“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln
Far too many enterprises struggle to accelerate successful RPA implementations, finding themselves stuck in the pre-automation phase or with only a few automations that deliver minimal value. According to a recent research, a lack of robust RPA strategy, limited business understanding or investment and organization change managements are some of the key challenges that acts as impediments to delivering success with RPA
RPA automation solutions are most suitable for standardized, stable processes that are rule based in nature. Irrespective of the size or industry they are in, organizations can achieve tangible and significant benefits with Robotic Process Automation.
Here are five key factors that organizations should consider to greatly increase their chances of a successful Robotic Process Automation:
- Effective Business Strategy:
Robotic Process Automation has always been seen as a tool to gain quick wins by aiming for low hanging fruits in terms of processes to be automated. Many RPA tools therefore designed with these goals in mind exhibit limitations when organizations try achieving bigger business goals through them.Moving from a tactical approach in terms of costs to a strategic approach usually follows a typical path. Many organizations using RPA move through initial phase of trying to gain quick return on investment to a subsequent phase of focusing primarily on cost savings.In the next phase enterprises get multiple business advantages but also get surprising benefits like increased compliance, faster product delivery, better management capabilities and enhance customer experience. - Right Process Identification:
For a successful RPA implementation, assessing and selecting the right processes for automation are of prime importance. The following process attributes can help ascertain the suitability of a process for automation through RPA:- High Volume & Error Prone: RPA primarily reduces human effort and hence organizations should always look to automate high volume processes quite early on in their automation journey. Also, companies can derive huge value from automating processes plagued with high manual errors.
- Rule Based: RPA is best for processes which are rule based, routine and repetitive in nature. Processes which are not very dynamic in nature require fewer bot upgrades which lowers the overall process complexity.
- Speed-Sensitive: Any process that can delay delivery of services to customers and can cause significant problems in maintaining a good customer experience are really good candidates for automation as automation can bring about increased process agility.
- Cultural RPA Adoption
Enterprises must focus on building a culture that encourages its employees to accept and work in tandem with their digital counterparts without any resistance. Here are the essential steps in establishing that culture.- Support from Key Stakeholders:
Any kind of automation to be successful must have adoption and support right from the executive level. Key stakeholders should be engaged from the initial stage assuring commitment and support. They should see RPA as a strategic and transformative business project and provide the required financial and human resources. - IT Involvement:
The IT team’s involvement in evaluation of platforms and tools and providing infrastructure for RPA is imperative for a successful RPA deployment. IT department when engaged early on in the automation process, can envision the need for effective change management within the organization and can be instrumental in communicating the vision and impact of such automation. - Removing automation resistance in your business teams:
There are a lot of myths and fallacies surrounding the goals and capabilities of Robotic Process Automation. Therefore, it is important to underline to business teams how RPA will enhance existing operations and transform business in general.With the right messaging, your business departments will begin to understand why there’s no need for resistance around automation and how RPA is here to make their lives better by engaging them in more value-added tasks in the business instead of replacing them.
- Support from Key Stakeholders:
- Robust Governance Structure:
RPA technology has a far-reaching impact on businesses and is therefore not limited to a certain function or a team. In fact, even a single automated process will most likely affect several parts of an organization. While RPA can provide huge value for your organizations, things can occasionally go wrong in absence of an effective governance structure.At the core of an effective governance structure lies a Centre of Excellence team which consists of a set of clearly defined roles and responsibilities and is responsible for implementing and managing the automation as quickly and efficiently as possible throughout the organization.RPA COE likely will face challenges related to collaboration from various different functions and would require a framework that establishes convention that determines interaction and knowledge sharing among different departments. - RPA Tool Selection:
Every organization is unique in terms of their needs and therefore require the right RPA tool for a successful implementation.Organizations more often than not select a particular RPA tool based on its popularity or price point rather than its effectiveness in solving their unique challenges and therefore fail to achieve decent ROI.A guiding principal for the evaluation of right RPA solution is that the solution should not only execute repetitive and rule-based processes but should also be capable of quick implementation and seamless integration with other systems, hence keeping organizational disruption to a minimum. Factors like usability, security, maintenance and scalability should definitely be considered while selecting an RPA tool.