Robotic Process Automation: Current Trends And Impact In Enterprises

Over the past decade, the term RPA has become commonplace in enterprises. The robotic process automation (RPA) is the technological capability that allows the streamlining of operations in enterprises and reduce their costs. It allows enterprises to automate their mundane and tedious processes, thereby enabling users to enhance their productivity through higher value-adding tasks.

Thus, robotic process automation is the process of automating routine business tasks with the help of software robots. The tasks that can be automated include information technology management, automated online assistants, transaction processing and predicting future outputs etc.

It incorporates intelligent automation when combined with machine learning and artificial intelligence to help businesses streamline processes as well as bring accuracy and agility to the scene.

Current Trends In RPA Adoption

The robotic process automation has helped enterprises in optimising the bandwidth of their employees. More and more heads of businesses and CIOs are turning towards RPA to mimic human actions and improve workplace productivity. According to Grand View Research, the RPA market is projected to be over $3 Bn by 2025.

Many industries with critical processes such as healthcare, telecommunications and manufacturing, have already invested in the technology. There are many enterprises like UiPath and Automation Anywhere, who provide customised robotic process automation software to enterprises across the globe.

These enterprises help enterprises in their digital transformation journey by implementing RPA as a strategic initiative. Some examples of RPA adoption across various enterprises are given below –

Marketing

Marketers are utilising this technology to automate their processes and gain an analytical edge. Digital data can now be extracted from tools like Salesforce and categorized into segments such as account size. It is then combined with other data systems and put in a queue for sales follow-up. It can help prioritise relevant clients leading to faster turnaround with improved accuracy.

Financial Audits

The robotic process automation is highly appropriate in the finance industry due to its dependence on audit and control. RPA brings in sophisticated procedures and along with AI it can track patterns to lessen misrepresentation in audit and improve the procedural consistency. It will be able to handle the enormous information that auditors need to go through and bring in more precision.

Operations

RPA will ensure steadiness in business operations. It will reduce the time and exertion on humans for quality checking. It will make sure that processes are followed flawlessly with no deviation caused by human actions.

Human Resources

Most of the basic HR tasks can be offloaded to robotic process automation systems. This would leave HR managers to get involved in more strategic tasks. RPA can take care of office maintenance, basic approvals, official announcements etc. This will not only save time but also help in utilising workforce skills better.

RPA: Transforming The Future Of Work At Enterprises

The robotic process automation bundled with AI is the future of enterprises. The cognitive abilities rendered to RPA by machine learning and artificial intelligence are bringing in more value to businesses. RPA bots can do a multitude of tasks. They can extract data, process it and integrate it with other technologies.

Today, banks, factories and hospitals are already utilising IBM’s Watson computer system to make accurate decisions. It is being used at workplaces to schedule meetings, book rooms and check schedules. Chatbots are talking to customers on company websites, making their experience smoother and more useful.

The mundane tasks of processing and clicking can be offloaded to trained algorithms now. All in all, RPA implementation in an enterprise would lead to more profitability, the better strategic orientation of the employees and a more engaged workforce.

How RPA Adoption Will Help Enterprise Workforce?

Of course, RPA implementation reduces the workload on the human workforce. From the perspective of efficiency, it makes the existing workforce free to focus on productivity-enhancing tasks. This will lead to broadening of job roles for employees which means that reskilling is an important step towards staying employable.

While the traditional take away of deploying RPA solutions was to do away with human intervention, it does not automatically translate into unemployable workers. The adoption of robotic process automation will lead to a change in the scenario.

Jobs will be lost in parts and will be replaced by different other types of jobs. Enterprises can take care of menial and repetitive tasks while their employees are involved in complex jobs that involve interpretation and decision-making.

In Conclusion

There may be some anxiety in the workforce regarding the robots taking over their jobs. As automation pervades our offices, it is providing us with less labour and more efficiency. It can help employees thrive in challenging roles.

Most of this anxiety stems from unfamiliarity. Therefore, as part of their digital transformation strategy, organisations must take their workforce in confidence and help them in making the transition.

The widespread adoption of RPA is imminent. It not only enhances productivity and accuracy, but it also costs one-third of an offshore worker. While there may be initial investments in implementing the technology and training the employees, over time it saves much more for the businesses. The more exposed enterprises, the better prepared they will be to utilise its powers for the benefit.