RPA Readiness: 6 Key Questions to Ask Before You Begin

As success can be very context-specific, performing a cost-benefit analysis that considers all aspects of your business operations is a must for organizations before formulating an RPA strategy. To ensure that you are getting the best possible return on investment, focus on the following:

• Background research – There are many case studies on successful RPA implementations. Study them to understand what exact factors facilitated success.
• Define success – Defining business success includes considering your unique business goals. What is your organization’s definition of a successful RPA strategy, incorporating both tangible and intangible factors
• Alignment of RPA strategy with business goals – Identify what you want to achieve in the immediate aftermath, in the medium term, and for the long term after introducing RPA.
• Sustainability – Is your RPA strategy financially sustainable in the long term? Understand what’s possible with your organization’s budget.

Implementing any new technology requires stakeholder buy-in at different levels across the enterprise – from the executive suite and the employees to external stakeholders such as customers and partners. It is not uncommon for conflicting views to emerge. On one hand, in-house tech teams may be wary of new technologies such as RPA as they may worry about rolling out new solutions while also managing existing, under-utilized technologies. On the other hand, employees may view RPA as a threat to their jobs. It is, therefore, necessary to actively engage stakeholders across the organization and address legitimate concerns related to visibility, access, controls, support, and management of the RPA environment and software bots. The organization must also clearly communicate the benefits of RPA to get by-in, and bridge knowledge gaps by training employees in the skills needed to fulfill their new, bot-powered roles.

RPA cannot compensate for outdated IT infrastructures so the business should work in close collaboration with the internal IT team and RPA consultants to build an RPA roadmap to ensure integration problems with existing systems do not arise.

• A data security strategy – Bots are used to collect, store, and transfer data. It is extremely important that your team members in charge of data related functions are adequately trained. Do you have the in-house expertise to deal with data security or will you have to look outside for training?
• The right infrastructure – Legacy infrastructure may not be the best base for RPA. Can you integrate RPA tools securely with your existing infrastructure? Or do you have to re-architect your existing infrastructure?
• Data governance – A key area that enterprises cannot afford to overlook during an RPA implementation. A centralized control and a robust governance framework that clearly outlines the structures, accountability mechanisms, rules-of-engagement, roles & responsibilities, data access, security and processes to manage and control RPA activities is essential to realize the full benefits from technology.

A ‘business-led’ only implementation approach of RPA that does not integrate seamlessly with the wider IT infrastructure could put the implementation at risk. Inclusion of the organization’s DevOps team can help the business consider both technical and practical objectives when formulating the RPA strategy to ensure that enterprise is well-equipped to harness the full potential of RPA through scripts, bots and APIs.

RPA success does not merely depend on the technology alone – but it is also about the capabilities of the technology partner you select. Your technology partner must work with you throughout the entirety of your RPA adoption, implementation and optimization process.This includes providing the technology, relevant consultancy, implementation, and follow-up support along with setting up a test project.

Fortude works with organizations to build intelligent RPA solutions. At Fortude, our approach to automation does not stop at automating repetitive daily tasks. Our consultants will work with your leadership and technology teams across a range of functions:

• Automation consulting – Assess existing processes, perform a gap analysis, build automation frameworks for web, mobile, and API, and train your team. We will provide the strategic roadmap.
• Automation implementation – Identify the tasks to automate, build and deploy the bots, and develop and test the solutions.
• Automation managed service – Offer continuous improvements and track the progress of projects, help you validate the results, and scale the solution as required.
• Test automation – Testing options span functional, performance, security, and mobility. Our experts will devise a test strategy after understanding your business scope to ensure functional compliance and product stability.
  Fortude recently implemented a UiPath-based RPA solution for a leading Australian food and beverage manufacturer, which helped:

Reduce the inventory reconciliation processing time from 3-4 hours to 10-20 minutes, freeing up the manufacturer’s resources to focus on the more strategic initiatives. This is a 90% reduction in the cycle time after the implementation of the RPA solution. Improve accuracy rates in the payment order creation process by 99% through automation. Each purchase order creation now saves 10 minutes, boosting efficiency within the team.

Completely automate the tedious, manual process of collecting new customer records by the integration of two ERP systems using connectors and APIs.