By: Sheetal Kunta, Account Director, LTI

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. Charles Darwin

As the saying goes, Consumer Product Goods, retail and manufacturing companies are constantly on a lookout to improve operational efficiencies and create new products to meet changing needs of their customers.

Most companies use Robots in their assembly lines to work alongside humans (also known as Cobots), they are looking at automating other back-end processes like PO creation, inventory management, HR operations, sales process and expense management.

This is where Robotic Process Automation (RPA) comes in – automating mundane backend processes, so that employees can focus on higher value tasks, strategic initiatives and also use RPA generated insights to further improve processes. Industry 4.0 or the fourth industrial revolution talks about co-existence of digital and physical and RPA plays an important role in achieving this goal.

Succeeding with RPA
Here are a few important aspects to consider when choosing to implement RPA:

1. Process workflow: Understand workflow of different processes and identify bottlenecks where human intervention must be retained
2. Choose the right processes: For RPA to be successful, select simple processes which are high volume, low complexity. Focus on manual tasks and where most time is being spent. Implement a pilot program on these tasks to show immediate results.
3. Define scope of work: Clearly define which part of the process will be executed by your employees and which part of the process will be automated.
4. Upkeep of RPA tools: Once implemented, ensure regular upgrades to RPA processes so that they are up-to-date and deliver expected results. Incorporate maintenance costs in your initial project cost projections.
5. RPA product choice: Selecting the right RPA product which fits in with your organizational landscape is important and as wrong product choices could lead to failed RPA projects.
6. Employee buy-in: Workforce must understand how success of an RPA will be beneficial to them. Upskill employees on newer tools and technologies to leverage their experience.

ROI on RPA
According to IDC(IDC FutureScape Webcast: Worldwide Artificial Intelligence 2020 Predictions), by 2022 75% of companies would use intelligent automation for transforming their processes. Most solutions available in the industry today have a pre-built set of bots that can be quickly implemented within a few weeks, and enable companies achieve ROI in a year or less. By 2024, Gartner predicts (Gartner Predicts 2020: RPA Renaissance Driven by Morphing Offerings and Zeal for Operational Excellence) that companies can achieve operational efficiencies and reduce costs by 30% by combining automation and re-designed processes.