What Is Robotic Processing Automation (RPA)?

Consider how many employees in your organization have roles focused on back-office processes, working full days on a great deal of repetitive, routine, rule-driven tasks that are both important and uninteresting. These employees dedicate a number of hours each day and can require substantial salaries, to shepherd these routine, repetitive, and rule-driven tasks.  Robotic Processing Automation, or RPA, is a type of software that mirrors the activity of human employees by initiating and completing a task within a given process.

RPA can do repetitive tasks more quickly and accurately than humans. RPA can complete routine tasks continually without mistakes, breaks, benefits and other requirements of the human workforce. This digital workforce allows you to distill and concentrate your human workforce to a select pool of competent, engaged people using their unique strengths like complex and varied problem solving, emotional intelligence, reasoning, judgment, and the components of interaction that can’t be mimicked or automated.

Why Should I Care?

Robotic Process Automation isn’t a trend, it’s a tool and a very good one.  Companies using RPA innovations for their repetitive and time-consuming business processes are reducing costs, improving delivery, assuring consistency and quality, and strengthening their enterprises, both short-term and long-term, by continually adapting to a changing digital environment. RPA can help transform business processes by making them better and cheaper, two words most of us like hearing. Future-thinking enterprises know that tomorrow’s workforce will be a side-by-side pairing of humans and a digital workforce.

Who Is Using RPA & Is It Applicable in my Industry?

RPA is applicable to every large enterprise out there. RPA is essentially software that can do any number of repetitive, rule-driven tasks like fill in forms, enter data, look up information, initiate requests and offload other manual tasks so that your employees can focus on what people do best: solving complex, variable problems and talking to other people. Every business has areas of their operations that involve the kind of work which can be automated.

Can RPA Transform Your Business?

RPA is being used successfully in all types of industries around the globe, including financial services, retail, business process outsourcing, healthcare, utilities, accounting, insurance, legal, automotive and more. Furthermore, government agencies and regulated industries such as insurance and banking are finding that automation is a cheap and fast way of applying superior capability to ensure compliance.  Robotic process automation offers an innovative technology that can be leveraged in nearly any organization and virtually any industry.

What Are the Benefits of RPA?

The mantra with RPA is essentially “better and cheaper.” Cheaper solutions that create a subpar product, service or experience are clearly not the solution, while better but cost-prohibitive solutions are not much better. But better and cheaper is pretty exciting. What makes Robotic Processing Automation better? What are the real benefits of RPA?

• Offload repetitive work, allowing select human workforce to focus on the tasks humans perform best

• Free employees to further specialize by eliminating training for repetitive, rule-driven tasks.

• Reduce costs

• Eliminate human error

• Increase consistency

• Reduce compliance and business risks

• Create faster delivery cycles

• Reduce handling time

• Foster improved customer experiences consistent with brand messaging

• Get more working hours out of a day, driving operational efficiency and revenue

Is RPA Science Fiction or Science Fact?

RPA is science fact, not science fiction. The tools to make RPA work are already available and improving at record speed. Early adopter companies are already using Robotic Process Automation to drive innovation, reduce costs and generate revenue.

Leaders just like you are harnessing the power of RPA technology to not only make measurable gains today but also position their organizations for tomorrow’s business and technological environment. What leader doesn’t want to get ahead of their competition as they drive down costs, improve delivery and dominate their markets?

Is Robotic Process Automation Cost Prohibitive?

One reason business leaders hesitate to adopt new technology is the sheer cost of leaping into the future. Companies are under continual pressure to show growth, and adding new technology requires an ROI that one can live with. In our quick-paced business environment, most leaders can’t throw money at unproven tech initiatives only to wait years for returns to accrue.

RPA is already delivering proven results and substantial cost reductions quickly, meaning ROI might be measured in quarters rather than years. Significant, speedy returns are not too good to be true. Think about it: people are a costly investment, and so even small changes in human workforce needs can create tremendous savings for companies. RPA vanity projects or “out there” tech initiatives are real-world solutions driving operational efficiency and transforming customer experiences, thereby reducing risk while optimizing an organization’s existing systems and processes.

What’s the First Step to Adopting RPA in My Business?

When deciding to adopt RPA, the most important consideration is the strategy. Automation can be used tactically for cost savings, but if you use RPA as a broader strategic tool, you’ll experience many more benefits. In fact, adopters often see an ROI of 30–200% —in the first year. That’s a short-term figure that doesn’t do justice to the full power of adopting RPA and its many benefits.

How TechSparq Can Help Identify Threats & Opportunities

Technology is changing the apparel industry at record speed. At TechSparq, we work exclusively within the retail industry to help companies just like yours identify threats and maximize opportunities. We understand the bot landscape, the possible implications on your e-commerce business, and your bottom line. 

With our industry knowledge, deep technical skills and agile approach, we can evaluate your current systems and processes to determine what threats are looming, how to continually mitigate them and how your company could be using bots to reduce cost, increase customer satisfaction, and to drive innovation.

To find out more about how the TechSparq team can reduce risk and smooth your company’s path to the future, reach out.