Workplace Automation – Connecting Digital with Robotics

The key role of technology in supporting businesses to streamline processes, eliminate geographical barriers, augment communication and improve customer experience cannot be debated. And it is clear, that the economic landscape is already set to openly welcome workplace automation. The adoption of workplace automation is inevitable due to its huge benefits namely – increased accuracy, decreased costs, reduced process time and increased security. Operational efficiency and enhanced productivity – guaranteed.

The automation landscape is made up of several components and one that is gaining traction today is Robotic Process Automation (RPA). RPA supports rapid automation of enterprise business processes with no disruption to the existing IT system and at very low costs. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a key component for the Workforce of the Future  where humans and robots will work together for the benefit of society.

While robots are being perceived as a threat to the human race, technology companies think otherwise. They are advising enterprises such as yours to embrace automation and robotics as essential tools that can enable your knowledge worker to perform better, smarter and with increased creativity, making the unexpected possible for your organisation.

Let us begin to explore what Robotic Process Automation (RPA) really is and understand its potential and the benefits it offers to the industry.

What is Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?

RPA has many names – software robotics, bots and more. What it essentially does is it automates business tasks typically performed by your knowledge worker by mimicking the repetitive, logical and structured tasks. It can work across any application just how your knowledge worker would, as long as the tasks are sequential and rule based.

This is all done via a virtual software, at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions, without the need to disrupt current IT systems. With its core focus on routine manual tasks, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can be trained to execute many functions and processes at a time, rather than going full-fledged into improving the entire business process.

The potential of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is to deliver solutions that can rapidly automate manual, repetitive processes and make them faster, more cost effective while also improving consistency and regulatory compliance, all with a huge return on investment in typically less than a year.

Explore New Horizons and Enhance Productivity

As already discussed, the gains from automation are considerable. A lot is possible when robotics and digital are brought together. Digital and robotic automation can provide overall business solutions that are far greater than the sum of its parts.

With a wide variety of applications across various industries, the promise of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is truly something that we will all experience in our daily business environments soon. Here, we have only made an attempt to summarise the top 5 benefits which are worth considering while making an investment in RPA:

• Increased productivity; reduced expenditures

  Robotic Process Automation (RPA) works on end to end processes to eventually reduce manual operational costs by 25% – 40% or more. It frees your human workforce to spend time on more important aspects of the business, impacting overall productivity and ROI. It also costs less than a full-time employee.

• Reduced operational risks

  With the right set up, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) eliminates errors and inaccuracies. The virtual Robotic Process Automation (RPA) workforce can triple the productivity of a knowledge worker and can be available 24 hours per day. By eliminating human behaviours such as absenteeism, tiredness, tardiness, etc, RPA impacts the rate of errors thereby providing a lower level of operational risk.

• Improved internal processes

  In order to gain from a successful RPA implementation, organisations are compelled to look at their processes minutely and also define clear governance procedures. This in turn has an impact on the improvement of processes and you gain from faster internal reporting, on-boarding and other streamlined internal activities.

• Enhanced customer experience

  As Robotic Process Automation (RPA) implementation frees up your knowledge worker from routine tasks, key team members can focus on the core of your business success i.e. customer engagement and enhance it with personalised services and better delivery.

• Improved analytics; better decisions

  Since the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) bots are implemented with little or no disruption to the existing IT system, it interacts with your legacy systems, uncovering data that was previously labour-intensive to extract. RPA facilitates faster data gathering and equips your analytics team with error free, accurate data. This data eventually translates to accurate projections and reports, better decision making with an overall impact on your business success.

But, what does RPA mean for the Workforce?

While we can comprehend the unparalleled potential of Robotic Process Automation (RPA), we do know that it is still far from actually automating the human workforce out of their jobs and it cannot compete with human intellect.

Yes, the knowledge worker will have less to do manually as mentioned above, but we look at it as an opportunity where the workforce will become more efficient.

Roles will be re-defined, new skill sets will be developed and there will be general shift in focusing towards more important and crucial aspects of the business. We could be looking at a shorter working week, an increase in work-life balance and a much better workplace with more productive and satisfied employees.

The Wrap

The time is ripe to weave RPA into the fabric of your digital organisation. Exigo Tech has been at the forefront in helping clients embed and gain from a successful RPA implementation. With agile delivery methods and DevOps at the core, we have helped companies across Australia in realising the benefits of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and enhancing their business growth. Let us help you with our technological solutions that will add value to your business systems and pave the way for your digital journey. Contact us today!