They are also ineffective at handling complex tasks that require human judgement and creativity.
Despite their current limitations, it’s hard to deny that RPA will play a huge role in revolutionizing the workplace. If you want to know more about the latest advancements in RPA and other tech trends, subscribe to my blog. To learn more about how to make the most of your business, contact me via my website.
