Robotic process automation (RPA): Potential for businesses

What is robotic process automation?

As we already mentioned, robotic process automation is nothing new, but progress and development of the technology in recent years make it an interesting trend to watch. Its name refers to software robots (not physical robots, as many people misinterpret it) that help automate repetitive, routine, and pattern-based activities in business processes. Using robotic process automation tools, a business can configure software to capture and interpret applications to process transactions, manipulate data, trigger responses and/or communicate with other digital systems. Therefore, the use cases of RPA can start from very simple activities such as sending an automatic response to an email, to more complex applications (e.g., invoice processing, monitoring performance, generating estimates, managing documents, and many more).

Understanding the full potential and benefits of robotic process automation tools

As more and more businesses recognise the huge potential inherent in robotic process automation (RPA), it is worth taking a look at the most important benefits that implementing this technology can bring to any company:

• The global pandemic has shown us that maintaining business continuity can be put to the test, and new solutions to reduce disruption are always welcome. RPA can provide at least part of this continuity and ensure that basic tasks are carried out uninterrupted, even with the ever-changing legal rules on office and remote working.
• One of the key benefits of robotic process automation is that there is much less need for coding, so an improvement can be implemented within hours rather than days or weeks. The increasingly low costs and the ease of RPA implementation (without loss of customisation) make this technology easily available to medium and small businesses (SMBs).
• Robot software is in most cases focused on a single, repetitive task that can be performed continuously 24/7 and faster than manually. For example, it can take an employee hours to prepare a monthly report, which is based on simple aggregation of data, while the relevant software will do the same job in just a few minutes. Such increased productivity allows employees to focus on other tasks that require abstract thinking and can potentially offer a better work-life balance.
• Many business owners have painfully learned at some point in their careers that one of the greatest enemies of business is vulnerability to human errors. Properly designed software allows the human factor to be reduced to a minimum.
• There is a group of people who fear that robotic process automation (RPA) will result in fewer jobs being available on the market. So far at least, RPA has not replaced humans, but actually quite the opposite. While some jobs will be needed much less, at the same time new jobs for new technologies are being created. What is more, RPA allows for a significant reduction in the risk of burnout among employees. According to psychologists, doing the same repetitive tasks is one of the main factors leading to burnout.
• One of the most significant benefits of robotic process automation is preparing a business for the future. Hyper-automation is around the corner and starting to invest in this area now can put a business one step ahead.

Robotic process automation examples and applications in various industries

Retail

• Retail industry includes many processes that are perfect for automation. In e-commerce, for example, RPA can help with managing the ever-changing status of orders and shipments.
• Automated comprehensive analysis of sales data provides quick access to reports which can help maximise sales.
• Robotic process automation can also facilitate collaboration between production and marketing departments by monitoring and analysing customer feedback in real time.
• Processing orders and returns through the software can achieve faster processing and avoid delays.

Healthcare and insurance

• According to aimultiple.com, healthcare is expected to be one of the fastest growing areas in RPA implementation due to the many repetitive processes and the huge amount of data being processed.
• One of the applications of robotic process automation in healthcare is scheduling patient appointments. By using the technology, patients can make appointments efficiently and without having to refer to hospital staff.
• RPA also ensures the security of medical data and helps to protect patient privacy. This is because it controls access to this data, ensuring that each stakeholder only has access to data that is relevant to them.
• Robotic Process Automation can also help with insurance claims management, which includes a lot of administrative processes that involve protecting the insurance companies from errors or frauds. Bots make the process easier to monitor and help avoid delays. They also help identify compliance exceptions and avoid non-compliance with regulations.

Financial services and banking

• One of the use cases of robotic process automation software in the financial services field is to automate financial advice and investment management. This is an ever-evolving application that is also known as roboadvising.
• Of course, bank customers still appreciate human-driven customer support, so the best solution is a hybrid solution – personalised customer support combined with RPA software to support bank employees.