The Top 10 Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Benefits

What Are The Benefits of Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?

Robotic process automation (RPA) is a subset of IA, where software robots or ‘RPA bots’ are deployed to automate routine tasks. RPA robots can be used across a variety of departments and industries to optimize and transform business processes and are most effective with pre-defined, rule-based tasks.

RPA is revolutionizing the way organizations operate. It’s a simple and easy-to-use software that mimics human actions. It can save you time and money, and free your employees from monotonous tasks.

Here, we’ve highlighted the top ten benefits of RPA systems in no particular order. You can also extend these benefits further with IA, which incorporates artificial intelligence (AI) and business process management (BPM) to streamline and automate entire workflows.

1. Productivity

While a human employee might take days or even weeks to perform certain administrative tasks, you can trigger an RPA bot to perform those tasks in hours or even minutes, depending on the demand, for increased productivity. That doesn’t mean RPA is taking over human jobs – it’s a digital coworker assisting employees so they can finish their work in less time, making them, and the organization as a whole, more productive.

2. Accuracy

With accuracy comes consistency and quality. RPA takes over those tasks most prone to human error, such as data entry or form filling. This improves the output quality, operating with 100% error-free accuracy. There are unattended and attended versions of RPA, where you can choose to include a human-in-the-loop (HITL) to ensure the RPA-automated work is triggered by a person – ideal for working with sensitive data or customer-facing work.

3. Scalability

RPA helps your business grow and expand by increasing your task capacity, and with better quality output, demand will also likely increase. Using RPA implementation best practices, organizations can ensure they have optimized business processes that can scale across entire workflows, connecting systems, departments and people.

Espen Sør-Reime, leader of ERP and digitization at Norsk Stål, says, “The production planners in Horten now handle about 50% more production orders than they did before we started with RPA.”

4. Customer satisfaction

Delivering better quality products or customer services improves interactions, leading to better brand loyalty. One small mistake can make a huge impact on customers. However, customers who receive timely responses or high-quality products or services are more likely to recommend or continue to do business with an organization.

Joanne Masters, business systems manager at The Co-operative Bank, says, “More staff are now working on outbound customer calls, and we are able to quickly identify customers in financial difficulty and proactively call them to discuss their accounts, rather than reacting too late, enhancing our overall customer service.”

5. Employee satisfaction

Removing tedious processes from employees’ workflow frees them to focus on higher-value strategic work for the business. There are also opportunities to train employees to utilize automation technology and even become citizen developers or part of a Center of Excellence (CoE). RPA empowers people to think up more value for automation across business processes and gives them the time to upskill and focus on career growth.

Rebecca Williams, RPA manager at Pilot Company, says, “We are designing each new automation with IADA in mind. Instead of asking ourselves 'why automate’, we’re asking, ‘why not?’ and ‘how can automation make things better for our team members?’”

6. Resource allocation

Repetitive tasks carried out by humans are prone to error; by adopting RPA into these routine business processes, organizations can allocate their financial and human resources to more effective, strategic tasks. RPA can also handle a larger amount of work in a shorter period of time, resulting in faster delivery.

7. Communication

RPA tools can automate manual updates and tracking to streamline employee communications. It also ensures business operations are carried out quickly and accurately. RPA also makes it easier to collate data and information from multiple systems, which can then be generated into useful insights that help with process integration.

8. Cost savings

RPA software bots operate 24/7 without breaks to take over manual tasks, and they’re more efficient at managing these repetitive tasks than humans. RPA reduces human errors that may lead to costly rework and speeds up the time to value, meaning people have more time to spend on value-driven work.

9. Security

Cybersecurity and data privacy are critical for any business, especially those in highly regulated fields. RPA solutions can help guard against security threats by reducing the number of human employees interacting with sensitive data. This helps prevent data leaks or breaches, ensuring businesses maintain security. RPA can also aid in guarding against unauthorized user access by performing triggered account logouts and two-factor authentication.

10. Analytics

With RPA, organizations gain access to accurate data from various sources, which results in improved analytics. With IA, organizations can gain real-time insights into their automated processes to ensure everything performs well and aligns with strategic business outcomes. Some examples of RPA insights are work volume, errors, cycle times and exceptions.

Of course, the benefits of robotic process automation don’t stop there. RPA solutions can help improve return on investment (ROI), increase compliance and governance and allow organizations to be more agile. Consider using an RPA implementation guide such as the SS&C | Blue Prism® Robotic Operating Model (ROM™2), which gives you a step-by-step methodology to help you successfully launch, maintain and scale your digital workforce.

How Does RPA Work With Intelligent Automation?

Intelligent automation (IA) essentially expands on your task automation. It’s an automation software that turns repetitive tasks into automated actions using a digital workforce. It combines RPA, AI and BPM with a selection of other cognitive tools to connect business processes and automate workflows. RPA software performs individual tasks within a workflow.

With IA, you can:

• Streamline and optimize processes
• Reduce costs
• Reduce business risks
• Improve customer experience
• Increase efficiency
• Improve employee productivity
• Augment customer service

What sort of tasks do RPA and IA automate?

While you likely have many processes that could use automation in your business, it’s best practice to first identify the best candidates. By starting with easy or ‘quick wins’, you’ll see the ROI benefits sooner. These tasks are often:

• Vulnerable to error
• Time-consuming
• Time-critical
• High-volume
• Repetitive
• Using multiple applications
• Existing in legacy systems
• Cyclical
• Using structured data

Will RPA take over human jobs?

Automation doesn’t have to cost people their jobs. RPA can augment labor and complement the human workforce to help boost productivity and efficiency. That gives employees more time to handle the jobs that can’t be done automatically.

Together, a digital and human workforce can accomplish great things.

How Can I Benefit From RPA and IA?

It’s all about having a plan. Whether you’re new to RPA and IA or a seasoned automation wizard, SS&C Blue Prism is here to help you along your automation journey.

Alexis Veenendaal is an associate content writer and editor at SS&C Blue Prism. She’ll tell you all the cool tips and tricks for implementing intelligent automation into your workplace. She has lived and worked internationally as a professional writer and designer for nearly a decade after graduating from the University of Lethbridge for English Literature. Her personal pursuits include authoring books and digital cartography.