7 Ways to Find Out if Your Company is Ready for Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

1. 7 WAYS T O F I N D O U T I F Y O U R C O M P A N Y I S R E A D Y F O R R O B O T I C P R O C E S S A U T O M A T I O N  

2. "According to Frank Casale, founder and CEO of the Institute for Robotic Process Automation and Artificial Intelligence (IRPA AI), “the biggest misconception about RPA is that it’s easy - It’s not easy. That’s why barely 10% of the buyer population in Global 2000 companies have embraced it." FRANK CASALE W W W . C I G E N . C O M . A U

3. 1 . S P O T A R E A S T H A T C A L L F O R I M P R O V E M E N T Start with a thorough, realistic evaluation of all the departments in your company. Review the areas that consistently underperform and, of course, try to gain an understanding of the causes. For example, consider customer service in the front or back office. What processes in that area are affected by: data access issues, transcription errors causing medium to high error rates, manual data entry time, and excessive approval time.

4. 2. APPRAISE THE INTER-DEPARTMENTAL INFORMATION FLOW Turn your attention towards information silos, which might index an underlying dysfunctionality of information sharing across various departments. An important reason for such malfunctioning may be the existence of legacy and modern systems, respectively, in different areas of your company. The corresponding communication bottlenecks could be hurdled by enlarging the scope of modernisation through robotic process automation.

5. 3 . E V A L U A T E T H E S T A B I L I T Y O F Y O U R B U S I N E S S P R O C E S S E S Finding the processes that are well suited for automation is a prerequisite of the implementation procedure. Suitable processes are repetitive, rule-based, and quasi exception-free. Software robots are not apt at exception handling, so they work best on highly stable processes. Therefore, you know your company is ready for RPA if you managed to single out a set of standardised activities that you can automate in a pilot.

6. 4 . E S T I M A T E T H E N E C E S S I T Y O F A D D I T I O N A L H I R I N G S If your business is growing, you may reach a point when you realise that it’s not easy to keep up with the rhythm of development. For instance, you might have to hire more people. And the cost of additional hirings may account for a significant part of the difficulties. The scalability of software robots recommends RPA as a less costly solution.

7. 5 . A S S E S S T H E A M O U N T O F M A N U A L T A S K S T H A T Y O U R E M P L O Y E E S P E R F O R M If you end up with an impressively long list, your employees may get tired, bored, dissatisfied, and even burned-out from huge amounts of quasi-meaningless tasks. Also, a need for consistent data entry across various systems (e.g., such is the case in a finance company, which must produce financial statements, activate cards, open accounts, etc.) is a sign that your company can greatly benefit from RPA implementation.

8. 6 . F I N D O U T T H E L E V E L O F Y O U R E M P L O Y E E S ’ J O B S A T I S F A C T I O N What if the results are below expectations, despite your efforts to provide extrinsic motivations for your workers? One likely cause of dissatisfaction is the perceived need to waste time with tedious administrative or other low-level tasks. Productivity drops are a direct, highly undesirable consequence. Robotic process automation might be the right tool for allowing workforce shifts to higher value tasks. 

9. 7. ESTIMATE THE COST OF ERRORS This assessment comes as a natural consequence of point 5 above, simply because manual data entry is a reliable source of error. Furthermore, error calls for rework, and review and correction is time- consuming and expensive. If error leads to delays and consequential headaches, it may mean that your company is ready for RPA. It might be worth reading about the questions that help you choose the right processes for RPA implementation.

10. CONCLUSION Implementing RPA in your company brings tangible benefits: quick and large ROIs, reduced cybersecurity risks, easier data management, satisfied employees and customers. It is a great illustration of technology in the service of humans. And it offers a substantial competitive advantage for business innovators who are ready for robotic process automation. W W W . C I G E N . C O M . A U

11. If you have inquiries, don't hesitate to contact us. CiGen’s range of services include: UiPath Platform sales, proof of concept, pilot programs, consulting and C-suite education, automation design reviews, automation implementation, detailed training for the UiPath Platform, management, and RPA Robots for Hire. contact@cigen.com.au +61 3 8618 6969 www.cigen.com.au