7 Ways RPA Technology Can Transform a Business

Change is inevitable in business. But over the last 10 years, change has happened at an unprecedented pace thanks to technological innovation. This rapid growth means organizations must embrace digital transformation to keep pace with their competitors and customers' expectations.

Today, it's essential for SMBs to do more with fewer resources, which is why many businesses are investing in automation solutions. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a popular type of automation technology.

RPA uses bots to automate business processes for maximum efficiency and cost savings. This automation makes it possible to streamline more complex routines and tasks on a massive scale, which is ideal for organization-wide transformation.

RPA is a valuable addition to business operations, enabling teams to:

• Automate email responses
•  Provide smarter, rules-based customer service
• Quickly extract data and run reports
• Run price comparisons in seconds
• Complete employee payroll without manual inputs

Learn more about seven benefits of RPA, as well as the challenges businesses might face when implementing RPA.

Reasons to Use Robotic Process Automation

By 2023, the global RPA market will be worth over $10 billion. SMBs worldwide are investing in this technology to remove time-consuming tasks and increase the value that their employees bring to the table. There are seven key advantages to implementing RPA at any organization.

1. Improve Employee Retention

Forty percent of employees are likely to leave their jobs in the next three to six months. While pay is undoubtedly a factor in employees' decision to look elsewhere, a lack of engaging work is a significant factor.

Businesses lose thousands of dollars in productivity and hiring costs every time an employee leaves, so any initiative that reduces attrition can lead to tremendous savings.

With RPA, employees no longer have to spend hours a day running tedious reports. Instead, they can focus on work that engages them. RPA translates into higher-level work for the team, which keeps employees engaged and satisfied.

2. Enhance Customer Satisfaction

If a business needs to improve the customer experience, RPA will move the needle. Improving the customer experience will boost loyalty and reduce customer service costs by 10 to 25 percent.

RPA automates IT tickets and customer service emails, significantly improving response times with touch-free technology. By freeing up employees' time, RPA allows employees to give customers the level of service they expect, too.

3. Reduce Costs

Each time a business asks a human employee to do a task, it costs a tremendous amount of money — and, depending on the work, it may be riddled with errors. While RPA certainly isn't a replacement for employee labor, it can significantly decrease business expenses.

For example, RPA can reduce (and often eliminate) invoicing errors that could lead to high costs down the road. It's also much more affordable to run data-heavy tasks with RPA than hire a full-time employee for the same job.

Studies show that RPA can generate an ROI of 20 to 200 percent in its first year alone. Some organizations report that automation technologies like RPA can also lower operating costs by a staggering 30 percent.

4. Save Time

RPA isn't a replacement for all of the tasks in a business, but it can complete data-centric jobs in a fraction of the time it takes a human employee to do the same work.

Bots don't need to eat or sleep, so they're able to work around the clock. This is particularly helpful if an organization needs to run lengthy reports with long extraction times: a 24/7 timeline can ensure the team completes more reports every week.

5. Reduce Errors

Humans aren't perfect, which means that employees will understandably make mistakes. Unfortunately, billing, payroll, or sales mistakes can have catastrophic consequences on a business's bottom line. RPA is beneficial because it removes human input from the equation, significantly improving data accuracy.

6. Access Advanced Insights

One of the most significant benefits of RPA is its ability to identify patterns. RPA collects data, organizes it, and automatically runs reports. Businesses even have the freedom to customize their RPA rules, so the solution only pulls that data that matters.

From here, RPA will not only run the report, but it can identify trends that businesses might otherwise overlook. These insights are valuable for predicting customer trends or forecasting revenue.

7. Streamline Business Operations

RPA is often the first step to business transformation. It's one of the best ways to target low-hanging fruit in an organization and gain proof of concept before rolling out additional transformation initiatives.

Keep in mind that an RPA solution may need coaching at first. Employees will likely need to educate the bots (machine learning) to perform tasks correctly. But once employees put in the time with an RPA solution, it can handle up to 95 percent of the work, with any exceptions handled by a human employee.

The Challenges of RPA and How to Overcome Them

As beneficial as RPA is for business, it does come with challenges — and that is why it's so essential to partner with a trusted, experienced partner like Calance to achieve successful RPA implementation.

1. Unrealistic Expectations

Leadership often assumes that RPA is a cure-all that can apply to all tasks in a business. Because of this, it isn't unusual for companies to be overzealous in their RPA implementation, using technology that isn't suited for the tasks that need to be performed.

Unrealistic expectations can be a recipe for failure, so it's important to roll out RPA methodically. It's a good idea to start small, using RPA in one department or with a single workflow. Once a business has a proof of concept, it can steadily roll out RPA across different functions in the organization.

2. Employee Resistance

Employees are understandably nervous about RPA and fear it will take their jobs. It's critical to increase the adoption of RPA, and one way to do that is by educating employees on how RPA will improve their daily workload.

RPA isn't designed to be a substitute for human employees. Employees are still necessary to direct high-level strategy, offer better customer service, and oversee the RPA solution.

3. Technical Issues

RPA is user-friendly and straightforward to configure. However, like any technology, it can have its problems. RPA is deceptively simple, sometimes leading to configuration issues with less experienced teams. It's critical to partner with an expert RPA provider, like Calance, to keep the RPA solution running accurately over time.

Choose Calance to Implement RPA Technology

Although robotic process automation can have its challenges, it still offers an incredible number of benefits to any business, large or small. When it's time to integrate technology to support business needs, opt for an RPA provider like Calance. Get in touch to see how our team modernizes IT infrastructure with RPA.