More and more CIOs turn to process automation through robots to eliminate tedious tasks, streamline operations and reduce costs. It is also a good way to allow employees to concentrate on real value-added work. Concretely, with RPA (Robotic Automation Process), companies can automate business processes based on rules.
Others see RPA as a transitional solution to intelligent automation, driven by artificial intelligence, via machine learning tools, which can be trained to judge future results.
“Automation paves the way for artificial intelligence,” assures PAC. The firm notes that today the dialogues between robots and humans in the form of a cat “can hardly be distinguished from the interaction between humans”. Integrated into these processes, image and video processing should allow machines to recognize faces and moods in the near future. But this race ahead of AI (Artificial Intelligence) can only be done if the automation processes are there. However, the implementation of the automation of procedures requires adequate design, planning and governance to be effective in business.
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What is Robotic Process Automation(RPA)?
RPA is a technology using business logic and structured inputs, the purpose of which is to automate business processes. Using RPA tools, a business can configure software, or a “bot”, to capture and interpret applications to process a transaction, trigger responses, manipulate data, and communicate with other digital systems.
RPA scenarios range from simply creating an automatic response to an email to deploying thousands of bots, each programmed to automate jobs in an ERP system.
Business leaders in financial services were the first to adopt RPAs. Process automation is now at work in the fields of health, retail, and even human resources.
What Are The Benefits of RPA?
RPA concretely enables organizations to reduce personnel costs and human errors. Especially if the bots are inexpensive and easy to implement. And requiring little integration. In fact, such features are crucial to keep costs down.
Companies can also step up automation efforts by injecting RPA into cognitive technologies such as ML, speech recognition, and natural language processing. This is accomplished by automating higher-level tasks that previously required human expertise.
With this logic, there are RPA implementations where more than 15 to 20 steps can be automated. They are then part of a value chain called “intelligent automation” (AI).
In the field of IT governance, RPA is gradually entering the management of IT services (ITSM). For example, tools for automated discovery of applications and functional dependencies or ADDM (Application discovery and dependency mapping) enrich the CMDB (configuration management database), not only to detect the parts to configure and update but also to measure the impacts of any change (software, hardware, financial and human).
And this is where a family of ITSM tools comes in, IT Process Automation solutions (ITPA, RBA – run book automation). This software makes it possible to orchestrate tools, people, and processes via workflows, with many benefits: reduction of human errors, immediate response to incidents impacting critical processes, more efficient allocation of resources based on priority rules and service levels …
For IT professionals, less code and entry allow them to focus on defining processes and workflows and optimizing them, thanks – among other things – to real-time monitoring.
According to Gartner, automation and artificial intelligence will reduce the needs of employees in shared service centers by 65% by 2020. And the RPA market will then reach $ 1 billion. By that date, 40% of large companies will have adopted an RPA software tool. They are less than 10% today.
What Are The Pitfalls of RPA?
RPA isn’t for all businesses. As with any automation technology, RPA has the potential to eliminate jobs, presenting CIOs with talent management challenges.
And while companies that embrace RPA will be tempted to position those whose jobs have been cut into new jobs, Forbes Research estimates that RPA software will threaten a total of 230 million workers. That is about 9% of the global workforce.
Leslie Willcocks, a professor at the London School of Economics (LSE), warns that the mass diffusion of robotics is likely to be more difficult than many experts announce. “The horror scenarios focus on the job losses caused by automation and robotics and the tsunami effect of these technologies” specifies the professor. “Their impact is defined as sudden, transformative, overwhelming, and irreversible.”
An LSE study suggests that for every 20 jobs destroyed by automation, 13 new jobs are created and that every job will change by at least 25% over the next 5-7 years.
In fact, many projects are on hold or have been postponed. And the human factor is not the only one involved. Because installing thousands of robots takes much longer, and is much more complex and expensive than most organizations initially hoped for.
Deloitte UK claims that only three percent of companies have succeeded in increasing the number of robots in production to more than 50 robots.
In addition, the economic results of RPA implementations are far from clearly documented. While it is possible to automate 30% of tasks for the majority of occupations, this does not clearly translate into a 30% cost reduction.
Which Companies Use RPA?
Walmart, Deutsche Bank, American Express, Ernst & Young, and Walgreens are among the many companies trying to adopt RPA.
At Walmart, around 500 robots are responsible for answering all questions, from employee questions to retrieving information to create audit documents.
At American Express, the RPA is at work to automate the process of canceling an airline ticket and issuing refunds. And a project is underway to automate some expense management tasks.
