How to overcome resistance and implement Robotic Process Automation in 2020

Culture

Culture should be at the forefront when your company starts thinking about Robotic Process Automation.  It is imperative that it not be an afterthought.  You would not hire workers into a team without engaging the team regarding why the position is open; what the person will do; and what their value to the company will be.  If 10 new workers showed up in your Monday staff meeting without introduction, it would create more than a little apprehension.  Likewise, when starting to hire your first bots to establish a digital workforce, clear communication of goals and purpose is a must. 

Be focused from the start and always on value creation when considering where bots can help your team and how they will empower your employees.  Keep the path towards more value-added tasks in mind at all times.  Make the message as public as possible to show the team opportunities for involvement in cutting-edge technology and help replace apprehension with excitement.  Vendors will change and technologies will morph as the space matures, but automation of repeatable digital processes will be a core component for most companies over the next several years.  Including your team in the process not only provides immediate value for your company but helps the team members build personal value and improve their future career prospects.  

A culture of continuous improvement is a necessity in any space at the intersection of business processes and technology.  RPA is uniquely positioned to maximize continuous improvement efforts.  Embrace RPA without process improvement and there will be the legitimate resistance born out of the fact that you are just automating bad processes.  Conduct process improvement alone and you will miss out on the synergies that come from objectively looking at processes from the viewpoint of the robot.  We have seen that having this perspective produces large-scale cultural effects that are not easily garnered from continuous improvement and lean methodologies alone. 

Be Agile and live up to the core first principle of the Agile Manifesto - “Satisfy customers through early and continuous delivery of valuable work.”  Agile tools, methodologies, and ceremonies are all important components of execution.  Make sure your RPA projects are delivered in short intervals and focus on giving your team true value.  The easiest way to show value is to automate high-volume repeatable processes through the proper sourcing of proof of concept projects.  Go fast and prove real value before any theoretical-based resistance even has a chance to form. 

Establish a Center of Excellence for automation early with internal employees that have a passion for learning.  Set high-level goals for value creation within the organization, but let the team choose the path of execution.  The center of excellence should evolve to provide project selection guidance, governance, infrastructure, and development expertise.  The team will provide organizational direction on where RPA will work, and as importantly where IT or process improvements would better serve the needs of the customer. 

Data

Start with structured data as inputs to your automation.  It is tempting when opening the box on new technologies to get distracted and focus on showing futuristic demos that wow in a conference room, but the success for RPA will come by showing ROI to your stakeholders in their daily work.  The clarity of the data sources plays a key role in this value creation and speed of delivery.  Concentrate on automation use cases that start with data structured in forms, spreadsheets, templates, or can quickly be converted to them and not on use cases requiring unstructured text or interpretations.    

The acceleration of data creation across companies is by no means starting with RPA, but your team should have a strategic plan on how RPA will increase the velocity of data capture and how it will aid in turning existing data into information.  The first potential value in the data space from RPA is in the data that is created.  This data has the potential to provide important compliance information, a source for structured process mining, or even machine learning inputs.  The second potential value comes from the data that RPA can process and provide back to the organization represents actionable information, when and where it is needed.  

Technology

Be part of the technology evolution as it won’t be a single point of change.  RPA offers a relatively low-cost entry point to a changing ecosystem that includes Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Processing Mining, and many other forms of automation.  The ability to acquire skills in these future critical areas goes beyond solutions for your business.  The skills acquired will allow your team to form a competitive advantage by understanding the application of powerful emerging technologies.  Companies that wait for a fully formed AI solution that solves their business problems are more likely to be out of business by the time it arrives.  They need to start building their teams and understanding the changing environment now.  

Associate with a leader by selecting one of the emerging key vendors in the space.  While in no way has the RPA game been won or lost at this stage, a few of the vendors have separated themselves from the pack.  The three companies that are most often identified as leaders in the space are Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, and UI Path.  When considering possible alternatives to these three, one should look for a software partner that is well funded for R&D, for acquisitions, and for expanding community sizes.  The future road maps of these companies should guarantee relevance for several years allowing you to focus on long-term execution. They should have growing developer communities ensuring the ability to onboard specific talent to enhance your team.

We work with our clients to align their culture with strategy, optimize business processes, and launch their commerce initiatives using innovative technology with the customer at the center. Our culture-first approach leads to a higher degree of success when compared to our competitors.