Introduction Where is RPA/BPM today? Use Case Managing risk Getting RPA right Conclusion

Transcription

1

2 Introduction Where is RPA/BPM today? Use Case Managing risk Getting RPA right Conclusion

3 In today's hyper-competitive, cloudy world with rapidly changing technology, businesses that don't innovate will get left behind, it's that simple. People today want instant access to whatever they want, whenever they want and from whatever device they want, meaning that businesses not only have to update their business models to offer a better customer experience, but also automate their operations to be fast and nimble to meet their customers quickly changing demands. With breakneck speed required to get to market, errors are bound to occur. The question is how to scale rapidly and make decisions that mitigate your risk. Enter virtual robots. We're not talking about science fiction here, but software-based virtual robots that can take over the mundane IT operations and quality assurance tasks traditionally performed by humans. Virtual robots represent a hybrid of robotic process automation (RPA) and business process management (BPM). 3

4 RPA Market The market is rapidly adopting these services, too, with Forrester predicting that companies spend will grow to $2.9 billion by 2021, up from $250 million in 2016, particularly as more artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities are leveraged. For more perspective, 51 percent of employment in the US can be automated today according to a 2017 study by McKinsey Global Institute. That amounts to a whopping $2.7 trillion in wages. RPA Market in 5 years: Where is RPA/BPM today? Forrester research More traditional business process management (BPM) and monitoring tools have been around for a long time, and they are an important first step to take to ensure that performance levels are being met and critical systems are highly available. However, they are no longer enough to meet the demands of today's always-on and user-centric world. Simply put, higher levels of automation are required to handle increasingly complex digital and virtualized environments, and virtual robots can provide that while running on top of existing systems in a non-intrusive way, and often, without much human involvement. While the sophistication of virtual robots will increase over the coming years as the virtual robots become smarter with advanced AI and cognitive analytics capabilities, they are already being used by many organizations to automate QA (quality assurance) testing and monitor performance levels and, more importantly from an end user's 4

5 perspective. The end user perspective is in stark contrast to system-based tools that are already in the market but do not have the lens of a human sitting at their computer. Some useful tasks virtual robots can perform include: real-time performance measurements; tracking service availability; report preparation; sending alerts; connectivity checks; and, logging activity and errors. Today, virtual robots can be used to monitor: e-commerce platforms, SaaS uptime, software and database performance, and business process availability in on-premises data centers and in the cloud. By deploying virtual robots, businesses can: 5

6 Making the case for RPA/BPM based virtual robots Poor performance and service levels affect customer experience and have a negative downstream impact on a business s brand. In the hyper-competitive world of e- Commerce, for example, today's customers have so many options at their fingertips of where to make purchases. If a retailer's website is slow they will be left with a lot of abandoned shopping carts resulting in lost revenue and customers. To prevent this, virtual robots can literally log in on a scheduled basis as a customer would to check for any performance issues and alert IT administrators of any issues before customers have a bad experience. Internally, virtual robots can proactively discover and help mitigate any performance issues employees might encounter with critical business applications, eliminating calls to the help desk and lost productivity. In addition, as the finance industry is highly regulated, organizations need to have accurate and timely performance data on hand at all times to stay compliant. Managing risk with virtual robots As business processes become more digitized, IT infrastructure, by extension, becomes a greater risk to an organization. That's why many organizations are turning to RPA and BPM to help reduce risk and increase compliance. Three ways virtual robots can help manage risk, include: Accurate and dependable data. Virtual robots operate based on a strict set of rules and control frameworks and can identify and handle incidents that deviate from the norm. They perform repetitive tasks consistently and on a scheduled basis, and without bias as a human might. In other words, virtual robots are programmed to perform tasks exactly the same way each time, eliminating human error. Virtual robots can also document data precisely throughout entire workflows more efficiently and accurately than humans. In one example, a global energy company was able to achieve a 67 percent reduction in manual journal entry and invoice processing, and increase data 6

7 accuracy amounting to a total annual savings of AUD$3 million. Compliance. RPA-based platforms can be built from the ground up with up-todate, industry-specific regulatory compliance requirements, and automatically generate required reports regularly. Documented workflows relieve compliance professionals from searching through large amounts of data come audit time, and can save employers from incurring costly fines. For example, a company operating in the global oil field services was able to increase compliance with the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by 21 percent with RPA by keeping better track of personal spending on clients. Flexibility and scale. demands change and to remain competitive, businesses must be able to adapt dynamically to new market pressures and increasing complexities in new technologies fast. Virtual robots can work across and connect critical business applications and existing infrastructure with no system integration required to enable businesses to scale up or down consistently and without significant disruption to the business. A global technology company, for instance, automated its financial reporting processes blending RPA tools with third-party applications and systems leading to a 28 percent reduction in processing time, a 50 percent reduction in errors, and increased productivity of 40 percent, all while enabling highly skilled financial analysts to focus on more valuable tasks. Customer service. Slow, unavailable or highly disconnected systems used in call centers or other online customer service mechanisms can make for unhappy customers. The same is true for customer-centric transactions such as invoice, loan or application processing. Often, employees don't bother reporting 7

8 performance issues to IT, ultimately resulting in a poor customer experience. Virtual robots that are working 24x7x365 can detect slow performance proactively and either correct it or escalate issues by sending alerts to IT administrators, eliminating the need to call the service desk and lose productivity. Getting RPA right While the benefits of robotics automation are clear, the implementation is still daunting for many organizations. Careful planning and collaboration between management, IT and operations is required from the start. Mostly, large enterprises establish a team to help with programming scripting coupled with business process management experts. Often times, this means that they employ the help of consulting firms. Some questions to consider when deploying a successful virtual robot program include: Have business processes been transcribed into well documented tasks? Is the virtual robot optimally configured to process tasks? Are the virtual robots able to handle the workflow volume, and equipped to multitask and respond to performance issues effectively? Can the virtual robot generate accurate and auditable logs and alert an administrator when an issue needs escalation? Is the environment secure and is configuration segregated from production environments? Are effective communications processes between the RPA platform and IT administrators in place? 8

9 Conclusion In the end, if your business is not at least About Us James is a full-service Virtual Robot providing QA (quality assurance) and Process Management monitoring services. With virtual robots, you can enhance customer experience (CX), productivity, and employee engagement, all leading you and your organization to higher revenue and profit. considering implementing RPA, BPM, or virtual robots, you are falling behind your competitors. Making the business case is the easy part, but implementing it effectively is a whole other story that can be challenging. Often, as organizations look to deploy virtual robots, they find several options for software which further confounds the research. Each software company tends to have its own proprietary training program so skills-transfer may be a consideration as well. Traditionally, many businesses have relied on a BPO provider that uses traditional BPM and monitoring tools to perform many of the tasks that RPA is now capable of handling at a much higher cost. An alternative option is to look for a turn-key service that provides assessments, configuration, programming and the virtual robots all as part of the deliverable. This allows your organization to leverage business process management expertise and deploy with immediacy. When taking this approach, you also want to find providers that do not lock you into a long-term commitment so you can mitigate your risk in rolling out a new approach to your process monitoring. Follow us 9